G.O.P. Emergency-Room Politics: Who Is on the Side of Kids with Cancer? | Amy Davidson @ The New Yorker
This is not just about the hypocrisy of the G.O.P.’s rhetoric, or its practical cruelty. In bringing about this shutdown, the Republicans are infecting our political processes with the pathologies that made the American health-care system such a mess. The idea that it’s fine to stumble ahead with much of the federal workforce furloughed, that emergencies (the showy ones) can easily be disposed of with “piecemeal” spending bills, is another version of the argument, often heard in conservative circles, that we don’t really have an insurance problem in this country because people can always go to emergency rooms. This is America; we don’t let people die, except that we do.