Senator Clinton gets into the retro-craze -- albeit a bit late -- with a stunningly familiar proposal:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to focus this year on improving health care, beginning with a proposal designed to modernize the sharing of medical information nationwide.Hmmm, where have we seen that before? Oh right, HillaryCare, circa 1993. (No real links available because the web wasn't quite up-to-snuff a decade ago.) So what's the deal?
The senator, who as first lady presided over a failed effort at health care overhaul, told a gathering of about 100 New York City health care leaders at a Manhattan hospital on Monday that the current system "often seems fragmented, redundant, inefficient and bureaucratic."Right, unlike government programs which aren't at all fragmented, redundant, inefficient, or bureaucratic. C'mon, the rebuttal writes itself here, Senator.
"Americans need a new, modern, 21st-century version of health care delivery, based on the premise of information in the hands of the right people at the right time," Clinton said.The right people: government workers. The right time: all the time.
Clinton's legislation would create a nationwide electronic system to enable American health providers to share health records.Or it could funnel billions of dollars into the pockets of her supporters with no discernable gain for taxpayers. There are so many things it could do, I suggest we look at past and present government programs to get an idea of the likely results. Wait, "past" government programs? My mistake, government programs never actually disappear.Some doctors, hospitals and pharmacies already use electronic health records in areas like paperless prescriptions. But electronic medical records aren't widely used, and Clinton says a government-created system with special standards could change that.
Clinton, D-N.Y., fought unsuccessfully a decade ago to expand affordable health care. The initiative died after industry interests and many members of Congress resisted to what they called a confusing bureaucracy.The AP can't resist spinning: "affordable health care"? Affordable to whom? I can afford health care right now, as can the vast majority of Americans who are insured, as can the vast majority of Americans who are uninsured and spend their money on other things. What's really meant is "cheaper health care", which isn't even true, because what that means is health care for poor people subsidized by those of us who pay taxes. It won't get cheaper, the costs will just be pushed onto people other than the recipients of the benefits.
Clinton has said she learned lessons from the failure.Such as? I'd love to hear more about what she's learned.
Anyway, no one wants poor people dying from exposure in the streets. For one thing, it's bad for business, and unless it's really cold outside they start to smell. Seriously though, does anyone really think there are poor kids who don't get essential medical care in America? Nonsense. There are free clinics all over the place, there's Medicare, emergency rooms, and people can always take out loans and pay for care on credit. People put new TVs on their credit cards, why not health care for their kids? The only circumstances where people go without essential care are if their parents are too lazy/stupid/irresponsible to take them to see the doctor, or if they're somehow incapacitated by alcohol, drugs, or functional insanity.
In the first case, those kids should be taken from their parents and put in minimum security orphanariums, and the parents should be sold off as slave labor where they'd at least become somewhat productive members of society. In the second, taking mentally ill people off the streets is one abandoned function of government I'd be in favor of restoring.
