Get In The Van, America

July 13, 2012 1:01 AM

"No matter how complicated you want to make things, it's actually a very simple matter. Take this example: Bubba, a man with no health insurance, lives his kick-ass American life. In the process, he gets overweight and ruins his heart and respiratory system by taking bad care of himself. This is a man exercising his liberty. Real Americans are big on that." -- Legal scholar Henry Rollins weighs in on the recent Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare, and why America isn't a country so much as it is "an environment you survived."
posted by bardic (14 comments total)

Legal scholar Henry Rollins weighs in on the recent Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare

No he doesn't. He says nothing about the Supreme Court's decision, and almost nothing about the policy of Obamacare.
posted by John Cohen at 1:08 AM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

'Henry Rollins and The Undeserving Poor' sounds like an awesome cabaret act.
posted by robself at 1:09 AM on July 13, 2012

Real Americans are big

Henry Rollins for President! No, strike that. Henry Rollins for Vice-President! Because we need a President of Vice and Henry is perfect!!! Most of us are just struggling with our own vices, with little federal support, and we need a leader who respects us.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:12 AM on July 13, 2012

Zinn Buddhism. Pow. The Iron does not lie.

[Oh wait... AIDS deployed? Damn...I really wish he had just said AIDS allowed or AIDS tolerated or something like that].
posted by srboisvert at 1:13 AM on July 13, 2012

An interesting take on how Obama has stopped the death machine. Thanks?


Also,

When AIDS was deployed and started its ruinous journey, I wasn't surprised.

Whoa there! Back up a little. What?
posted by Jehan at 1:15 AM on July 13, 2012

One day Bubba falls down and goes boom. His family rushes him to a local emergency room, where he is stabilized after what will later be diagnosed as heart trouble. He will spend a few days in the hospital.

The bill will be enormous. Can he pay it? Oh, hell no. Someone will pay. Not God, and not Paul Ryan.

Well here's the problem. In 1986, the Congress under Ronald Reagan enacted The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)requiring hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.

In other words, Reagan, that socialist, used the power of BIG GOVERNMENT to force private enterprise to provide services to deadbeats.

So long as Bubba has Mr. Reagan's law to force hospitals to treat him regardless of his ability to pay, Bubba has no real economic reason to buy health insurance.

The problem is not that the free market does not work for health insurance; the problem is that it has not been tried. If hospitals were free to turn Mr. Bubba away when he turned up with chest pain, shortness of breath, and no proof of insurance - and if Mr. Bubba knew this was, in fact, the way things were - Mr. Bubba might of his own volition, pay for health insurance.

Because of Mr. Reagan's heavy-handed regulation of private industry the free market isn't working.

All conservatives need do is repeal Mr. Reagan's law. Maybe Paul Ryan will lead this charge!
posted by three blind mice at 1:19 AM on July 13, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure why this post is OK if the post about the US killing of the 16-year-old American citizen was deleted for being "election-filter."
posted by John Cohen at 1:19 AM on July 13, 2012

So... some random blog post by Henry Rollins is the post?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:21 AM on July 13, 2012

"Bubba has no real economic reason to buy health insurance"

Yeah, going bankrupt and losing your home forever and leaving your loved ones with hundreds of thousands in medical bills is no biggie.

And really, you're saying it would be _better_ for a society to turn dying people away from hospitals?

Remind me never to visit you in Somalia.
posted by bardic at 1:22 AM on July 13, 2012

I try to be socially sensitive and politically correct, but I'm willing to admit that I liked Henry Rollins when he was part of African-American Flag.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:23 AM on July 13, 2012

And really, you're saying it would be _better_ for a society to turn dying people away from hospitals?

Well, if you think it has deterrent value to keep others from being uninsured when they had a choice, yes, but then you probably think the death penalty is a deterrent too...

But economically, making emergency room service the ONLY guaranteed medical service for all was rather disastrous (like most of what Reagan did).

But back on topic, Henry Rollins is one of those wonderfully entertaining nutcases who gets things right just often enough to make it SEEM worthwhile to keep listening to him. Like Ron Paul with muscles and tattoos.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:33 AM on July 13, 2012

Some good points there, TBM, aside from the fact that the Republican base would love to repeal that law regardless of who signed it. They booed Ron Paul for saying people shouldn't be turned away.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:35 AM on July 13, 2012

One has to be suspicious of a writer who insists that he knew everything that was going to happen and proceeded to record those thoughts very minimally in their body of work.
posted by jaduncan at 1:40 AM on July 13, 2012

And really, you're saying it would be _better_ for a society to turn dying people away from hospitals?

Of course not. Such a law makes sense if you want to live in a civilized society, but one has to find a way to pay for it.

"Can he pay it? Oh, hell no. Someone will pay. Not God, and not Paul Ryan."

Arguing for free-market solutions, as Paul Ryan does, in the absence of free market incentives, is absurd. So when Rollins says "not Paul Ryan" he is exactly correct.
posted by three blind mice at 1:43 AM on July 13, 2012