Ask yourself this. You’re poor. You have a heart attack. Do you want to be in Havana or New York? Which phone system summons the EMTs faster? Which emergency response team is better equipped? Which hospital is better staffed with highly-paid doctors who have come from all over the world to work here?
Somehow I suspect that a heart attack in Havana at 3 AM means bundling Uncle Raul into your block captain’s ‘57 Belair and hoping it doesn’t break down before you get to the hospital.
Well, of course, you can always beat the stuffing out of a straw man. But the “universal health care” most people are interested in is the kind where your kids get taken care of without a lot of hoop jumping and red-tape untangling, where you’re not as likely to have a heart attack because you’ve had good preventive care. People want to be able to change jobs and keep their health insurance, maintain continuity of care with their doctors, perhaps continue treatments that would be disallowed as a “pre-existing condition” under a new insurer’s rules.
That’s what universal health care means to me, and I wish we had it. I’m not going to bash doctor’s salaries or any of that tired old cant (the only way I could get into medical school would be if I was carrying a mop), but the insurance quagmire is another matter. Our overpaid and underworked congressfolk are exempt from it: why can’t we be?
Maybe the Lileks household needs a good long nap: today’s Bleat was little more cranky than insightful.