Words Have Meaning

Did you get all of that?

Spending as much as our free enterprise system has on healthcare would make it "unaffordable as a human right". Somehow spending half as much doesn't seem to return as much healthcare in my estimation. And, by whose definition is healthcare a human right? I don't recall Jefferson commenting on life, liberty and the right to consult a proctologist as inalienable. It is an emotional appeal to an idealistic fantasy.

He wouldn't want a system "in fragments"...which means independent sources of healthcare choices for the consumer. He doesn't like the concept of "supply driven demand" regardless of what Adam Smith taught us. He seems to advocate for central planning which you should recognize is synonymous with the failed economic policies of the now defunct Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China under Mao's Great Leaps and the 1950's patchwork Desotos of Castro's Cuba.

He decries "hospitals and specialists" and the focussed, intense care which they provide as somehow being inferior to general practicioners. He doesn't see accountability in the "invisible hand of the market." He embraces "holding your politicians accountable" for managing healthcare. I assume he loves the performance of Amtrak, the US Postal Service, Fannie and Freddie, and Gulf oil spill response.

We don't want to operate in the "darkness of private enterprise" rather than the sweet illumination of the fluorescents of Rod Blagojovich's office. That would be superior.

He admits that public healthcare operates in the "harsh unfairness" of "public debate and political campaigning." Excuse me, Doc, but I don't want Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank debating my healthcare options in Berkley and Harvard Yard. Are we going to have a referendum on whether I can get a coronary bypass?

He doesn't like the idea of insurance companies, even with common sense underwriting and occasionally oppressive government oversight, preferring instead a monolithic bureaucracy staffed with affirmative action hires and managed by political appointees.

He doesn't like a system that protects "the wealthy and the well" somehow equating evil with success in life and attributing malevolence to possessors of reasonable health.

Do the poor get sick more than those of higher economic class? In some cases, I'm sure they do, yet I don't think cancer has ever asked for a credit score before striking someone down. A healthcare system must provide healthcare, but to equate that with a mandate for redistribution of wealth from haves to have nots is only slightly short of embracing full-blown Marxism.

These are not soundbites taken out of context. Those are full sentences that he delivers from a prepared text. It is what he feels and believes. It tells us what is in the future for Medicare and Medicaid. It is no wonder that this guy is a recess appointment, even with a significant Democratic majority in the Senate.