[xoxoxoBruce]

Neatorama had this story about Chrissy Steltz.

Ten years ago, Chrissy Steltz lost her eyes, nose, and part of her face when another teenager fired a shotgun from five feet away. She has been denied prosthetic surgery because the Oregon Health Plan considered the procedure “cosmetic”, but thanks to her doctor and some charitable friends, she’ll soon have a new face.

I followed the link to KATU and read...

Her injuries haven’t stopped her from living: she’s been teaching blind children life skills.
“Life is what you make it,” she said.
And now she and her partner, Jeffrey, who’s also blind, are raising their 2-month-old baby boy, which leaves no time for self-pity.
“Just because you have a tragic thing happen in your life, it doesn’t mean that your life is over,” she said.

Wow, good attitude. Then I started reading the comments there.

I hope all goes well for her. It sounds like she didn't let this get her down, but instead made a life for herself. It's nice that her Dr. and others are donating their services so she can have the surgeries done.

Yeah, that's my feeling.... next comment...

She was part of the group that stole the guns. She was the criminal. She was partying. the doctores are using her as a human guinea pig. .. This is wrong. Her fault and her problem.

Whoa Nellie!!

Lars Larson told the whole story on his KXL AM750 radio show yesterday. He even hosted the victim of the burglary, the owner of Foxx Guns who stated the burglary almost put him out of business.
These were not "harmless teenage pranksters", these were hardcore criminals on their way to a life of crime. Now, she's stealing from the State of Oregon for medical care. Seems to me, since she indirectly caused this to happen, she should pay for all of it, not we the taxpayers.
Before you go off on me saying how cruel that sounds, think. Think about the children, the innocent children who will not receive lifesaving or corrective surgery since this woman is receiving the funds they could have used. Think.
There is a finite amount of money in the state coffers for medical care. Who deserves it more, a former criminal or an innocent child?

WTF!!
So of course I had to Google Chrissy Steltz.
Results 1 - 10 of about 565,000 for Chrissy Steltz. (0.10 seconds)

Here

It was March 21, 1999, a Sunday evening. About a dozen teenagers had gathered to party in the Southeast Portland apartment where Steltz lived with her boyfriend. She was an A-minus student at Franklin High School. Her mother let her move in with the boyfriend as long as she kept her grades up.
One of the teenagers found the shotgun under a couch in the laundry room. He was fooling around when it went off.
"Everybody was drinking," Steltz says.
Police investigators called the shooting accidental. The 18-year-old who fired the gun was sentenced to 27 months in prison for second-degree assault. Steltz's boyfriend, also 18, was given probation for theft of 15 guns, including the one that nearly killed her.

And here.

Chrissy has had ten years to reflect. The shotgun that took her sight, along with fourteen other weapons, were stolen from a gun store in the coastal town of Beaver. Chrissy's then-boyfriend and several associates broke in while Chrissy waited in the car. Eleven days later, she was accidentally shot.

This is what they are planning for her.


Damn, so many people did the wrong thing, Chrissy, her mother, her boyfriend, his "associates", Oregon Health Plan.
And the good people of Oregon seem to have some strong opinions on the matter.
What do you think?