Mike Bloomberg’s latest project is to limit supplies of painkillers to emergency rooms:
Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city officials unveiled a new initiative to limit supplies of prescription painkillers in the city’s emergency rooms as a way to combat what they described as a growing addiction problem in the region. Some critics . . ., however, felt the move would unnecessarily hurt poor and uninsured patients who use emergency rooms as their primary care doctor.
[Bloomberg said,] “Number one, there’s no evidence of that. Number two, supposing it is really true, so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect … There’s nothing that you can possibly do where somebody isn’t going to suffer, and it’s always the same group [claiming], ‘Everybody is heartless.’ Come on, this is a very big problem.”
If people “suffer a little bit”, Bloomberg thinks that’s a small price to pay to protect other people from themselves. That is absolutely disgusting. Quite simply, Mike Bloomberg does not believe in freedom.
And despite Bloomberg breezy dismissal of the possibility, this is exactly what is going to happen.
(Via the Corner.)
UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh writes:
I have had loved ones go to the hospital to undergo significant surgical procedures. The aftermath of those surgeries presented said loved ones with significant rehabilitation demands which were made all the more daunting because of the post-operative pain involved. . .
It would be best to leave these kinds of decisions to the doctor and his/her patient. So when an officious, meddling busybody decides that he is in the best position to decide who gets painkillers and who doesn’t, and when said officious, meddling busybody declares that it is okay if some people “suffer” as a consequence of his decision, I tend to get more than a little upset. And you should get more than a little upset too.
I am.
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