Utterly Meaningless

He’s not entirely wrong. The low “apparent” cost of a doctor appointment does lead to over consumption. I grew up with “socialized” healthcare in the USAF. It costs us no cash to go to the hospital for sick call. However, it was a first come, first served, active duty military get priority system, and you were going to have to see a military doctor. Those two factors tended to keep you home in bed unless you were really sick. The $10 copay plus convenience of a scheduled appointment does lead to people running to the doc demanding antibiotics for every sniffle.

Sure. But not entirely wrong != right. His “prescription” would kill hundreds of thousands of people a year. And cause medical bankruptcies to skyrocket, as folks are not likely to make logical decisions when they’ve just had a heart attack.

Does Sowell really expect folks to make rational economic decisions in the ambulance?

What an elitist asshole.

The 14 year old son of our good friends (and a good friend to our kids) was just diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma. At this point, with treatment he has a 70% chance of survival. Under the lamebrain’s plan, Blake would be certain to die, because there is no way they could afford the chemo, let alone the MRI that diagnosed it, and the ongoing meds (including pain meds) and tests.

Insurance was invented to spread risk to ever larger groups. Huge medical expenses are a crap shoot. If you roll snake-eyes you or your kids need expensive care. But there’s no way to predict a priori who will need it and who won’t. So we all chip in and take care of each other, knowing that we’ll be taken care of if the worst should happen.

Sowell couldn’t care less about Blake or any other (non-rich) kid who happens to get sick. It’s every man, woman, and child for himself in his Randian dystopia.

No no Daryl, you have it all wrong. The poor kids in the conservative utopia all get taken care of compassionate conservatives in the churches. Or maybe they get flown away to a better place on the back of a magical unicorn. I can never remember which one it is.

Riddle: Demonstrate in two words that “compassionate conservatism” is oxymoronic and a lie told by immoral monsters:

Right answers include Thomas Sowell, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Dick or Liz Cheney, etc. The alternate right answer is another question, to wit:
“Can ass and hole be written as two words?”

Sorry, that last was mine, on a not-mine computer . . .

Do we the people read Shakespeare any more as a common western cultural referent, or just bible verse? What say some of us Evolved Homeschooler parents start a little Shakespeare blog round-robin, starting with the Merchant of Venice, relating Sowell to Shylock?

“If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. ”

Goldman report: Insurers set to raise prices, walk away from consumers:

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world’s third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that “price competition” between insurers was “down from a year ago,” Lewis relayed that “incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business.”

. . .Insurers are able to do this in part because the markets in which they operate have no adequate competition . . .

The sociopathic Shylock demanded government enforce his rightful claim to “a pound of flesh” from anyone unable to pay his exorbitant rigged rates. Exactly the villainous role Sowell typecasts himself in . . .