Bush's Take on Health Care

This
qualifies for "quote of the decade" status.  Unfortunately it
is in Times Select, but href="http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/07/waiting-for-health-care.html">clever
persons can href="http://www.technorati.com/posts/tag/Paul+Krugman">figure
out how to find the whole text (some, but not all of the
time).



Actually, the hat tip goes to href="http://ronbeas2.blogspot.com/2007/07/if-you-say-it-enough.html">Ron,
who found it before I did (which he does most, but not all, of the
time).



Bush said this, as reported by href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman" rel="tag">Paul
Krugman in his opinion piece entitled The Waiting
Game:

face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">“I mean,
people have access to health care in America,” he said last
week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

I mean, really, does nobody brief this guy?
 Has he not read anything at all about
what is shaping up to be one of the most important political issues of
our time?  Is his understanding of the issue so
incredibly poor that he can say that with a straight face?
 [No, I am sure that he smirks some (but not all) of the time
when he says things like this.]



Krugman provides the gory details of how bad our system is.
 This is a situation in which there are no winners at all.
 The emergency care system is not good for doctors, not good
for patients, not good for hospitals, not good for insurance companies,
not good for disaster preparedness, not good for national security, and
it is not good for the nation.  And a large reason for all of
that, is that people do exactly what Bush implies they ought to do.
 Not that they want to.  Going to
the Emergency Department is not fun.  No one does it for kicks
(well, a few, but not most).



I could bore you all with the story of my kidney stone, which
illustrates this point, but I suspect most, (but not all) people
reading this have their own stories to tell.



Bush says things that are smart (sometimes, but not usually).