Solution by Re-Definition

[velvetpage]

You know that thing about how 45 million Americans have no health insurance? Well, the McCain campaign has come up with a way of making the problem disappear.

I'd like to direct your attention to the following quote:

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."

I don't even know where to begin categorizing the monumental stupidity of that statement. Does this guy really not understand that going to an emergency room for the care offered there - and being billed into bankruptcy for it - is very, very different from getting routine care on a regular basis before the problems get out of hand? Has he never heard the term, "preventative medicine"?

I just don't get it. How can this possibly be anything positive? It's just another way to sidestep a problem and pretend it doesn't exist, when millions of people can attest that, yes, it DOES. I would have more respect for a campaign that said, "You know, this is a problem, but it's something that should be solved on state level." That's passing the buck, true, but it's politically defensible and it at least recognizes that there is a problem. But this? It's assinine and dishonest and uncaring.

Link courtesy of wyldraven.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. It would seem that the summary is, "An awful lot of people would have access to medical care if they asked for it/really needed it/bothered to get it. They shouldn't be considered amongst the ranks of the uninsured in that case." Basically, it's the myth of the welfare abuser, medicaid edition: in theory, all these people should be able to get insurance, so if they don't ACTUALLY have insurance, it's because they're screwing the system/lying/being lazy.

I don't buy it. First off, I don't buy the idea that most people are going to lie, cheat, and steal their health care when they could otherwise afford it if they tried. Secondly, I don't buy the idea that so many COULD find jobs that would offer them insurance. Thirdly, I don't buy that they SHOULD do that - it's limiting people's job choices and putting a stranglehold on small business by denying them people who need the health care too much to take a job without one. Fourthly, I don't buy the passing of blame to the uninsured. Even if it's true in a small percentage of cases, it's unlikely to be true enough to discount the magnitude of the problem.

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

I totally buy that there are people out there who qualify for various kinds on insurance who don't take advantage of it. I was one of them before I married Gord. I had access to insurance through work and didn't buy it. I had better things to spend my money on. ;) OBVIOUSLY this isn't true across the board, and obviously there are people who are either ineligible for what's out there, or uneducated on how to get it.

(and I still don't think he is speaking for the McCain campaign. :D)