I love their number 3 on their policy statement:  In a free society, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.

And that, I suppose absolves Doctors and hospitals from treating the uninsured sick or injured? Must we then carry a card that says we refuse insurance so that if we are injured or sick and unable to speak people can simply see the card and walk away?

Are the asshole members of the Cato institute willing to put their lives where their bullshit ideals lie and refuse health insurance themselves? Or would they expect hospitals to provide the care at the hospitals (and by extension society) own expense? Something tells me that they themselves are all right comfortable with their own policies. The incoherency of the rightwing nut crowd is astounding. Let the poor die (since they choose to be poor) but you damn well better treat us- and hey, since we have money and insurance we deserve to be treated, but we never want a penny of our money to treat the uninsured, who are uninsured by choice- a choice we will fight for their right to have. Is that clear now?

A couple years ago I had an abscessed tooth. For those who have not experienced same, let's not beat around the bush: it hurts like a motherfucker. Fortunately, my corporate employer has an excellent dental plan; I got in to see my dentist within a couple hours--problem solved...Now imagine you have MediCal, the California "coverage" for low-income people who can't afford private insurance. A friend of mine, on permanent disability, is covered through MediCal. Problem is, the MediCal dental coverage in California is a joke. You don't just call up a dentist, say "My tooth is killing me," and get an appointment--unless you want to wait several weeks. That's if you can find a dentist who takes MediCal. What you do is this: you go to the nearest hospital emergency room, wait a few or several hours, get enough painkillers to see you through the night and maybe the next day, then find someone (in this case, me, whom she called at midnight, weeping with pain and begging for help) who will put your emergency visit to a dentist on his VISA card...Americans don't like the idea that we are all, somehow, the same. We don't like the idea that, say, everyone should have the same level of medical or dental coverage. We all want to drive luxury cars. A priori, those of us who work in offices are somehow...more deserving...than those of us who work in cubicles.  We all live in Lake Wobegone, where all our children are above average...Here is what will happen, at least in the early years, with so-called "universal coverage": some politician or politicians will cobble together something that will get through their state's legislature, or perhaps through Congress, and then their governor or President will sign it. It will have credits or vouchers or caps or subsidies or blahblahblah.  Everyone will pat each other on the back and go out for a drink. Americans will pound our chests and tell the rest of the world, "See, we can take care of our own, too!"... Meanwhile, pity the poor bastard, out of work, rent due, who wakes up one morning with a tooth that hurts like a motherfucker.  Because the difference between "universal coverage" and "decent universal coverage" requires a societal attitude adjustment that, IMHO, the United States is a long way from experiencing.

Tis true, Billy boy, only too true.  And we like it that way, or so it seems.  Social solidarity is not now, and rarely has been, on our national agenda.  Maybe the years 1933-45, but that's about it for the last century.

That's why class warfare talk goes nowhere in the US.  We don't want to expropriate the rich, we want to BE the rich, and woe be unto the one who takes that possibility (however unlikely) away from us.  But I suspect you know all this.

BTW, Blackie, I hold no brief for Cato.  They're as loony as Ron Paul, with less human feeling.

QUOTE OF THE DAY....From Josh Patashnik, after linking to Michael Cannon's livid blast against Arnold Schwarzenegger's universal healthcare plan for California:The conservative health care strategy works like this: endorse subsidies in theory, since it

This is a common Republican strategy.  Remember how, years ago when AFDC still existed, Republicans talked about how much they respected and supported poor people who *worked* for their living, instead of being lazy layabouts driving Cadillacs to the soup kitchen?

Once we got rid of AFDC, they sh*t on poor working folk.  Same MO.

Wm Yard, also note that even Medical (California's Medicaid) is not available to any adult who is not either blind, disabled, or the custodial parent of a minor child.

Otherwise, depending on where you live you may be able to get coverage through a county or other local program, but there is no entitlement for such, and these stop-gap programs are continually under fiscal stress.  (& Who knows what will happen now that revenues are taking a nosedive because of the housing crunch.)