Mike Pence Loves to Use Government Health Care
As I’ve noted previously, in addition to their government-financed health insurance members of congress can take advantage of direct provision of health care services by government employees throught the Office of the Attending Physician. It turns out that hard-right congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) is actually a big fan of this:
“Just about not a week goes by that I don’t see the House physician staff with a gurney running down the hallway to address an issue affecting an American or tourist visiting the Capitol building,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Columbus. “I really do have a sense that the House physician’s office is more about providing immediate services during sessions of Congress, frankly the way the emergency room of a hospital would provide for any American. They’re on site. They’re already through security.”
Pence said he has used the office for physicals and stress tests while using his regular health insurance plan for more advanced procedures such as skin cancer surgery.
Pence seems to me to have this right in terms of his personal habits. And it also seems to me that establishing a nationwide network of quality public health clinics at which ordinary citizens could receive these kind of services would be very useful. There’s an element of medicine that involves deploying cutting edge treatments, and there’s a reasonable case to be made for keeping provision of that sort of thing in private hands (note that this is compatible with single-payer health insurance as in Canada) in order to keep innovation going. But a lot of medical care is about competent application of well-understood testing & treatment regimes. This kind of thing is often done quite well by public agencies when given the opportunity, and it’s an extremely cost-effective way of helping people out.
15 Responses to “Mike Pence Loves to Use Government Health Care”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Got ‘em!
October 26th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Is the fact that Mike Pence seems to have a good sense of the (many) healthcare options he personally has access to inconsistent with the solid evidence that the man is a fool?
October 26th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Marshall @ 2: Like many fools, he is quite adept at maximizing his personal benefit from a given scenario. This does not necessarily imply that he has the capacity for abstract thought.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Here is the type of deceitful bullshit the Republican Propaganda Machine is passing around right now:
————————
Dear Friend of Freedom,
Will you authorize me to put your name on a FaxGram to every Member of Congress — including your Congressman and two U.S. Senators — demanding they actively OPPOSE and immediately declare their “NO” vote on “Obamacare”?
[Go Here to Authorize Your FaxGrams
to Your Congressman and Two U.S. Senators]
My name is Ralph Reed. I am the Chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition — a new organization dedicated to lifting high the values that made America great. We are mobilizing millions of Americans to OPPOSE and DEFEAT President Obama’s far-left agenda for America.
MISSION #1 right now: Defeat “Obamacare.”
Over the next 3 days we are aiming to bury Congress with hundreds of thousands of FaxGrams of Protest against “Obamacare.”
If we can do that, I believe we have a very real chance to shock Congress with the intensity of public opposition to having government take over your health care . . . and have “Obamacare” declared DOA — Dead on Arrival.
If we succeed at this, President Obama’s disastrous Presidency will be in real jeopardy — as he will be an immediate “lame duck.”
On the other hand, if President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid manage to ram this disastrous government-run health care plan into law — that will set the stage for his remaking of America into his vision of a one-party socialistic state.
Now is the time to act. Even as I write this, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are secretly writing a health care bill behind closed doors, hidden from the American people.
The vote right now is very close.
[Visit Here to Authorize Your FaxGrams
to Your Congressman and Two U.S. Senators]
43 House Democrats have now declared their opposition to “Obamacare.”
That does not quite give us enough votes in the House to defeat “Obamacare” — especially considering that it’s always possible we will lose a few liberal Republican votes.
In addition, you can count on President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and the White House political machine to use “Chicago Way” mafia-style tactics to threaten and pressure these 43 anti-Obamacare House Democrats to support Obama.
And there’s no telling what will happen in the Senate. For example, we could easily lose the two liberal Republican Senators from Maine — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
The point is we must apply massive and overwhelming public pressure on Congress to REJECT “Obamacare” — no matter how they try to dress it up, repackage it, or rebrand it as something other than what it is — Socialized Medicine.
[Go Here to Authorize Your FaxGrams
to Your Congressman and Two U.S. Senators]
You and I know that “Obamacare” really has nothing to do with fixing America’s health care system.
It’s all about government bureaucrats seizing control of your life in a scheme so frightening it could only have been dreamed up by the radical left.
What better way to seize control over your life than seizing control over the decision as to whether you or your loved ones receive life-saving medical treatment or not?
Do you think radicals like Van Jones and other far-left activists will burrow their way into the federal health care bureaucracy, rewarding their friends while people like you end up in the back of the line?
That’s what always happens when politicians are in charge of anything.
They use their power to reward their friends and punish their foes.
Why should health care be any different?
Most of the problems with America’s health care system are caused by government”
—————–
Obama can try to forge a “bipartisan compromise” with these lying assholes. I myself think the Republican Whores are fortunate to not be swinging from the lampposts — they hate the common Americans and they stab us in the back every chance they get.
For Money.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I love this piece:
“It’s all about government bureaucrats seizing control of your life in a scheme so frightening it could only have been dreamed up by the radical left.”
Why would bureaucrats want to control peoples’ lives? The whole ridiculousness of the opposition, to me, is that they always fail to explain why anyone would have a motive to do the things they imagine being done. Killing old people? Why? Just pure malice?
I really think that these people just watch too many Nazi movies.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
“Why would bureaucrats want to control peoples’ lives?”
You’ve never heard of “power”? You are unaware that many people desire it?
“Killing old people? Why?”
Because they are a drain on our young vibrant society, and have a bad habit of voting for the wrong team.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Where can I get a “stress test” outside my insurance plan? Another sweet taxpayer funded benefit for America’s Corporacrats.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Where can I get a “stress test” outside my insurance plan?
When you’re on hold to your insurer over them fucking you over yet again.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
You just go on ahead and be scared. Watch out for those black helicopters.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Re mike at 6: ““Why would bureaucrats want to control peoples’ lives?”
You’ve never heard of “power”? You are unaware that many people desire it?”
————
Whereas, according to Republican theology, profit-seeking plutocrats become BILLIONAIRES by being benign philosopher kings
whose only concern is the welfare of the common citizens?
I think the buttfucking the common citzens got from the Bush-Cheney Administration shows us the malign nature of the Republican Party’s owners.
If I have a problem with a GS-9 “bureaucrat”, I can call my Congressman –and his staff people will look into it because the COngressman wants the vote of me and my friends.
If I call the CEO of AETNA, what do I get?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Allow me to knock down Matt’s straw man: there’s precious little evidence that the profit motive is a useful engine for medical innovation, and a fair amount to suggest that it leads to distortion in the results of clinical trials (apart from frankly illegitimate practices such as suppression of unfavorable results and ghost writing).
…and just to set the record straight, “advanced procedures such as skin cancer surgery” are just the sort of things everyone in our country should be able to get if needed. Except in the most literal terms, skin cancer surgery is not a “cutting edge” treatment (note that Matt did not clearly state that, but it could be seen as implied).
October 26th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
What an idiot. If it were really Dead on Arrival, the legislation would have been killed not long after it arrived in committee. Instead, it’s pretty close to getting past both houses of Congress and moving into combining the bill to be voted on openly.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
What jairoi said: the innovation argument is much more complex.
You could take the relatively new Dutch system, where private insurance covers short-term and acute care, and the regulatory framework in which insurers creates incentives to differentiate around those relatively small-scale (and inexpensive) medical needs.
At the other end of the scale, If you’re looking at places like Mayo and the Cleveland Clinic, there’s a compelling argument that clinical innovation comes from salaried doctors who aren’t spending their non-clinical hours working out how to maximize their revenue; the pursuit of profit in American private medicine gives you the property-tycoon docs discussed by Atul Gawande, with rent-seeking referral fees and stakes in the testing business:
October 27th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Awesome! I have read a lot on this topic, but you definitely give it a good vibe. This is a great post. Will be back to read more! Please come visit my site Denver Business Directory Forum Blog Classifieds when you got time.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Take care of the Pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.