Tony Blankley on health care: "get sick and die"You remember Blankley? He often appeared on the
McLaughlin Group and for a while he was the editor of the
Washington Times.
Currently, he's the designated conservative on the
Left, Right, & Center political wrap show produced by Santa Monica's NPR station KCRW (and syndicated nationally).
This week the topic was
The Future of Capitalism: Which Way Now? (
mp3) that focused mostly on the financial crisis, but also broader trends like a national health program. Nineteen minutes into the discussion there was this exchange:
BLANKLEY: (skeptically) How do we need to change the social contract that we have, merely because we've had a financial panic? There's no need to change the social contract.
MILLER: Tony, there are 50 million people without heath care coverage. There are 25 million people who have coverage that is worthless.
BLANKLEY: Well there used to be 250 million people without health care coverage for goodness sake. They never had health care coverage until 1965, .
MILLER: Most of the the rest of the advanced world doesn't let people go bankrupt when they get ill. That is wrong Tony.
BLANKLEY: You can say that with elevated tone, but it doesn't make it correct.
MILLER: You think it's right that people should go bankrupt because they're ill in one of the richest countries in the world, Tony? C'mon!
BLANKLEY: I will come on and I will say that I predict that within 30 years we will not be able to guarantee health care for everybody because as you know, Medicare alone is somewhere around 40 trillion dollars in unfunded liability. We can't afford it. We're going to do what we've always used to do when we got old, which is we will get sick and die. And I plan to do that.
Allowing the citizens to get sick and die really cuts down on health care costs. It zeroes out the budget item, allowing for further tax cuts (or bailouts) for the rich. More people should know about this excellent conservative policy position.
posted by Quiddity at 11/30/2008 08:58:00 AM
Why wait? Let the NRA auction off 'shoot a sick person' hunting permits & send the money to PhRMA! So they can lobby for higher drug prices!
Tony Blankley could do us all a favor and avoid the wait until old age. He could get sick and die now.
And, of course, I'm sure he has no health insurance.
