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McCain Adviser: Emergency Room Just as Good as Health Insurance

This is starting to get more and more attention today: In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, a health care policy adviser to John McCain appeared to suggest that anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has health insurance.

The adviser, John Goodman, who is not paid by the McCain campaign but is widely quoted as one of the campaign's advisers and an author of McCain's health care policy, offered the following solution to the health care crisis to the paper:

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "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."

The problem with this analysis, according to an expert quoted in the article, is that people without insurance are less likely to seek non-emergency-room care, which ultimately drives up the cost to the health care system.

In the interview, Goodman elaborated by suggesting that the truly uninsured are those who are denied care.

"So instead of producing worthless statistics that people fling around in vacuous editorials and pointless debates, the Census Bureau should produce meaningful numbers, identifying all of the sources of funds people will draw on if they need medical care," Goodman concluded.

More on this in a bit.


Late Update: The McCain campaign is now saying that Goodman is not an adviser. Oddly enough, there were multiple press reports in the past few months identifying him this way that have yet to be corrected.

Late Late Update: Here's a statement from the McCain campaign saying that this guy was an adviser, but no longer...

Mr. Goodman volunteered his advice to the campaign in the past. However, his philosophy on health care -- and especially on the urgency of the problems faced by 45 million uninsured Americans -- are clearly out of step with John McCain. Earlier this summer the campaign informed Mr. Goodman that his advice was not required and requested that he not identify himself as being associated with the campaign in any way, including as a volunteer. John McCain could not disagree more strongly with Mr. Goodman. John McCain believes that addressing the problem of the nation's uninsured is one of our most pressing national priorities. That's why the McCain plan will, for the first time, bring health coverage within the reach of every American.

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POW.

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When John McCain was a POW he didn't have health insurance!

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Not true. He had health insurance, as he has had his whole life, through the government.

He just couldn't get access to a healthcare provider until he agreed to make propoganda tapes for the No. Vietnamese.

Kinda like being in an HMO.

nice!

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And he couldn't go to the emergency room, so he was really uninsured, not like those whiny poor people.

When John McCain was a POW he didn't have health insurance!

Or as McCain put it when Elizabeth Edwards pointed out he had government health care plan his whole life

...I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. This Week: April 20, 2008
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He was provided medical care by the NVA, although he was threatened with the loss of said care if he didn't talk.

But he did have health care coverage.

Also, what this guy is saying is insane. We'll fix the problem by redefinition? But how is having access to healthcare the same as having health insurance? It isn't at all, if you don't have insurance, you can go to the ER but you still get billed

That's the entire point of insurance.

And if you don't have ins., the hospital WILL bill you and, eventually, SUE you. Even the "not for profit" ones. The ER is not "free health care."

Isn't that a similar tactic the Bush administration used to 'create' manufacturing jobs?

On the contrary, didn't he have access to the emergency room at the Hanoi Hilton?

A Noun, a Verb and POW.

He's not an advisor.

Oddly enough, there were multiple press reports in the past few months identifying him this way that have yet to be corrected.

Corrections forthcoming.


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Yes. The Ministry of Truth will get right on that.

I wonder why the Obama Campaign hasn't made health care an issue yet. Maybe they're saving it for the final two months - or much like the McCain "I don't know how many houses I have gaffe" they're just looking for the right time to pounce.

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Oh, I think these comments from McStains healthcare advisor just gave Obama's team the opening they need to get into the big healthcare debate.

Keep 'em coming!

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I think they're starting to. The speeches at the convention, especially by both Clintons, have put universal health care right back on the front burner. I think that if Sen. Obama wants to win some of the more stubborn Clinton supporters, this will be talked about ad nauseum over the next few weeks.

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I agree with novice. They will.

Especially when McCain lets slip that he's thinking about J. Goodman as the next secretary of health.

The McCain campaign health care plan is the ace in the hole for Obama. McCain's plan is actually a massive tax increase on millions of middle class Americans who already get health insurance through their employer. They obviously don't bother with policy modelling and analysis over there when they cook these things up.

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I think this is the McCain campaign's equivalent of "Let them eat cake."

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Some days, it seems like the McCain campaign is nothing but one big cake-serving operation. (GOP Motto: Letting them eat cake since 1980!)

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More like: "You're just a worthless piece of statistical garbage."

Maybe there's a way to combine this with "you're just a whiner" into a seemless montage.

Honestly, I will be very disappointed if they don't use this. McCain needs to be tarred with the repulsiveness of his advisers.

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Revealing and embarrassing, yes, but it's a lot easier to throw an unpaid so-called advisor overboard than Phil Gramm.  Watch for the splash.

splash ???

hopw does throwing a guy under the double talk express make a splash ???

this guy goes under the bus

keep yer metaphors straight dude

(it's a metaphore, right ???)

Isn't this like saying the people lining up outside the food pantry *are not* hungry?

Moments like this make me hope that somehow the mask will slip a little and average folks will see these neocon f*ktards for what they are...as Jon Stewart said the other night, "Republicans love America, they just hate 50% of the people living here."

I loved that quote from Jon Stewart...talking about all these TV broadcast cretins parroting the same bullshit about Michelle Obama needing to seem patriotic, because Democrats have to PROVE they love America...not like Republicans who love America but hate 50% of the people in it!

This is the McCain-Bush health plan!

Bush last year: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11414.html

The Bush proposal:

One of the most promising ways to make private health insurance more affordable is by reforming the Federal tax code. Today, the tax code unfairly penalizes people who do not get health insurance through their job. It unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans. The result is that insurance premiums rise, and many Americans cannot afford the coverage they need.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070120.html

It's those "expensive, gold-plated plans" that are at fault. to elaborate on the Bush idea, go for the junk plan with the highest deductibles, co-pays and exclusions, and it won't cost you nearly as much. For instance, if you have an existing condition, select the plan that excludes that condition and your premiums will be more reasonsable. No gold plating on my plan, and it only costs $19.99 per month.

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For instance, if you have an existing condition, select the plan that excludes that condition and your premiums will be more reasonsable.
And, of course, most of your expenses will be out of pocket, making it hardly worth having insurance in the first place. In my case, those add up to ~$300/mo. Freakin' brilliant.
No gold plating on my plan, and it only costs $19.99 per month.
What is that, permanent travel insurance? The cheapest, no frills one I could find was about 10 times that.

Health Care: You can't have it, my friends.

More and more, the McCain camp's message seems to be "I spent five years in a POW camp. Quit being such pussies."

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Hey, a couple threads back Redshift asked if anybody knew morse code.  Got any Prohias left in ya?  :-)

There you have it, the proposed domestic policy of the McCain Campaign, "don't tell us about lies or damn lies, we have statistics!" I'm already imagining the revolutionary new ways he'd use to solve unemployment, income disparity, discrimination, educational underachievement, heck - even incarceration rates!

I suddenly realize how McCain will balance the budget... he'll just have the GAO filled with hacks who cook the books and then lay off the rest of the federal branch. Oh, except for Homeland Security and the Military... he'll need them to keep down social dissidents (aka pinko commie liberals).

This is golden. Better yet is the argument that if you just don't call the uninsured "uninsured", then they aren't uninsured!

They have learned the lessons of the Bush administration well.

Must be a psychological benefit. I'm not uninsured, because I say I'm not uninsured. Feel much better now....

As a surgeon, I can tell you that the care you receive on an emergency basis in an emergency room is not the same as real medical insurance. There's no such thing as emergency chemotherapy, for instance, or emergency mammograms. There's no emergency health screening, or emergency vaccines. Patients without insurance get palliative care, not health care. If you show up to the ER with cancer, you get pain pills.

You're right. Real health care is preventive.

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If you are insured, it is far more likely that you will be admitted or referred for additional services.

The fact that McCain, Bush, et al. never need to go to an ER pretty clearly shows they have no idea that this is the case. The fact that they expect hospitals to just suck it up and provide so much uncompensated care is also disgusting (because it hurts access for all the rest of us non-heroes).

My father retired early and was one of those people trying to hold out for Medicare. He developed GI pain and went to the emergency room where he was told by a professor doctor at an elite institution that there was nothing wrong with him, without conducting a single test. My mother got the bill for her "services" some months later on the same day my father was finally diagnosed with terminal cancer (by a first-year resident at a community hospital who hadn't yet learned to do wallet biopsies).

I counselled my mom to write a scathing letter explaining why that was one bill super duper university hospital better never try to collect.

It's been nearly 15 years. It still makes me angry and it's even worse now than it used to be.

Speaking as a family doctor, AMEN!, dashingmd.

Did that prison guard draw a Blue Cross in the dirt for McCain?

So wrong, but oh so right. :)

HA-HA

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Yeah, it was called "Faith-based" Health Insurance. Pray for healing. I see a big opportunity for Benny Hinn - you can be healed through the TV by Dr-Rev.

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Oh ouch! I love it . . .

I see... so instead of addressing the problem we sweep it under the carpet by ignoring and suppressing the statistics. Fascinating. Either claim there isn't a problem (economy) or hide it. McPTSD's lunacy must be contagious, because everyone around him is nuts too.

The level of arrogance in McCain campaign has yet again reached a new level. How can some voters not see this???????????

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Um, seriously?

We don't have a health care crisis in this country because we've just renamed some category such as "uninsured" to.....what, exactly?

Freaking hilarious.

Obama-Biden? Please use this, even if the "advisor" gets tossed overboard. Please.

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"All of the funds" - as in, if you have to go on your bended knees to your in-laws or some other family member and beg for help? That counts - ?

Holy shit - that has to have pissed off Parkland Memorial Hospital more than I can say - that's our county hospital in Dallas and it is slammed with people using it as a clinic.

Slammed.

Tena, you beat me to the punch. See my post below.

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The real problem with this analysis is that it is utterly heartless, and reveals that conservatives don't give a rat's ass about anyone without money. This is why it has the potential to be significant -- gaffes can have major legs if they give an opening to talk about something that everyone in the press already knows is true.

It's not heartless, it is colossally stupid.

Let's spend hundreds of thousands of dollars tending to emergencies that could have been solved with a $10 shot at you family physician's office.

How many emergency rooms treat skin cancer, John?
And ow about Diabetes. Great you have diabetes and no health insurance, just go into shock and have someone bring you into an ER. Let's just hope it's not tool ate. Ha Ha Ha.

Callous is beside the point this just proves that McCain cannot be trusted to understand health care. Period.

Holy f#ck!

I get what he's trying to say -- that if someone with high blood pressure falls on the floor with a heart attack, they'll be taken to a hospital somewhere -- but the fact that someone would seriously articulate this in response to a question about healthcare is mindboggling. It's not just the lack of preventative care driving up health care costs for the entire nation (which is a very valid criticism). It's the fact that anyone who's hospitalized without health insurance may as well sign over the deed to his house and car to that hospital. Medical costs are the leading reason for bankruptcy in this country. Not to mention that health care is so costly that many small businesses simply can't afford to offer it to their employees.

The only reasons that these guys wouldn't get this is because they're very happy with the quality of healthcare that they can afford, and could give a damn about the rest of the peons in this nation. Just more countryclub economics. Of course, that's not elitism as long as it's coming from a Republican.

I'm sure all of the county hospitals struggling to make ends meet will be very happy to hear about this plan....as well as the all of those taxpayers who support these hospitals.

Good grief....does ANYONE in the McCain campaign frickin' understand economics?

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As I said - Parkland in Dallas, and that was an interview with the Dallas Morning News, has one of the best ERs in the world - their burn unit is legendary. But they are totally slammed by people using it as a clinic. It's a huge problem that has been in the papers for years now, and on the TV news.

That interview has to have taken the breath away from Parkland and was really stupid for another reason. Dallas has become a major health care center. UT Southwestern Med school has all kinds of facilities in Dallas these days. Medical research is one of our prime economic bases any more. In other words, the whole fucking city knows what's going on, for the most part, and the enormous hospital complex down there around Parkland has got to be full of people who are madder than all hell about this.

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The level of stupidity boggles the mind, doesn't it?

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On an ever increasing scale on a daily basis.

Oh, my f*cking god.

Obama's going to win.

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McSame is toast. Count on it.

Stupid dumb ass yee haw guffawing white bread GOP machine!

Move 'em on, head 'em up,
Head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em on, head 'em out
Rawhide!
Set 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, let 'em out,
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in
Rawhide.

I loved Rawhide.

Keep movin', movin', movin',
Though they're disapprovin',
Keep them doggies movin' Rawhide!

Don't try to understand 'em,
Just rope and throw and grab 'em,
Soon we'll be living high and wide.