George W. Bush says enough dumb things that most of us just shrug, accept each as a quirk of his personal style, and let 'em go. People thought Bill Clinton's "I didn't inhale" line was weasely and character-defining but Bush says something at least as clumsy every day. Yesterday in this speech, he said the following…
The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.
Question: When was the last time George W. Bush — or anyone else he might care about — had to seek treatment for an injury or illness in a hospital emergency room? It can take forever — even if you have health insurance — because those places are full of people who don't have insurance or can't afford doctors. In many cases, perhaps the majority, they've put off treatment they can't afford until it's become too serious to handle. One of the reasons we have a health care crisis in this country is because so many folks use emergency rooms as a substitute for actual, normal medical care.
And the only reason they have even that is that we have a law in this country that says that emergency rooms cannot turn people away. When Bush and his supporters inveigh against the perceived evils of "socialized medicine," they're attacking laws like that one. I really wonder what these people want the poor and ill to do if it isn't to just die quietly.