. . .
L “A spin doctor rather than a doctor. One group of ‘D’ students was not doing us proud, so O’Bama turned to another group of ‘D’ students more familiar to him. A JD is now nominally in charge of the MDs.”
D “That will not end well. By training, temperament and experience, lawyers are more effective playing spin doctors than doctors.”
L “He is described as the ‘Ebola czar.’ When the government props up a ‘czar’ to address a problem, the government is tacitly admitting that everything undertaken to date by the government to address the problem has been a failure.”
D “The Surgeon General is the one who should be overseeing the Ebola response. The National Rifle Association will not allow the Senate to consider O’Bama’s nominee, Dr. Vivek Murthy, because he made some comments about guns and public health. With time of the essence, the Acting Surgeon General Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak is a more appealing point person than a lawyer and Democratic political player.”
L “By appointing an operative as the ‘czar,’ O’Bama is treating this matter as a public relations problem that can be managed by controlling the memes and dictating the themes.”
D “Montesquieu’s discussion of the separation and balance of powers failed to acknowledge that Mother Nature has absolute veto power over the President and over Congress. Of course, Montesquieu was a lawyer, not a doctor.”
L “And she has veto power over the courts that will venture into this morass. Judges will find their decisions automatically appealed and then likely reversed and remanded with much different instructions and consequences by Mother Nature, the Ultimate Judge.”
D “Arrogance and its privileged cousin – hubris – are also mutating.”
. . .
D “Those who test positive for the virus now are getting disproportionately expensive treatment and excessive attention. The decision to fly the nurse Nina Pham from Texas to Maryland to an NIH facility that specializes in research and not treatment may prove to be exceptional. No insurance company will provide for others to fly on a private jet to a national medical facility. Insurance companies dictate health care policy in America and dictate that a person be treated locally and cheaply.”
L “Some of those who were exposed have now gone 21 days without symptoms. Conventional commentators are proclaiming victory. I wonder if some tenacious ‘Type A personality’ virus will remain virulent for a longer period of time.”
D “Some of the viruses will become benign in a fortnight and others will remain malignant for a month. However, the amount and quality of care for each successive patient will decline exponentially at the same time that the virus is mutating exponentially.”
L “When the celebrity patients are no longer on the screen, ordinary patients will be given numbers and partial bus fare with a substantial co-payment by the insurance companies and left to secure whatever medical care they can hustle.”
. . .
D “Third world countries are often defined by their third world medical facilities and services. Russia and China are each mutating into first-rate military powers, yet each country operates second world medical systems. Someone who is able to obtain treatment from a Russian doctor – who is much more likely to be female than a doctor in America – must personally supply the medicines and medical supplies from black or brown market sources.”
L “America is following that model. So the first world and the second world and the third world are not prepared.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” Walter Cronkite
Be prepared
Be calm and panic
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