Two columns on the health insurance crisis

[thatcrazycajun]

Printed side-by-side in my local paper today: First, this op-ed from a conservative think-tanker who argues that patients, even ones bleeding or otherwise sick unto death, should have to choose between medical treatment and, oh, say, paying their rent and utility bills.

Then this one from Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) offering the most cogent rebuttal of that appalling load of bullshit I've yet seen.

Let me make my position on this as crystal-clear as I possibly can: No one in need of medical treatment, particularly in a genuine, immediate, urgent need (e.g., bleeding to death from an accident or vomiting blood and guts up), should EVER be expected to stop in mid-crisis and worry about which hospital, clinic or doctor is cheapest, rather than which is closest and best able to care for them—period. Paragraph. Yet this is exactly what assholes like Goodman and his ilk seem to think is necessary to drive costs down.

We could afford to provide every man. woman and child with decent health-care coverage today in this country, were it not for the misplaced priorities of our leaders and the rigid, self-interested ideologies of their cheering sections on the right. I don't think any more proof is needed that at least some conservatives are quite literally willing to see other people die rather than allow policy that will (or even might) cost the conservatives more in taxes.

Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a crutch in a rainstorm. And people wonder why I despise conservatives' views so much. (I do try really hard, honest I do, not to hate the conservatives themselves; some of them are actually otherwise quite decent people and include members of my own family. But their ideas and views are an entirely different matter...and when they spew just plain fucking evil bilge like this, they make it awful damned difficult—and my blood boil.)

Comments

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

So, to me the bottom line is:
Scrap the current health care "system" and its providers, which no amount of modification can fix (which is exactly why I think any of the solutions offered by any of the Democratic candidates are crap, because they ALL rely on the H.M.O.s to administer them) and go to a state run single-payer system.
Works everywhere else in the civilized world.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'm really beginning to buy the argument that conservatives' brains literally function differently from liberals. The most obnoxious part of this is how many of them, because of their reverence of a dozen or so cells, will call themselves "pro-life".