Scary, that’s how I’d describe the fact that the author of this misguided and racially-charged piece once headed up the health care reform offices of Gov. Martinez. Clearly, the Administration either didn’t vet Derksen or they don’t understand just how central the issue of health care reform is to human freedom.
Here is my critique of the article:
1) Bringing up George Wallace and racism simply doesn’t fly. Denial of equal rights under the law is far different from not being given “free” health care at taxpayers’ expense. There is not a doctor in this country that I have ever heard of refusing to see minorities. Conflating these issues does nothing to move the debate forward.
2) The author states that “It’s estimated that someone dies each day in New Mexico for lack of health insurance.” This is simply wrong and illustrates an obvious misunderstanding of the appropriate role of insurance. No one in the history of the planet has died from a lack of insurance. People do die for lack of quality and affordable health care, but that has nothing to do with insurance per se.
In fact, insurance is a major problem in American health care, not a solution. We need to restore the fiduciary relationship between doctors and their patients, not provide even more incentives for Americans to expect their employers and insurers to pay more for our routine care and checkups.
Of course, if anyone DOES die for lack of care in this country, it should not be for lack of emergency care as hospitals cannot refuse to treat those who cannot pay for emergency care.
3) Derksen is all for expanding Medicaid as will be done if ObamaCare is upheld, but questions about as to whether Medicaid actually improves health care outcomes or expands access to health care.
Obviously, health care is a complicated issue. Most of this complexity is the result of government meddling. ObamaCare and its 2,700 pages, certainly does nothing to reduce this complexity. Hopefully, the departure of Derksen from the Martinez Administration means that she will fight for real health care reform, not more government control.
[...] again, he wrote last week, “No one in the history of the planet has died from a lack of insurance” while a [...]