Let them eat raisins

It all became clear when I read of Theresa's arthritis remedy. Take some white raisins, soak them in gin for a couple of weeks, and eat them every day. I guess it works for her.

During a visit to Nevada, she criticized television advertising of prescription drugs, as it increases consumer demand. Apparently, consumer involvement in healthcare decisions is a bad thing.

In her words, as reported in the Reno Gazette-Journal's online edition,

“It’s like cereal (advertising),” she said. “The more sugar, the more toys, the more kids want it.”

Of course, her and her husband's plan calls for government paid healthcare for every American. If there is anything we have learned from socialism in the past century, it's that whatever is "free" or subsidized, begets unlimited demand. Which is why socialism fails miserably at every turn. Costs go up, shortages are inevitable. Witness the flu shot shortage this year.

When individuals have a financial stake in their own healthcare spending, they have an incentive to put the brakes on unnecessary drugs and services. Free markets. Consumer choice. What a concept. Of course, that would fall under the purview of President Bush's Health Savings accounts, so it must be bad bad bad.

Oddly, she used the same occasion to support re-importation of drugs from Canada, seeming to simultaneously support socialism and free markets. “We will play the market. That is what Americans do”, she said, slyly including herself as a real American.

The Left imagines water will not seek it's own level, Newtonian physics will no longer apply, down is up, the Sun will rise in the West, all by government fiat. "Power to the people." And pharmaceutical companies will gladly sell unlimited quantities of proprietary drugs to socialist Canada, only to watch them come back across the border and cannibalize their home market.

Theresa and her dreamy-eyed followers imagine that people smart enough to invent Nexium and Zocor are simultaneously too stupid to notice they will lose money if they sell drugs at a loss.

"We're losing 2 dollars a pill, but we make it up in volume."

Drug companies will plug that leak faster than that dyke-boy in Holland. It will be like the Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld-- "No more drugs for you. One year!"

Which is fine with me. I am tired of subsidizing those delusional faux-Americans' socialist fantasies anyway. In fact, let's charge them extra when they come down to the United States for otherwise-unavailable surgical procedures. A Canuck Tax, if you will. And you pay twice if you utter a single word in French.

I hate to seem personal when discussing Theresa Heinz Kerry, but her own words leave me with this indelible mental image. Every time I see her picture, I shall be reminded of a gin-soaked white raisin.

Which she is apparently chugging.