Saturday, October 10, 2009

Isn’t It Ironic? Don’tcha Think?

Arthur Laffer, the economist who popularized the infamous “Laffer Curve” (i.e., tax cuts increase tax revenues) and a Nashville resident, has a new gig:
DENVER & NASHVILLE, Tenn. - (Business Wire) BridgeHealth Medical, Inc. (www.BridgeHealthMedical.com), the nation’s premier provider of medical travel services, announces the appointment of Arthur Laffer, Ph.D. to its Board of Directors, further elevating the Company’s position as a strategic partner to employers, health plans and other stakeholders. Drawing upon his distinguished career as an economic strategist for some of the great political and business forces of our time, Dr. Laffer will help to shape the expansion of BridgeHealth’s medical travel options and services and accelerate market uptake.

”Medical travel?” You mean, medical tourism? Like, all of those people fleeing America’s overpriced healthcare system for places like Indonesia where they can have that heart bypass surgery without going bankrupt?

That kind of medical travel?

Why, yes:

What We Do

In the search for higher quality, lower cost healthcare, you may have come across a concept described as medical “tourism”—the notion of individuals traveling abroad for care and savings. Far from a new idea, people have been traveling beyond their own borders in the pursuit of healing for thousands of years. 

And while there are certainly attractions to see and benefits to be gained from traveling to new places as a tourist, don’t be mislead. The concept of serious medical travel for businesses and individuals, from an industry leader with decades of healthcare expertise, is both compelling and available now from BridgeHealth.

You know, it’s true. Where there’s shit one always finds flies.

And how absolutely perfect that the guy who popularized the whole supply-side fairy tale would feed off the pile of dog poo that is our American healthcare system.

No wonder Republicans didn’t bother to fix healthcare all those years they were in power. There’s too much money to be made by keeping it broken.