Thursday, June 24, 2004
Bush callousness, cynicism, and indifference: A lottery for Medicare benefits
My God.
They're planning a lottery where winning can mean life, and losing could mean death. Could anything make more clear that health care should be a right, enjoyed by all citizens, as it is in every other Western nation but ours? Get this:
You know, Shirley Jackson wrote a short story called The Lottery where losers were stoned to death. It gave me quite a chill when I read it in junior high. I just never expected to see it used as blueprint for national health policy.
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Oh, if you're rich, you get to live as a matter of course, since you can buy as much medicine as you want. If there is a God in heaven, He will rain down fire on the Republicans for setting up a system where the rich purchase life, while the poor have a 1 in 10 chance of winning it.
They're planning a lottery where winning can mean life, and losing could mean death. Could anything make more clear that health care should be a right, enjoyed by all citizens, as it is in every other Western nation but ours? Get this:
Medicare is planning a lottery later this year for people with cancer, multiple sclerosis and several other diseases. For the 50,000 winners, the government will start helping pay for their medicine, but more than 450,000 others must wait until 2006.
(via AP)
You know, Shirley Jackson wrote a short story called The Lottery where losers were stoned to death. It gave me quite a chill when I read it in junior high. I just never expected to see it used as blueprint for national health policy.
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Oh, if you're rich, you get to live as a matter of course, since you can buy as much medicine as you want. If there is a God in heaven, He will rain down fire on the Republicans for setting up a system where the rich purchase life, while the poor have a 1 in 10 chance of winning it.
