Evangelicals Won’t Like Implants As Bush’s Answer to Rising Health Costs
Posted : October 15, 2004 at 2:09 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
During the Tempe debate and elsewhere, Bush has intoned that “they” say that healthcare costs can be cut markedly by the proper use of technology. We can get out of the “buggy and horse” days, Bush said, and suggested that health care record keeping (too many files) is the problem.
This article in the New York Times may hold the key to what Bush intends. Recently-approved implants would simply “barcode” us all. A scanner would then let the health care professional know the identify of the person, and point to health care records.
To people who value their privacy, this is not a solution to be entered into lightly.
And for the evangelicals and other religious people who make up part of Bush’s team or base, this might be horrifying, to some perhaps anathema. Some people do not like social security, after all, not for economic reasons, but because the social security number may represent the “mark of the beast.”
And this may be why Bush does not spell out what solution he is referring to. Word is coming in that focus groups were held to check on whether people thought health care records were slowing things down, and whether they thought technology in the form of embedded chips would be a good answer. The results could not have been wholly positive or Bush would have stated the obvious, that this is his solution to rising health care costs.
- Anand
Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004