By Kate
Ezra has kindly invited me to be the purveyor of all things health carewhile he sits by the beach all week in Orange County. The creepingKansas humidity has never seemed better...
It's Cover the Uninsured Week, sponsored by the Robertwood JohnsonFoundation, the health advocacy behemoth. They've set up a fairly good website replete with the standard facts, figures, and photos of a guy with an eyebrow piercing (the pierced need health care too!)
I've been thinking deeply about health care for quite awhile. Morethan that, I've been talking to people about health care for quite awhile. Again and again in these conversations, people assert a handful of truths about the uninsured that couldn't possibly be true together: the uninsured are all lazy and poor, the uninsured can afford health care but they don't want to pay for it (which sure works well with that poor meme), the uninsured get health care for free whenever they need it, and because of this, they really aren't a problem serious enough to seriously address.
Now, because you're all faithful Ezra Klein readers, I know you wouldnever peddle these lies to me should I run into you at a bar or abar-b-que. But in honor of Cover the Uninsured week, because you cannever stress this stuff enough, I've made a nifty bullet point guideabout the uninsured. So you can funnel your inner health wonk whenthose less informed go on their usual health care diatribes.
