Blunt Lies about Health Care

So. Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) said recently: 

"I'm 59. In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn't get it replaced."

This is what's known in polite society as "untrue." It is also what's known as "absurd." How absurd? 

Glad you asked. This absurd:

At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year and two-thirds of those done in England were on patients age 65 or older. More than 1,200 in Canada were done on people older than 85.

It is so absurd, in fact, that it makes one wonder whether the speaker is an idiot or a liar. I mean, here's the thing: he's a United State senator who's been studying health care. A U.S. senator making a statement like that is assumed to have some idea what he's talking about. When he's that wrong? It's either remarkable incompetence or outright lying. 

Comments

[Lee Garbett]

Hey, Chief.

I can tell you that my Dad needed a hip replacement and had one on the NHS. They were fantastic and it's still going strong 15 yrs on. And what's more they gave my Dad a case of Guinness to help boost his iron!

Now THAT'S service.

My son and wife, both of whom have terrible asthma, get all their treatment absolutely free and are monitored regularly.

The NHS isn't perfect and if you've got money then people do go privately with BUPA and the like but on the whole its a marvelous system with a lot of very dedicated and caring people.

It's the way forward.

[Jenn]

Maybe the word studying should go in quotation marks along with untrue and absurd.

But seriously, be careful about making apples to oranges comparisons. In the US, we might have a much higher need for hip replacements per capita. You must understand that our hip-replacement waiting rooms will be very, very crowded now that just anyone off the street can just walk . . . hovel? . . . whatever . . . in for a hip replacement. Perhaps the good senator is afraid that he couldn't get a hip replacement at his age--well, not because he would be refused a hip replacement due to his supposedly age-related lack of viability--but because a man his age cannot be expected to wait with all of those skateboarding punks and their blue hair. Some of them may have even been involved in mosh pit accidents!

The nerve--I mean, the personal responsibility of these people! Perhaps, taking a cue from Disneyland and implementing a Fastpass system . . .

Sorry. You're right. It is absurd.