McCain adviser John Goodman argues that America has already achieved universal health care:
Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)
As Steve Benen points out, this means that people are actually treated at the taxpayers' expense (high expense, I might add). And McCain's "Emergency Room Healthcare Plan" doesn't actually work for people who have serious long-term ailments like cancer or HIV. If you show up bleeding from a gunshot wound, they'll treat you -- but they're not going to give you chemotherapy or put you on expensive anti-retroviral drugs. In any case, what McCain's "universal health-care plan" as described by Goodman amounts to is:
[T]he most inefficient system of socialized medicine ever devised.
As well as far more expensive to the taxpayer than Obama's plan would be. But that's OK, because Goodman has another innovative solution:
That's right, the McCain solution to the health-care crisis is to make up new terms for people who don't have health care. This way, McCain doesn't have to give up his tax cut."The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American -- even illegal aliens -- as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.
"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."
--A. Serwer
