LIMBAUGH DIAGNOSES HEALTH CARE SYSTEM…. On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh went to a Hawaii hospital with chest pains, and was released yesterday, with no apparent ailments. The right-wing radio host said doctors found nothing wrong with his heart or arteries, and it’s still unclear what caused his pains.
And while physicians found nothing wrong with Limbaugh, Limbaugh also found nothing wrong with the health care system that took good care of him.
Turning from his health to politics, Limbaugh declared Friday he got the best health treatment in the world “right here in the United States of America.”
“I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the United States health system,” Limbaugh said.
He added that he received the same treatment as anyone else. “I got no special treatment,” Limbaugh said.
Steve M. explained why this is very hard to believe.
If O.J. Simpson had said, after his very expensive dream team won him an acquittal on murder charges, “The U.S. system of justice is wonderful — I got the same treatment a poor kid with a public defender would have gotten if charged with the same crime,” we’d have said he was being ridiculous. If a rich Hollywood star caught with massive amounts of powdered drugs got sentenced to ritzy rehab and probation and said, “The system works — a street junkie would have gotten the same deal,” we’d just laugh.
That’s the equivalent of what Limbaugh is saying. He’s in no position to say a poor, uninsured person would have gotten the same treatment — that’s for poor and uninsured people to say.
I’d just add that Limbaugh is deliberately obscuring what the debate over health care policy is all about. He received fine care “right here in the United States of America.” Well, of course he did. No one is saying that there’s something wrong with our medical professionals, our technology, our facilities, and/or our ability to treat the ill.
The point is who has access to this quality care, who can afford it, who’ll die because they lack the necessary coverage, who’ll get kicked out of the system under rescission, who’ll never get into the system because of a pre-existing condition, and whether families, businesses, and government agencies will go bankrupt trying to finance such a system.
Limbaugh felt chest pains, was admitted, underwent a series of tests, and received fine care. I’m glad. But to think that every American, regardless of circumstance, would receive identical treatment is to bury one’s head in the sand and pretend reality doesn’t exist.
