Before he could realize the value of affordable health care, one Republican campaign staffer had to experience what it\u2019s like to be without it.<\/p>\n
Clint Murphy, now a real estate agent from Savannah, Georgia, who\u2019s been involved with Republican campaigns since the 1990s, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2000 when he was 25 years old. Four years and four rounds of chemo treatment later \u2014 all of which was covered by insurance \u2014 Murphy was in remission. Insurance wasn\u2019t a problem in his subsequent political jobs \u2014 he worked on John McCain\u2019s election campaign in 2008 and Karen Handel\u2019s Georgia gubernatorial run in 2010 \u2014 but when he quit politics in 2010 and entered real estate, he realized just how difficult obtaining insurance with a pre-existing condition could be.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Murphy said he thought after 10 years since his cancer diagnosis, the insurance companies might cut him some slack \u2014 instead, they found something else to charge him for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have sleep apnea. They treated sleep apnea as a pre-existing condition. I\u2019m going right now with no insurance,\u201d he told the AJC.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Murphy had this to say to his Republican friends who oppose Obamacare on Facebook last week: \u201cWhen you say you\u2019re against it, you\u2019re saying that you don\u2019t want people like me to have health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n