There are many angles about the story I am about to convey.

One might say it is a story about a guy out on his luck.  Another might say it is a story about the crappy healthcare system we have.  Or maybe it is about how Republicans talk about personal responsibility but then complain when they don’t get government handouts when they want it.  For me though, this is a story about a guy so entrenched in his Obama hatred that he screwed himself over (and yet he still blames Obama).  Anyway, you be the judge. From the Charlotte Observer:

Lang, a 49-year-old resident of Fort Mill, S.C., has bleeding in his eyes and a partially detached retina caused by diabetes.

“He will lose his eyesight if he doesn’t get care. He will go blind,” said Dr. Malcolm Edwards, the Lancaster, S.C., ophthalmologist who examined Lang.

Lang is a self-employed handyman who works with banks and the federal government on maintaining foreclosed properties. He has done well enough that his wife, Mary, hasn’t had to work. They live in a 3,300-square-foot home in the Legacy Park subdivision valued at more than $300,000.

But he has never bought insurance. Instead, he says, he prided himself on paying his own medical bills.

That worked while he and his wife were relatively healthy. But after 10 days of an unrelenting headache, Lang went to the emergency room on Feb. 25. He says he was told he’d suffered several mini-strokes. He ran up $9,000 in bills and exhausted his savings. Meanwhile, his vision worsened and he can’t work, he says.

That’s when he turned to the Affordable Care Act exchange. Lang learned two things: First, 2015 enrollment had closed earlier that month. And second, because his income has dried up, he earns too little to get a federal subsidy to buy a private policy.

Lang, a Republican, says he knew the act required him to get coverage but he chose not to do so. But he thought help would be available in an emergency. He and his wife blame President Obama and Congressional Democrats for passing a complex and flawed bill.

Since Lang now has no income, he should be eligible for the ACA’s expanded Medicaid coverage, for which the federal government picks up tab. But Lang lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina. And South Carolina refused to accept Medicaid expansion. So he’s out of luck on that front too.

He now has a gofundme page to help raise some money for his medical expenses.

Okay.

That’s the story.  Now, he and his wife have decided to lay blame at ACA’s feet, so let’s play the blame game:

Let’s go through this point by point:

(1) Lang broke the law by refusing to get health insurance coverage because he prided himself on being able to pay his bills out of pocket.  ACA’s fault?  Verdict: No.

(2) He lost the health lottery and got sick.  That’s when he realized he actually had too little savings to cover even relatively small health care bills.  ACA’s fault?  Verdict: No

(3) By now open enrollment has closed. But he figured he’d be able to buy in if he got in a jam or wait till he got sick to buy coverage. Luckily the ACA’s Medicaid expansion covers him regardless. But the state of South Carolina refused to accept Medicaid expansion even though the federal government would pay for it. ACA’s fault?  Verdict: No (The US Supreme Court ruled that it could not be made compulsory on states to accept the Medicaid expansion, i.e., states had to opt in.  Most states did choose to opt in but the Republican legislature and governor of South Carolina said “no”.).

When all is said and done, Lang is left in precisely the situation that would exist if the ACA (aka Obamacare) had never been passed. So he blames… Obama?  It takes quite a lot of chutzpah to blame the Affordable Care Act for not covering him when he disdains government programs and never carried health insurance in the first place. If he thinks he should be covered now then he’s really asking for single payer, which he would probably call “socialist”.  Lang’s case shows the exceptional power of myths reinforced by Fox News-like partisanship and ideology.