PAUL KRUGMAN: The Waiting Game

[kevinmc]

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.

The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.....

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/07/paul-krugman-...

[emilyg]

1. Hell - I think

i'll just drop my very expensive insurance. I trust Bush

[glowing]

2. I went to the walk-in today... Thank God I live in a city... With insurance

it cost me $15.00.... If I had been in a smaller community, I would be forced to use the Emergency room and that would have cost me $150.00.... Even with insurance, its not cheap.

[ninkasi]

3. Just keep repeating the neocon mantra...

"Every human life is precious, and must be protected." Of course, once the person has passed through the birth canal, all bets are off. Fucking sociopaths.

[bananarepublican]

7. In their eyes permantly injured troops should be 'aborted'. Their evil is all pervasive. n/t

[MiserableFailure]

4. God I love Krugman

I look forward to reading his column every time my newspaper prints it. They're just fantastic

[Nimrod2005]

5. Agreed, I love his stuff...

I email him often to say thank you!!!

[hedgehog]

6. My mother, who has very good insurance, just went through the merry-go-round trying

to get a diagnosis and treatment of a minor bladder infection. She has several underlying conditions, so she get referred to a urologist. It took a couple of days to make contact with the one the insurer approved of. This is a minor infection, but the delay was very painful and embarrassing, and it could have killed her. It wouldn't have taken much for that infection to travel to the kidneys or into the bloodstream, and then she would have been seriously ill. All for something that should have been a 10 minute visit with a doctor.