Posted on 04/09/2008 2:51:41 PM PDT by Graybeard58
An average of 280 children under 5 drown every year in swimming pools; that's about five actual children a week. Using the logic of Juan Figueroa of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, pools should be outlawed because "one life to lose is too many."
Mr. Figueroa's demagoguery came in response to a report that claimed three (statistical) adults die a week in Connecticut for lack of health insurance. Reports The Hartford Courant: "Families USA estimates that 150 Connecticut adults died in 2006 due to a lack of insurance, and FBI statistics show 108 murders in the state that year." Translation: What's happening is criminal.
Families USA, a leading advocate of taxpayer-funded health care, said 209,000 (11 percent) of the state's 1.9 million adults were uninsured in 2006, and 150 died because they lacked insurance. It's a tossup whether its data or methodology is more flawed.
The state Office of Health Care Access says 136,000 adults were uninsured in 2006. But 44 percent were uninsured by choice and 25 percent were noncitizens, so the discussion is really about roughly 42,000 people (2.2 percent of all adults) who might have benefited from universal health care. Extrapolating Families USA's calculations, the number of statistical deaths was really 0.58 a week, but even that number is vastly inflated.
Families USA relied on an Institute of Medicine formula that a Health Research Service analysis, which otherwise sympathized with the institute's cause, concluded was based on wild exaggerations that made the "magnitude of the estimated effect of insurance on mortality ... too large to be credible."
In addition, Families USA wrongly presumed the uninsured forego care when they are injured or ill, but hospital administrators know all too well how the uninsured consider emergency rooms their free health clinics. Further, the group believes socialized medicine is superior to the American health-care system; many in Britain and Canada living under the tyranny of universal health care would beg to differ.
Families USA, Mr. Figueroa et al. would have Connecticut spend hundreds of millions more annually on socialized medicine based on exaggerated statistics and a lazy argument: "If it saves one life, it's worth it."
The fact is, they can't document a single death irrefutably caused by the lack of health insurance and can't guarantee that inevitable health-care rationing under a government-run program wouldn't be deadlier than going without coverage.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Almost 400 people died in Connecticut in 04.
The loss of one life is criminal. - Ban private ownership of cars.
died in auto accidents, that is.
Seems to describe most of the sciences today. I wouldn't trust anything outside the hard sciences now.
People with health insurance don't die? Why didn't someone tell me? Why isn't this front-page news??? ;-)
Cars should be outlawed, because "one life to lose is too many."
Bicycles should be outlawed, because "one life to lose is too many."
Skiing should be outlawed, because "one life to lose is too many."
Mountain climbing should be outlawed, because "one life to lose is too many."
How about we just outlaw stupidity, then the rest of us will be able to enjoy life?
How many Americans, including children and teens, have been killed by illegal aliens in car accidents and crimes? Isn’t that too many as well and reason enough to secure our borders and root out and deport the illegals???
“An average of 280 children under 5 drown every year in swimming pools; that’s about five actual children a week. Using the logic of Juan Figueroa of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, pools should be outlawed because “one life to lose is too many.”
I’d bet ABORTION is okay with them.
Excellent point.
Cults which advocate beheading non-believers should be outlawed because “one life to lose is too many”.
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