Is Romney for real?

Mitt Romney's ER comments from 60 minutes are just plain strange. This is why I think he's having difficulty: either he just doesn't see things the way they actually are or he doesn't believe what he's saying. If this man is supposed to be such a compassionate and caring religious man, why would he essentially say the medical version of "let them eat cake…"

PELLEY: Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today? 

ROMNEY: Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance, people -- we -- if someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and -- and die. We -- we pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.  

PELLEY: That's the most expensive way to do it.  

ROMNEY: Well the...  

PELLEY: In the emergency room. 

ROMNEY: Diff -- different, again, different states have different ways of doing that. Some -- some provide that care through clinics. Some provide the care through emergency rooms. In my state, we found a solution that worked for my state. But I wouldn't take what we did in Massachusetts and say to Texas, "You've got to take the Massachusetts model."

But we take what other states do well and implement them in other states ALL THE TIME! States are generally the proving grounds to test out theories of good governance. That's one of the benefits of our governmental system.  But The Atlantic makes an excellent point of showing why Romey's statements make no sense fiscally.

His more recent comments appear to be something different: Romney is basically saying that the cost savings don't matter. And that's a strange perspective, as both the pragmatic technocrat and the disciplined fiscal conservative he insists he is. Candidate Romney doesn't provide an alternative explanation for how he'd keep the public from paying for free riders... and that's a huge chunk of taxpayer dollars: a 2004 Kaiser Family Foundation survey calculated that free riders cost the federal and state governments almost $35 billion per year.

I've been emergency rooms quite a bit due to having a child with multiple ear infections, a viral infection that led to my child having difficulty walking, asthma attacks, and fevers of 106 degrees. I knew which emergency rooms to go to to avoid long waits because people were getting primary care services there. I learned after a few of those visits to goto a private urgent care facility for certain things like high fevers and infections because those facilities could handle these issues in half the time. They were also lots cheaper, I could make an appointment very quickly and avoid a long wait(at least if things were going wrong before midnight and after 6am). 

I figured out what Romney, and anybody with half a brain, figured out in Massachusetts: Emergency room care is expensive and a horrible way to get treated unless it is a true emergency. Fiscally and medically, ER care doesn't make sense as a way to treat fiscally indigent patients.  But importantly, the wording of Romney's statement just makes one feel un cared for. Like, thanks(?) I'm glad there is emergency care and we don't let people die in their homes, but I would like to have medical care BEFORE I have the heart attack.  I'd like to see a general practitioner on a regular basis, and not have to be on the hook for thousands of dollars for said heart attack after treatment in said ER.

Oh well, I guess its the moocher part of my psyche that just tells me to send all my bills to rich people cause as a part of the 47%, I really am embracing my victimhood. I think I'll stop working and go on public assistance right now….