Thog's Science Masterclass #6

[realthog]

Jason Roberson writes in yesterday's Dallas Morning News:  

Texas once again led the nation with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance, a U.S. Census Bureau report showed Tuesday . . . 

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Seems logical. ER won't check your breast for tumours, which means you get cancer. Neither will ER offer you chemotherapy or a lumpectomy when those become necessary, so you die. And this way you're no longer counted as one of the uninsured.

So that nice Mr Goodman's absolutely right! Whoopee! Let's all party!

(By the way, anyone got a bridge to sell? The one I bought on eBay a few weeks ago has never arrived and they won't answer my e-mails . . .)

Comments

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

This man deserves to die of liver cancer.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I have great difficulty about wishing, even in jest, for death to befall another, however vile they might be, or in celebrating others' deaths. (Come to think of it, I guess this is a reasonably good approximation to a first definition of the difference between reasonable people and Repugnicans.)

Even so, I have to confess the itch is strong within me for some meaasure of poetic justice to visit itself upon Goodman. He sounds like an exceptionally nasty piece of work, and his insouciance towards the welfare -- even survival -- of others is clinically sociopathic, I'd have thought.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I do apologize. It's a miserable, uncharitable wish, and I wish I could say I mean it in jest, but I can be a bitter, uncharitable person. fledgist presents a much better option.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize! Now I've got a couple of glasses of Australian merlot inside me, a large part of me would like to see Goodman strung up by the goolies . . .

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

No, no, we simply redefine liver cancer as 'headache'. And then nobody dies of liver cancer.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"No, no, we simply redefine liver cancer as 'headache'. And then nobody dies of liver cancer."

A very, very good point.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I like your idea much better than mine and fully endorse it. I'll be happy to give the fellow a headache. Hell, I'll be happy to have a headache for the rest of my life if no one gets liver cancer and call it justice, since I brought it up.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I'll be happy to give the fellow a headache."

Giving him a headache might be sorta fun . . .

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

It's classic. Can't (or won't) solve the problem? Redefine the terms so the problem goes away.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

The abdication of responsibility is really quite astonishing, isn't it? It's as if it had never dawned upon gobshites like Goodman that society has certain functions it should perform for the good of all, and politicians are the ones who're paid generously out of taxpayer funds to make sure it does so. It's their job.

If they don't want to do their job? Well, we all know how the Repugs' beloved corporations deal with people who can't be bothered doing the job for which they've been hired. They fire 'em!

Well, unless they promote them, of course . . .

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I read this story, and my first response was that the son of a poxied trull needed to have his head stove in. Then I reflected on my father's saying 'if you put a fool in a mortar and poun' him, him come out same fool'. That means that violent means of education wouldn't work. I suspect the only remedy is to remove the idiot's income, infect him with trichinosis, and point him in the direction of an emergency room.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's sort of my feeling. It'd be good if he were bankrupted and then discovered he had some sort of chronic but non-fatal disease which merely involved him being unable to earn his living for a year. Then he might -- just might -- learn a little human compassion.

But then Repugs like Reagan never did, even though they pretended to, and conned the majority of the US public into thinking they did . . .

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Disgusting.

I heard the London Bridge is for sale, again . . . . Isn't it amazing that Americans bought a bridge, from the British, no less.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Figgers.

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

Just like my daughter, who probably has MS, goes to the ER with pain, temporary blindness, temporary deafness, and they don't do anything to DIAGNOSE her. No MRI, nothing. Just send her home, with no insurance and no hope.


+)W#($_)$W(&%+)(W$+)(*$&&$*##(((#((#%%$%#^%#&

[realthog.livejournal.com]

And they'll tell youi this is so much better than that nasty socialized medicine . . .

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Well, we can't have the scions of wealth in a ward with the common people. Christ knows what they'll catch.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I can let you have the Albert Bridge for a very competitive price. But you have to convince me it'd be going to a good home because it has special dietary needs and I can't bear to think of someone mistreating it.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the shipping cost from the UK be prohibitive?

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Not my problem. Buyer does the shipping, right? I'll throw in all the bulbs as well, if that'll make you happy.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

As a former resident of Battersea, I have a sentimental attachment to the Albert Bridge. I would suggest the Vauxhall Bridge as an alternative.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Okay, agreed. The Vauxhall Bridge isn't as pretty as the Albert Bridge and the view from it is fairly ordinary. Nobody'll miss it apart from the workers at MI6 HQ.

[plattcave.livejournal.com]

Whaaaaaaaaa???????? The logic, it makes my brain hurt.......

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"The logic, it makes my brain hurt"

Well I don't think you'll be greeted kindly if you go to ER complaining a hurty-hurty brain . . .