How Significant Is Significant?
Posted by Chris Martin at 11/28/2009 7:09 PM 
Categories: Health policy
Tags: The best of all possible worlds
Categories: Health policy
Tags: The best of all possible worlds
Reader James McPhail has changed over the past month from an advocate of free market medicine to a staunch defender of our current system. Which system, per Mr. McPhail, is not so bad because it is not killing that many kids.
Besides, look at all the Canadians who die because of delays caused by the dread socialized medicine.
It is really wonderful to be able to produce iron clad facts that require no citations, no studies and no reliable reports to back them up. I guess that none of these truths make it through the censorship of liberal media. And I hear from others that Cuba is a workers paradise.
Besides, look at all the uninsured who are rolling in dough, families with incomes as high as $55,000 per year. Why, if they were prudent enough to have good health and healthy children then the $12,000 or so a family policy costs is a mere drop in their budget, as it were.
If family members have pre-existing conditions they can always be laid off and replaced by deserving Chinese and Central American orphans.
And look at all the people who are eligible for the Federally subsidized children's health program and are not taking advantage of it. We also hear about this one from reliable sources, like Republican politicians.
Memo to James. Wonks Anonymous employer provides millions in charity care to the uninsured and the insured. Believe me that we make sure of two things: They really cannot pay for care with their own resources and there really is no federal or state program that they can use to get care.
But really Wonks Anonymous thinks that James is comfortable with the status quo for three reasons:
Besides, look at all the Canadians who die because of delays caused by the dread socialized medicine.
It is really wonderful to be able to produce iron clad facts that require no citations, no studies and no reliable reports to back them up. I guess that none of these truths make it through the censorship of liberal media. And I hear from others that Cuba is a workers paradise.
Besides, look at all the uninsured who are rolling in dough, families with incomes as high as $55,000 per year. Why, if they were prudent enough to have good health and healthy children then the $12,000 or so a family policy costs is a mere drop in their budget, as it were.
If family members have pre-existing conditions they can always be laid off and replaced by deserving Chinese and Central American orphans.
And look at all the people who are eligible for the Federally subsidized children's health program and are not taking advantage of it. We also hear about this one from reliable sources, like Republican politicians.
Memo to James. Wonks Anonymous employer provides millions in charity care to the uninsured and the insured. Believe me that we make sure of two things: They really cannot pay for care with their own resources and there really is no federal or state program that they can use to get care.
But really Wonks Anonymous thinks that James is comfortable with the status quo for three reasons:
- He doesn't see any dying kids near his fine home or his nice offices. This enables him to feel that he is not living in a squalid third world nation like Mexico or Honduras.
- He is able to use his powers of reason and the reassurances of an army of paid propagandists to convince himself that he really has no responsibilities for the kids who might be dying according to liberal intellectuals. If their parents just exerted themselves they would be insured and taken care of and any help offered will just dampen their parents initiative.
- Someone else - that would be doctors and hospitals - is paying for this big hairy mess. James' sacred income, earned no doubt in some highly productive occupation like defending the incomes of our glorious corporate leaders, is safe from additional taxes.
Memo to Wonks Anonymous: Perhaps it is easier to bloviate and make assumptions about others' motives and backgrounds than it is to see the flaw of one's arguments. If WA needs a recitation of facts to see why people die awaiting treatment, I might suggest: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html.
Of course, I'm sure WA will assure us all those people waiting are for non-emergency illnesses and don't have anything which might require treatment in a shorter window. Because, as all proponents of socialized medicine must believe, a brain bleed can wait several weeks while waiting for an appointment.
I also suppose WA believes the hype that healthcare can be expanded to an additional 30 million and actually lower costs at the same time.
Sorry, people wait. They waited for some time back in 2007. Maybe they waited even more in 1970.
In fact it is pure speculation on your part that these are emergency cases. No mention is made of brain bleeds in the report nor is their any mention of cases where people died or had adverse outcomes due to the wait. One would imagine that the news media and the Canadian opposition would probably have reported this.
This is probably because of the well known liberal bias of the Canadian media. Readers are invited to click the link and judge for themselves.
-WA
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