Michele Bachmann's on about abortion field trips. I probably don't have to tell you this nefarious plot to impregnate teens and then abort their babies is only in her fevered imagination, but in case any wingnuts stumbled in here by mistake: she's making shit up, folks.
As far as actual health care's concerned, the ER is the Cons' answer to every health care woe - even major depression. I'm sure ER physicians are overjoyed at the abundance of chronic diseases being foisted on them by dumbfuck ideologues.
Sen. Corker told a former Canadian Public Health Minister that Canada's just a big ol' parasite, letting America do all the innovating while they do all the benefiting. Reality check, please:
A dumbshit and a douchebag. Yup, he's a Con.Canada brought the world insulin, developed bone marrow transplantation, and conducts more lung transplant surgeries than the United States. Meanwhile, of the twenty most profitable pharmaceutical manufacturers, only nine are from the United States — the rest are from western Europe, Japan, and Israel, all of which have universal health care systems that Corker so is opposed to.
And speaking of dumbshits and douchebags, the Cons in the Senate have decided to take a strong stand on health care - for the insurance companies:
Last week, during the Senate Finance Committee's debate on health care reform, a frustrated Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) noted that the private insurance industry is "running certain people" in the Senate.
As the process drags on, Rockefeller's Republican colleagues seem to be going out of their way to prove him right.
It's getting late in the Senate Finance Committee's writing of a health-care bill, but not too late for Republicans on Wednesday to make one more valiant stand for the health insurance industry.
Late in the afternoon, Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the committee, requested consideration of the "Grassley F-1 Modified Amendment." Its goal: eliminate $7 billion a year in fees that the government would charge private health insurance companies, and make up the shortfall by reducing benefits to poor people and legal immigrants.
Someone needs to refresh them on how the whole Robin Hood thing actually works, and why the Sheriff of Nottingham wasn't the hero.
Meanwhile, Eric Cantor's whining that the White House never calls Cons anymore. Sen. Harkin advises him not to wait up, seeing as how there won't be any Cons involved in merging the Finance Committee and HELP Committee bills. Nope, not a single one.
Looks like Mitch McConnell saying Cons wouldn't support health care reform no matter what Dems do was the final straw that broke the bipartisan back, there.
So really, all that's left is ensuring that the merged bill doesn't suck, and that's all in Dem laps. Cue progressive pressure on Harry Reid for an honest-to-goodness public option.
I'll nearly die of shock if it happens, but there's a chance we're actually going to get some decent health care reform. Keep pressuring recalcitrant Dems, and we'll see if they take Rep. Grayson's advice and grow a pair.
2 comments:
ER is about the single dumbest way of giving basic health care. Which means of course, it must be Con policy.
(i) it's about the most expensive way you can give health care, because it's designed for ... guess what ... emergencies.
(ii) It's agonizingly slow for people whose serious health problems are nevertheless not emergencies, because emergencies always get priority.
[Even here in Australia, I've seen a few people sit in agony for many hours in emergency because their agonizing condition was nevertheless not going to kill them right away and other cases take priority... but at least if it had been during normal working hours, they could have just gone to a doctor.
(iii) It's for emergencies! Having lots of non-emergencies around makes it harder for dealing with the emergencies. It make emergency inefficient. If your life is on the line, you need emergency to be for emergencies.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I'll tell you what it is.
It's the 2009 American version of "qu'ils mangent de la brioche"
(generally poorly translated as "let them eat cake")
- the famous words never said by Marie Antoinette; Rosseau reported the words when Antoinette was only a child of ten.
(Rousseau said the words were spoken by "a great princess" - they may have been said by Marie-Thérèse, wife of Louis XIV, a hundred years before Marie Antoinette's time)
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