Thursday, February 16, 2006

And That's How To Solve The Health Care Crisis In America. Now, Who Wants Cheeseburgers?

OK, the president is off to tout his health care plan. So where is his first stop? Wendy's, home of the triple bacon cheeseburger, Biggie fries and a Biggie drink plus a coupon for $50 off your next visit to the ER.

Sometimes the Ironicus is just too Maixmus. Even for us.

Bush visited the Ohio headquarters of fast-food chain Wendy's to tout a health agenda he said would make the system complicated and confusing. "Hey, they have chicken too," the president said, when asked about his choice of locales.

Bush urged the expansion of health savings accounts, or HSAs, which allow people to set aside money they would otherwise use to pay their bills in tax-free savings accounts. When asked how the working poor, or the unemployed could afford to set money aside Bush said he had been told that those people "go up to Canada" for their treatment.

"Most Americans have no idea what their actual cost of treatment is," Bush said. "There's no reason at all to worry about price. Somebody else is paying the bill." Asked to explain how the 46 million people in the country without health insurance fit into that category the president said that he was "tired of hearing about" Katrina victims.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said, "These are the people that brought you the war in Iraq, the Katrina response, and the new Medicare prescription drug benefit .
You'd probably have a better chance of staying healthy if you went hunting with the vice president."

Bush's
health agenda also includes reining in malpractice lawsuits. "I haven't taken responsibility for any of my screw ups," the president said. "And you even reelected me. Why shouldn't doctors get the same free pass?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did sense a certain supersizing of the irony when I learned that Bush's speech was at Wendy's HQ.

Rory Shock said...

The HSA is almost as unpalatable as much of the food served at Wendy's ... understand they are force-feeding the prisoners at Gitmo with it ... now they want to forcefeed the people the HSA ... check out my post on it at my home page