Gaffe and lie in Portsmouth: Got a toothache? Get a colonoscopy
How can the president think the American people are going to follow him toward health care reform when he exhibits such ignorance about medicine?
We missed this initially, but Ed Morrissey at Hot Air picked up on it.
During his town hall in New Hampshire, the president said this:
Now, when we pass health insurance reform, insurance companies will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because no one in America should go broke because they get sick. (Applause.)
And finally — this is important — we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies — (applause) — because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end. That makes sense, it saves lives; it also saves money — and we need to save money in this health care system.
If a colonoscopy is designed to detect prostate cancer, why did Katie Couric get one and show it on TV? She doesn’t have a prostate.
As Ed Morrissey writes:
Does that “make sense”? Only if you flunked medical school. Colonoscopies don’t detect prostate cancer; they give an early warning of colon cancer. If Obama hasn’t yet figured out the difference between a prostate exam and a colonoscopy, someone should tell him to switch doctors.
Add this to painting doctors as greedy and wanting to go after our tonsils and our limbs, and you’ve got to wonder from where the president is getting his information. With statements like this, do we really want to hand over 1/6th of the economy? It would be like letting the Post Office run health care.
What’s more, preventative care isn’t going to save money. It may save individuals money in the long run, but not the system, as Charles Krauthammer points out in the Washington Post.
Morrissey also notes that the Hoover Institute found that Americans actually leads the industrialized world in preventative care.
It was Ronald Reagan who said in 1964, “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so!”
Obama is the poster child for that quote.
Sources:
The White House, Aug. 11, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM TOWN HALL
Hot Air, Aug. 14, 2009
Charles Krauthammer, Aug. 14, 2009
I had a colonoscopy Aug 10. My insurance covered the procedured minus the deductable (co-pay we call it now) of $500. Most folks think all health service co-pays are the same low office visit $10 – $20 and are surprised and upset to be disabused of that notion. The cost to me is in the policy as surgical services. My sister’s mamogram also was paid by her insurance less the co-pay.
I question Obama’s knowledge of anatomy. Colonoscopies are not performed “on the front end” although I was required to present photo ID for the procedure. But, not for voting…
Indigo Red said Aug. 25, 2009.