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Thog's Science Masterclass #6
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 . . .)
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"the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing folks he didn't exist"
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was persuading people there was such a reality as the fulfilment of the American Dream.
I can dig the info out if I have to, but I recall that statistics indicate your rags-to-riches hopes are more likely to be realized in every other Western democracy, plus a handful of other countries.
Where this country scores is that the infinitesimally small proportion of people who do succeed in bucking the system may do so to dramatic effect. But that percentage is so very, very tiny, and its population is almost exclusively determined by chance.