Unhealthy Cartoon of the Day

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Willard "One Percenter" Romney's health care philosophy can be summed up as follows: "if you were wealthy, you'd be healthy; you're out of luck if you don't have bucks."

Willard's "Emergency Room" Solution

We noted yesterday that sketchy shape-shifter Willard "Mr. Mo' Shambles" Romney has changed his position regarding the use of emergency rooms to provide health care to the uninsured. Now, the Obama campaign is hitting him on that nonsense.



Here's a New York Times editorial on Willard's health care "plan" for the uninsured:

"Asked about the government’s responsibility to the 50 million Americans without health insurance, Mr. Romney said they already have access to health care: in emergency rooms. That, of course, is the most expensive and least effective way of providing care, as someone who once advocated universal care has reason to know. But it also reeks of contempt for those left behind by the current insurance system, suggesting that they must suffer with illness until the point where they need an ambulance.

Mr. Romney is free to pursue this shallow, cavalier campaign for six more weeks, but he shouldn’t be surprised if voters increasingly choose not to pay attention."

Willard's Shiftiness

Last night on 60 Minutes, shape-shifting plutocrat Willard "Etch-A-Sketch" Romney was asked about providing health care for those that don't have it. Willard's response was essentially that's what emergency room are for:

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care."

Wha? So now Willard thinks that Americans who have health insurance should pay for those that don't, via covering emergency room costs for the uninsured?

Mr. Etch-A-Sketch didn't always have those views. As recently as March 2010, Willard said:

"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way."

As seems to be their pattern, we expect Willard's crack team to be out today with a "clarification" of either his 2010 remarks or his remarks on 60 Minutes. It doesn't really matter which, because they'll change in a few days again.