Larsen Sidesteps Questions on Health Care, For Now

As we reported late last month, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen is catching flack from all sides of the health care debate. Some in his district are patently outraged by his lack of support for proposals made by Democratic colleagues.

One letter writer to the Bellingham Herald today accused Larsen of being beholden to lobbyists.

Back in the district, Larsen again faced questions about his stance on health care reform. This time, speaking to veterans, the 2nd District Congressman refused to answer questions altogether:

“You’re at the wrong meeting if you’re here to talk about health care.”

We do not need compromise, cooperation or consensus. We need a rational process based on facts before any “Reform”:

“We go from great idea to mass production to failure. You can’t build a project that way. You can’t run a business that way.
“The government needs to follow the engineering process.
“You have a noble concept. You want to build the biggest skyscraper. You want to build the fastest airplane. You want to build the first satellite going into space. That’s the noble concept.
“From there, you look at all your options, come up with your initial drawings of how you would make this work. Eventually, after a lot of analysis, you come up with what you think really will work and you build a pilot model. You test it. You get all the problems out of it. Then you mass-produce it on the assembly line.
“And any concept or idea needs to be built so it can be changed as the conditions change. We come up with Medicare, put it into law and then freeze it and then wonder why it doesn’t work. That’s like making the Model T Ford and then saying, ‘Freeze it! That’s a car that works.’ That wouldn’t be a very good idea, would it?”

-Ross Perot quoted in Dallas Morning News 2008

IN OTHER WORDS, WHEN MASSACHUSETTS, OR ANY OTHER STATE, COUNTY OR VILLAGE, IS ABLE TO MAKE “UNIVERSAL CARE” MEET PROGRAM GOALS FOR ACCESS, QUALITY, AND COST, THEN AND ONLY THEN SHOULD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONSIDER “MASS PRODUCTION” THROUGH NATIONAL REFORM, AND EVEN THEN ONLY IF EFFECTIVE COMPONENTS REQUIRING “CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT” ARE INCORPORATED. ANY EARLIER ACTION TO “REFORM” MEDICAL PRACTICE OR INSURANCE COVERAGE NATIONALLY THROUGH MANDATES, WILL PREDICTABLY INVITE AND YIELD NATIONAL DISASTER.

And in this case NATIONAL DISASTER means a decreasing average life span among other things.Thea downward curve will increase its negative slope as presently produced antibiotics lose effectiveness and are not replaced because a national healthcare system cannot/will not pay for the R&D necessary and will not pay the necessary patent-period prices necessary for the drug companies to recoup R&D expenses. And government R&D? That presents a whole host of new and deadly problems involving procedures and corruption, even if it should occur, and it won't.

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