About "those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy..."

That's a phrase bestowed on our political discourse by this Alabama Congressman, Mo Brooks, who's looking to "allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy."

That hits the news the same day as Jimmy Kimmel's story of the emergency heart surgery needed by his newborn son, a story that segued into a plea to preserve the existing protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

I suppose Brooks thought the un-good people he was talking about were smokers, drug and alcohol users, the obese, and people who engage in the wrong sports (or sports the wrong way), but what's our motivation to give this guy a sympathetic reading? Not all pre-existing conditions are the consequence of something bad a person has done. For example, Brooks may be laboring under the disability of a low-powered brain. And yet he's to blame for running for office, taking a seat that could be occupied by somebody better able to carry out its responsibilities.

There's also the notion that Mo Brooks is beset by the worse-than-medieval belief that a sick person really is someone who hasn't led a good life — that the illness is divine punishment that is deserved. That's the kind of ugly comfort that I could understand people cooking up in places where there is no medical care, but it's not an idea that could improve my opinion of Mo Brooks.