Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Mitt Romney has done it again. Romney's comments about how Obama's "gifts" to minorities and college students were the deciding factor in the election demonstrated clearly how he and a coterie of severely cosseted conservatives managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Here's what the clueless pride of the Park Avenue Plutocracy (PAP) actually said: “You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge.” He added, “Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

Note: no mention made of the multibillion dollar tax subsidies - welfare for the rich - this nation's self-perpetuating plutocracy happily plunder from the treasury every year (think: capital gains and "carried interest"). If you haven't done it, Google the definition of "carried interest" and try to make sense of it as anything other than what it is: cover for a massive giveaway program (talk about a "gift"!)designed exclusively for the benefit of multimillionaires.

On the eve of last week's big election, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a piece an incisive piece on one of the "gifts" guys like Romney routinely trash. Medicaid, to be specific.

Medicaid? Perhaps Krugman saw Hurricane Sandy brutalizing the Big Apple as a metaphor, or maybe as an omen: "If he [Romney] wins, Medicaid — which now covers more than 50 million Americans, and which President Obama would expand further as part of his health reform — will face savage cuts."

Of course, Romney lost, and it's a good thing for anybody who a) does not have the good fortune to be born rich or b) will have the bad fortune to get seriously ill anytime in the future. To put a finer point on it: "Estimates suggest that a Romney victory would deny health insurance to about 45 million people who would have coverage if he lost, with two-thirds of that difference due to the assault on Medicaid."

Krugman's pre-election analysis prompted one concerned citizen to write an anecdotal piece about Medicaid for a local paper in Ridgway, Colorado. Romney's post-election comments created a whole new level of motivation to do something. Here's the story.

The real-life narrative begins some four decades ago. It involves a pretty young woman and a disease that turned out to be fatal. At age 26, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease. She was a registered nurse and worked at a major hospital center in a Midwestern city.

Her husband was just getting started in college teaching at a tuition-dependent liberal arts college and not making very much money. They needed two salaries just to pay the bills and keep up the mortgage on a small bungalow near the school.

When she was diagnosed her little boy was 4 years old and she was determined to live long enough to see him grow up. So off they went to the Mayo Clinic. Radiation and chemotherapy kept her alive for nearly 20 years, but she was never able to work again.

He remembered her mother spending the weekend and a conversation. Something about people on disability qualifying for Medicaid even at her tender age. She was definitely disabled and money was tight (he was considering a career change because they couldn't live on just his salary). So she talked to her doctors who said, "Yup, we have no problem certifying you're disabled" and then she applied. It was approved and that's how they got by.

He eventually decided to seek a higher paying job (in Washington), but it was the help they needed at the time when they needed it. Ever since, when anyone in public or private talks about deadbeats sitting around waiting for government handouts, he always thinks of her.

She was a straight "A" student, chose a noble career path, was dedicated to her patients and her profession. Hodgkin's Disease isn't something anybody would ever volunteer for. Nor is chemotherapy, radiation, or half a dozen major surgeries. She prayed for a miracle.

So remembering all that, the young man in the story (no longer young, but never mind) read Paul Krugman's article with great interest and learned something he didn't know about Medicaid. To wit: "Medicaid has been more successful at controlling costs than any other major part of the nation’s health care system." Then this: "…most Medicaid beneficiaries are indeed relatively young (because older people are covered by Medicare) and relatively poor (because eligibility for Medicaid, unlike Medicare, is determined by need)."

Okay, that tracked with what had happened to the young woman. The nurse. The wife and mother. You know, the one who was getting a "gift" from the government. Not exactly the "free medical care" Mitt Romney was venting his spleen about in his conference call, but she belonged to the wide swath of the middle class who work hard for modest compensation. The difference is that today many people have been laid off (think Bain Capital) or have jobs with meager benefits or none at all.

But, of course, Mitt Romney and his fellow fat cats wouldn't know about that. Or would they? Remember Romney Care (the template for ObamaCare) instituted when he was Governor of Massachusetts? Maybe they know but just don't care and now that he's decided to be a "severe conservative" – that is, to be one of them – he doesn't care either.

Nor apparently does he think it's unfair that capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than "earned income". And if he thinks that people making $25,000 a year don't pay taxes, it's probably because he doesn't consider payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, airport taxes, highway toll fees, and the like to be worth mentioning.

Question: Why would anyone with so much – money, power, and privilege beyond measure – begrudge people with so little access to affordable health care? Seriously. How do so many of these super-rich individuals, the 1% or the Forbes 400 or whatever you want to call them, become so heartless, so mean, and so dishonest? How does that happen?

Krugman again: "…more than nine million Americans benefit from both Medicare and Medicaid, and elderly or disabled beneficiaries account for the majority of Medicaid’s costs." Wow! And believe it or not, "…the great majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are in working families." (Emphasis supplied.)

But there was one sentence he (the "young man") couldn't get past: "For those who get coverage through the program, Medicaid is a much-needed form of financial aid. It is also, quite literally, a lifesaver."

It's true, he thought. The only thing it couldn't do was save her life.

Note: A version of this article was posted at Nation of Change on 11/16/2012.