Yeah, But We Get Better Cable

OK, we've been sort of following this story for a while now figuring that it's the perfect metaphor for the need for health reform in this country and waiting for the media to jump all over it. We mean, after all Remote Area Medical is a charity group that usually works in third world countries. Their motto is:

The Remote Area Medical® (RAM) Volunteer Corps is a non-profit, volunteer, airborne relief corps dedicated to serving mankind by providing free health care, dental care, eye care, veterinary services, and technical and educational assistance to people in remote areas of the United States and the world.

Now, the last time we checked, Los Angeles, California didn't really look like a remote area to us, but hey, we do tend to imbibe a little so we could have missed something somewhere. Maybe we got confused and were really looking at Pittsburgh or something. Anyway several of the people living in this remote area showed up:

A total of 1,500 tickets were handed out the first day of the clinic. More will be distributed but time is reduced now.

OK, so this medical charity shows up in a major American city and the lines are around the block, and then some. And these are not just people who don't have insurance, they're people who are working but who don't have enough insurance because that would apparently cut into the company's dividend or something. We don't understand high powered business concepts, although a lot more of the problem fell into place when someone told us insurance was started by pirates.

This is big, thinks us. Even the "Health Care Experts" and "Senior Medical Correspondents" and "Science Reporters" should be able to see the implications of this though the steam rising from their lattes: American Health Care is so bad, we're attracting agencies that usually work in third world countries. In the backwaters of third world countries. So we sits us back and waits for the explosion of outrage, embarrassment and anger.

Silly us.

What we got was some occasional coverage that was like, Oh yeah, we're a third world nation now when it comes to health care. In other news DEATH PANELS!! BLARK!! SPURT!! GAAAK!!

Hey buddy. You want to see a real death panel in action? Visit the Board of Directors meeting of any health care insurance company.

These are American citizens, not Ethiopian refugees