The money quote...
Oil baron, draft dodger, professional paranoid, and all-around Blue Meanie, Cheneys miraculous longevity is nothing so much as the happy product of the heavily tax-subsidized and regulated American health-care system, exhibit A in the argument for intrusive and overarching government programs to ensure the publics health. Though the free-marketeers would argue the exact opposite—that the invention of such sci-fi devices as the LVAD are the product of unfettered capitalism—this completely ignores the reality of how such inventions are tested, monitored, and reviewed. Devices are studied in hospitals propped up by Medicaid and Medicare dollars organized by doctors funded by federal grants. Patient safety is assured by government bean-counters spread throughout windowless Washington offices via a process that is noticeable only when it fails—when, for example, a pacemaker is found to be defective, or a medication proves toxic.
Cheney is alive today despite a lifetime spent trying to deprive the needy of basic human rights such as health care. Yet his continued survival shows both the impotency of his attempts and the potency of the American health-care system, a lumbering bureaucracy no doubt, but one that blindly cares for big-hearted Joes as well as heartless Dicks.
Kent Sepkowitz is an infectious disease specialist in New York City. He has contributed to The New York Times, Slate, and, oh-so-briefly, O Magazine. He also writes academic medical articles that are at times pretty tough sledding.
Nice compassion there, doc. Maybe you can find out where he is and go up and step on his oxygen lines. Any comments, Dr. Steve? |