Health Care BS

My father was a typical specimen of that long-vanished breed, the “Roosevelt Democrat.” Nonetheless, he liked Republican President Dwight Eisenhower because Ike played a lot of golf.

His theory was that the more time Eisenhower spent on the links, the less time he would have to mess up the country. The basic idea was that there are worse things than doing nothing.

As it happens, there is a venerable medical corrollary to this line of thinking. Paul Hsieh, one of my favorite bloggers and an actual physician who treats actual patients, explains it as follows:

One of the core principles every first-year medical student learns is “Primum non nocere”, which is Latin for “First, do no harm”. In other words, it’s better to do nothing than to take a positive action that will make the situation worse.

There is little doubt that Obamacare, as it is shaping up in Congress, will “make the situation worse” for American health care. The Democrat “reforms” will raise costs, reduce access and leave millions uninsured.

This is certainly the opinion of a growing majority of the voters. Here’s a graph (via John Goodman) built with data from a recent CNN poll asking Americans if they approve of the Senate version of Obamacare:

If CNN—not exactly a cadre of right-wingers—is getting numbers like these, it’s time to give Obamacare some end-of-life counseling. Going forward with Democrat health “reform” would be far worse than doing nothing.