Mike Mahaffie pointed to this article about Christine O’Donnell. Kent County physician Dr. Joann Fields has a blog about health care and health care reform. She was able to attend a Kent County Republican event and asked Christine O’Donnell about health care reform.
Christine O’Donnell does not have health insurance. I got my chance to ask her at the Kent County GOP headquarters on Thursday evening 10/14/10. She was an hour and a half late. She gave a standard speech. Then she said we could ask questions.
I walked up to her and said “I admire your dedication and convictions. My main concern is health care and I would like to ask a couple of questions“.
Fields: Do you have health insurance?
O’ Donnell : No. I pay for myself.
Fields: Isn’t that kind of frightening?
A well dressed man was standing with her, listening to us. He seemed to be a public relations person. There were two body guards. She turned away briefly to sign an autograph then turned back to me.
O’Donnell: There is a difference between health insurance and health care.
Fields: In this country you can’t really separate the two.
O’Donnell: That’s the problem.
Please read the whole post. A lot of people ask “what does insurance do?” It negotiates prices for you. I can’t imagine going into the hospital with a broken leg and haggling over price. One big advantage an insurance company has is just having a large pool of people – they can get better prices for the group (that’s why universal, government-run systems get the best prices).
So O’Donnell wants us to haggle while bleeding on a gurney. Perhaps she wants hospitals to turn you away after checking your credit. That’s the problem – health care isn’t like other services.
Also, I have to ask, how does someone who only made $5800 in one year afford any kind of health treatment? My guess is that she’s gone without medical care for a while and has the good fortune to be healthy.