Romney: Healthcare Through Emergency Rooms Is A Pretty Sweet Deal

In his interview on CBS's 60 Minutes yesterday, Mitt Romney patiently explained that the Poors don't need to worry about health care, because they are allowed to live even though they do not pay taxes and emergency rooms are required to treat their irresponsible asses anyway, so why all the fuss anyway? Asked by interviewer Scott Pelley whether government had any "responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it," the self-proclaimed expert on fiscal responsibility replied,

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” Romney said. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the hospital and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Sure, it's expensive, but it would be really unfair to require people to have insurance, which would actually cover preventive care and cost less, because that's socialism. And Mitt Romney does not like socialism! For instance, here he is in 2007, explaining to Glenn Beck just how much he does not like socialism:  

"When they show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is ... So my plan did something quite different. It said, you know what? If people can afford to buy insurance ... or if they can pay their own way, then they either buy that insurance or pay their own way, but they no longer look to government to hand out free care. And that, in my opinion, is ultimate conservativism."

Oh, damn those lucky duckies! They have once again forced Mitt Romney to try to decide what is worse: a socialistic mandate to purchase private insurance from a for-profit company, or a socialistic scheme through which public and private hospitals provide only a minimum of emergency care that costs a hell of a lot, drives people deep into debt, and drives up healthcare costs across the board.

Perhaps actual socialized medicine would cost less and provide better care than either of these options, but only raving communists would suggest such a thing.

[ Washington Post / Daily Kos ]