Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fear Mongering Fail of the Day

From an editorial in Investor's Business Daily:

The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script.

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on. The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Right, the British death panels would have selected Hawking for early termination decades ago. Obama probably would have already imported some death panels if it weren't for the endless vigilance of Palin and Limbaugh, two prominent deathers. Hold up though, here comes Hawking:

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

To summarize: Stephan Hawking is British, death panels aren't out to kill Trig Palin, the health insurance industry won't deactivate the noise machine until its right to haul in absurd profits while denying claims and bankrupting people is secured. The editorial now displays this correction at the top of the page:

Editor's Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.

So their main example of the infinite horror of UHC actually ended up endorsing the British system, but instead of taking the whole thing back they just deleted the example and let it run as a completely unsupported statement? It's good to know that the serious minds opposing health care reform really are just well-spoken versions of the people showing up at town halls with signs about Obama killing their grandparents.

3 comments:

  1. hah, beat kos by like 15 minutes

    ReplyDelete
  2. meanwhile, in the United States of America...I would not have been tested for my illness without incredible costs (MRIs, bloodwork,etc.) and for several months after my first incident if it wasn't for what? NIH. Thank you government run healthcare.

    ReplyDelete