Also back in Texas I continued my health care outreach tour across the state. In San Antonio, I met with Texans who are working hard to provide affordable care to uninsured and medically underserved individuals at Centro Med, a new Federally Qualified Health Center (FHCQ [sic]). Centro Med and other FHCQs provide preventative care alternatives and work to reduce emergency room overcrowding to low-income individuals who wouldn’t otherwise have access. Another innovative means of meeting the health care needs of underserved individuals can be found in Project Access Dallas (PAD). During my visit to Christ’s Family Clinic at Preston Road Church of Christ, I heard about PAD’s network of volunteer physicians, partnering hospitals, community charity health clinics, and ancillary partners who volunteer to care for working poor and low-income patients. These are the kinds of solutions that can drive successful reform of our health care system.Really!?!? THIS is the kind of solution you are gunning for - providing care to those who can't afford it by NOT PAYING the people who are willing to provide it???? I mean, it's great that there are big-hearted doctors and clinics out there who realize that health care is not a privilege but a right. And it's great that they are willing to give that care free of cost to people who can't pay for it under the current fucked up system. But Senator, this is a band-aid on a fucking tumor. It is not going to fix the problem of people not being able to pay for their medical care. Not remotely. And just we're clear on the definition of reform:
"1 a: to put or change into an improved form or condition b: to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses; 2: to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action; 3: to induce or cause to abandon evil ways".Reading comprehension OK there, sir?
You are proposing that the solution is to continue to depend on the goodwill and limited resources of people who can give a few hours here and there for free. This is neither a solution nor a reform (see above). And may I just point out that relying on the volunteerism of people who are ordinarily paid handsomely (and rightly so in this case) for their services seems a little counter-capitalist...aren't you supposed to be a Republican? So who is paying for the care that the volunteers are providing anyway? Sure, the doctors may be donating their time (time is money, especially when you could use it to see paying patients), but there is a significant cost stemming from consumables like bandages, needles, vacutubes, diagnostic fees when they send samples to labs, not to mention medical waste disposal. This care is not actually free. There is a cost being incurred somewhere - just not in your wallet, I guess.
I think it's pretty safe to conclude at this point that Senator Cornyn is either a moron or an assclown.
But wait, there's more:
In Houston, I was honored to be joined by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John McCain to hear from Texans at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center about their concerns with accessing affordable care, and their ideas for how Congress should move forward with health care reform. M.D. Anderson is one of the top centers for cancer care in the nation. Health reform must preserve access to quality care like this in America and prevent the poor outcomes that cancer patients face in countries with socialized medicine.Before we get into the meat of this: yes, it would be good to preserve this kind of quality care. However, I am failing to make the logical leap with you to the implied conclusion that moving to a system in which everyone can get care would necessitate the decline of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the quality of care it provides. Please show your work, or you won't get credit for this answer.
Oh, and WHY IN THE HELL ARE THEY ALL REPUBLICANS GETTING TOGETHER TO TALK ABOUT THIS!?!?!? Where are the Democrats? Do they not care, or were they not invited?
OK, now that I've got that off my chest, let's get to the point here. Cancer is not the only condition faced by the under-privileged that requires medical attention, but since you brought it up, let's talk about cancer. If you're going to make the claim that cancer patients face poorer outcomes in countries with socialized medicine than they do here in the good old US of A, then you're going to have to cite your sources or we're going to think that you're making shit up. Here are mine. A comparison of statistics compiled by the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK (OMG! socialists!) finds LOWER MORTALITY for cancer patients in the UK (177 deaths/100,00 people) as compared to the US (>200 deaths/100,00 people) once they've been diagnosed. (For the record, that amounts to a 13% worse mortality rate in the US.) Huh. Poorer outcomes under socialized medicine you say? Senator, saying it over and over again doesn't make it true. It doesn't change the facts. (Moron, assclown or liar?) Those numbers are solidly reporting a poorer outcome under NON-socialized medicine. And it's worse than it looks!
I would like to point out that the only patients included in the US statistic for comparison are those who could afford to see a doctor for diagnosis or treatment in the first place - cuz if they haven't seen a doctor, they're not a patient. If all those afflicted non-patients in the US were included that mortality rate would mushroom faster than the A-bomb detonation, Senator. Since the statistics are reported as patients seen by a doctor or hospital, we have no idea how many are out there who are never diagnosed, who die of these diseases because they can't afford to pay for a diagnosis, let alone treatment. Some of them do eventually see a doctor and are included in these statistics, but because they couldn't afford it, they've waited until it's so bad that they can't afford NOT to see a doctor and find out that if they had caught it sooner it wouldn't be terminal. (Gee, do you suppose that's what might be pushing our mortality rate up so high when it is already under-reported?) Or they find out that they have a treatable cancer, but that they can't actually afford the treatment, so they are forced to choose between bankrupting themselves and their families, or dying from this disease unnecessarily. That, Senator, is not just a poor outcome. It's a great big steaming fucking pile of downright shitty outcomes, and you should be ashamed to stand there and say that this volunteer cheer-leading you've got going on is an acceptable "solution". Senator, that's a "solution" for this problem like a teaspoon is a shovel for all the manure in a feedlot.
Maybe I'm being a little hasty with the numbers though. You see, we actually do have some idea of how many there are in this terrible situation. The number of people who die from treatable cancer (I'd say that's a pretty poor outcome right there) because they did not have access to health care is NOT ZERO. And there is some non-zero number of people who die from other not-cancer-but-still-treatable-diseases for the same reason. That number is unacceptable. We need to change things to make sure that number is zero. Your "solution", which is to keep on slapping volunteer band-aids on this problem is not ever, no, never going to make that happen.
Wake the fuck up.
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