Governor Larry Rhoden was at the White House Friday with some other governors to promote Donald Trump’s long-delayed and dubious proposal to bring prices on a select and so-far unknown few of America’s prescription drugs down to the level other civilized nations enjoy (subhead: Rhoden and Trump agree with Dakota Free Press that nations with universal health care provide better, cheaper care than the U.S.).
Rhoden tried to express his gratitude, but Sleepy Don, in a display of his vacuous self-absorption, responded not with commentary on the policy implications for South Dakota, not with a mention of Rhoden’s own health-care cost-saving initiatives to reciprocate the compliment, but with an embarrassingly selfish sleazy reminder that he wants his face on Mount Rushmore:
The supposed adults in the room force their laughter at Old Man Trump’s persistent megalomania. “Come on, Larry,” urges Medicare/Medicaid boss Mehmet Oz with a disrespectful first-name diminution that he wouldn’t dare pull on camera on the executive seated tiredly before him.
But, incredibly, Larry Rhoden dares zing Donald Trump in the Oval Office. To Trump’s reminder that he wants his face “on that beautiful wall”, Rhoden says, “You want it on Crazy Horse?”
Trump, of course, doesn’t know what Rhoden is referring to. Trump probably wasn’t even listening, except maybe to sense with alarm that one of his standing backdrop minions was daring to upstage him. Rhoden briefly held out his hand to emphasize his words. Trump mistook that gesture as an invitation to shake hands. Rhoden started to withdraw his hand, then recovered and grasped Trump’s hand. Trump looked away as they touched, a sure sign that Trump had extended his hand not in cordiality but in dismissal, to shut down the Larry Rhoden portion of the show before Rhoden made any more wisecracks.
But crack wise our man Larry did, signaling that he may recognize the ridiculousness of the leader of the free world begging to have his own face added to a monument to great presidents.
The Ree Hills would do. Right off the upcoming new bike trail on Highway 14 at Ree Heights. It’s in the middle of no where. A very good piss stop.
George Washington became a warlord because slaves created the wealth that afforded him cannon, powder and ball and Thomas Jefferson began raping Sally Hemings when she was fourteen so Trump would be in good company.
Had Rhoden “deez nutz” he would have informed his President that SD has zero control over what would become known as “Mt. SlushMore”.
Donald can begin work on his stone face at will.
I say go for it, Donnie. The whole place has bad karma, anyway.
I’m surprised the Dear Leader has not already demolished the current four faces to make room for his 4x sized portrait.
I don’t think Rhoden meant it as a “zing.” I think Rhoden was thinking “Crazy Horse isn’t important, it would be better to have Trump there.”
If you want socialized medicine so much, move to Canada. Please. Or any of the other countries tvat have it.
Then you can come back to the USA to receive the care you can’t get in those countries.
That’s if you are not left to slowly bleed to death over the course of 80 minutes at the scene of a car crash like Princess Diana. THAT story should have alarmed everybody about how universal health care works. The French system saved a lot of money letting her die at the scene before transporting her to a trauma center. Way to go.
Sure, there’s a growing movement among Democrats and others to fund Medicare for all but this interested party likes the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TriCare, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Health Administration together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, socialized water systems and now a socialized internet are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.
Ok Algebra, I’ll take Norway. Find me a house, please.
By the way Algebra, you should check how the American system rates against those with socialized medicine. Its easy to look up the ratings. Figure in the cost, we pay so much more and get so much less, now how is that?
Robert Burns is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Dean Emeritus of the Honors College at South Dakota State University. His column about Medicare for All appears in the Brookings Beacon.
https://brookingsbeacon.com/medicare-for-all-seems-reasonable/
My dear Algebra, I will see your one and raise you 18,000. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) previously estimated roughly 18,000 annual premature deaths among uninsured adults based on 2000 data, a figure that later research showed grew as the number of uninsured rose.
Rene smartly notices that Rhoden is suggesting the Crazy Horse monument isn’t as important as Mount Rushmore and thus may be reading by our Lakota friends as an insult to their culture.
But that suggestion only intensifies Rhoden’s poke at Trump. Rhoden was invited to the Oval Office to serve as backdrop, to pay homage to the Dear Leader. Rhoden forgets his place and makes fun of Trump’s wildly selfish aspirations by suggesting that instead of immortalizing him in stone next to the four Great White Fathers we carve his face next to some old Indian. What an insult, and delivered right at the heart of Trump’s gilded palace!
A local North Korean leader making such a jest in Kim Jong Un’s presence would be escorted out to the firing squad. Let’s see if Trump realizes the full extent of Rhoden’s jibe and rescinds his endorsement.
R. Adams Cowley, the WWII trauma surgeon who noted that trauma victims treated within 60 minutes (the Golden Hour he called it) had twice the survival rate, died in 1991.
When my DIL was in a car crash last year, paramedics didn’t waste time taking her to the nearest hospital, they transported her 20 miles to the R Adams Cowley Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore. That place has an impressive history.
The center was founded by him and had the survival statistics to prove his ideas worked.
6 years after R. Adams Cowley died, the Princess of Wales was allowed to bleed to death in Paris, and was not transported to a trauma center until AFTER she had a cardiac arrest. The accident that killed her occurred at 12:25. She did not arrive at hospital until 2:06.
What do you call THAT?? The VIP treatment? Or a failure to provide the medical care which had already been a standard since WWII?
Over in the UK, we can hear horror stories of unassisted childbirth because midwives don’t show up, ambulances don’t arrive, and they brag about what they call the “free birthing” movement. Now there is a delightful Netflix film about a NICU nursed blamed for the death of a baby who died because after the amniotic membranes ruptured, the mother didn’t give birth for another 60 hours and was not given antibiotics to prevent a beta-strept infection. That was the fault of the NICU nurse? That’s a really shitty healthcare system. Really shitty.
Since anecdotes now substitute for statistical evidence of health outcomes in Algebra’s world, look what I found:
Your Stories Of Being Sick Inside The U.S. Health Care System : Shots – Health News : NPR https://share.google/tms5a1ppbBd8u48vM
Since this now means the US health care system is “really shitty” because some people shared negative stories, we are in a real quandary about what to do.
Or, you know, maybe provide statistical evidence of health outcomes between nations like most people who haven’t undergone a frontal lobotomy would do. Your call, really.
IMHO – The Queen had Diana killed as she was embarrassing the crown by dating Muslim men. That’s why she bled out. M15 on the scene.