McCain's healthcare plan a prescription for disaster and death

by: Carnacki

Thu Aug 28, 2008 at 09:22:48 AM EDT

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."

That's the biggest reason why hospital ERs are swamped already. That's a huge factor why health care costs for everyone are going up, because ER visits are hugely expensive. ERs are for emergency care. They aren't physician offices. John McCain's health plan is ridiculous. The fact he wants to pretend the problem caused by 40 million uninsured people doesn't exist is a sign he's completely out of touch with the problmes. You can't solve the problem if you just want to pretend that by saying "Voila! Problem solved."

John McMansion McCane doesn't live in the real world.

What's McCain's solution for the mortgage crisis? Everyone should gigolo themselves out to beer heiresses so they too can have so many houses they don't even know how many they own? Voila! Problem solved!

Sorry, McCain. The rest of us live in reality.

Update:

I wanted to include some of the comments about this from the other site:

As someone...

...who spent 2 hours waiting in an ER waiting room with an almost-burst appendix, let me just say:

[facepalm]

Just in case you need chemotherapy treatment or kidney dialysis, or a mammogram or a prostate exam, the ER will be waiting breathlessly for you to arrive.  No need to call ahead for an appointment.

Well, doesn't your local ER happily provide well-child checkups, immunizations, prenatal care, Pap smears and mammograms, chemo and radiation therapy for cancer, physical therapy, dialysis, and all that stuff?

/ snark

We should all start showing up in the ER for regular medical care and take copies of this jerk's statement and Bushes that said the same thing.  Make sure that everyone in the waiting room and all the hospital personnel you come in contact with know you are there because that is where the Republicans think you should go.

Here's also a doctor's response:

1. Studies estimate that there are about 22,000 deaths per year due to lack of insurance.  But forget studies and just think for a moment. It matters if you got the mammogram last year, or get "treated" in the ER for untreatable metastatic breast cancer today.  It matters if you if get your lipids checked and started on statins five years ago because you have coverage, or get "treated" in the ER for your fatal heart attack today.  Apparently that is too hard to understand for some alleged health policy experts.  Let me be a little bit more clear. This attitude by John McCain's health policy advisor and by right wing Republican idealogues is not just delusional, it is homicidal. They are justifying the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. That is the equivalent of seven 9/11's per year, year in and year out.

2. Hospitals are getting killed financially in part because of the dumping of care into emergency rooms. They are closing ERs all over the country because of this. Meanwhile wait times in the ER are up even for the critically ill. Everyone who knows anything about health care in the country knows this. Except John McCain's health policy advisor.

3. And let's not forget that half of personal bankruptcies are linked to health care costs (admittedly the studies on this predate the mortgage crisis; though of course right-wing free-market fundamentalist privatization and deregulation led to that disaster too). Of course that includes lots of people "with" health insurance from the same private for-profit health insurance companies that John McCain wants to really turn loose.

If you thought George W. Bush was bad, John McCain will be even worse.