Rich, Powerful Trial Lawyer Jumps Health Care Rationing Queue ― in America!
This is the type of story you would expect to see in a British or Canadian newspaper. Here are the elements:
- Government policies cause the rationing of life-saving care.
- Rich, politically powerful patient is risking his life waiting for care.
- Patient uses his influence to bend the rules and get care being denied to others.
Except this time the patient is Fred Baron, the tort lawyer king who was paying hush money to John Edward’s girlfriend. Denied access to an experimental cancer drug which might save his life, Baron turned to his friends. According to the Dallas Morning News, the list included Lance Armstrong, the bicyclist and cancer survivor; Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass; and Sen. Edward Kennedy.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRjJ_dSmKfA
I get by with a little help from my friends.
Single payer advocates should be ecstatic. We already have Canadian health care.
Here’s my question for George W: What’s the point of having power if you can’t deny special favors to your enemies. If Karl Rove needed a special drug permit under an Obama Administration, what do you think his chances would be?
Update: the patient didn’t make it, dying just a few days before the Democratic electoral victory he helped fund. John Edwards was among the mourners.