I, like everyone else, saw the coverage recently about former President Bill Clinton's heart problems and resulting surgery. While anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, I certainly don't wish him ill health and hope he has a speedy recovery.
I saw his so-called wife, Hillary, talking to the press the other day about Bill's heart problem. She mentioned that he was receiving the best of health care, "as hopefully everyone in America will some day be able to receive." This is obviously a reference to her plan to nationalize the country's health care system which she and her socialist cronies have not given up on (and, in fact, are slowly having implementing anyway). Of course, if we had her style of health system today, poor ol' Bill wouldn't have had his "free" heart bypass yet. He would still be on a six month waiting list. Oh, wait, no he wouldn't. Since he's part of America's Royalty, he would probably be exempt from the same waiting period everyone else would be subject to. Can't have the future President's alleged husband dying while waiting on health care, can we?
(Click "Read More" to hear an interesting conspiracy theory.)
I heard an interesting theory today that Clinton has known about his heart condition for a while now. He waited until now to make it public and do anything about it so he would have an excuse to miss stumping for John Kerry. And the news of Clinton's problem just after the Republican Convention will certainly suck even more oxygen out of Kerry's campaign. Clinton certainly doesn't want Kerry to be elected because that would mean the Hildabeast couldn't run in 2008. I'm not sure I completely subscribe to this theory, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Update: 9/8/2004
Well, the Cato Institute has pointed out the same thing I was saying about how Clinton could have suffered under a socialized health care system. Their article is here: Clinton Got Quick Care, Unlike Canadian Heart Patients.
Below is a chart which I shamelessly stole from Cato's article that outlines the difference in care Clinton received verses the typical Canadian.
| Waiting for bypass surgery | ||
|---|---|---|
| Appointment with cardiologist | Urgent bypass surgery | |
| President Clinton | 0.5 days | 3 days |
| Typical Canadian | 24 days | 15 days |
| Source: Fraser Institute, author's calculations | ||