If I Can Use a Medical Analogy About the Budget….

[McCamy Taylor]

Suppose a man comes into the office. He accidentally smashed his right hand through a glass door, and now he has a lacerated artery and a piece of glass stuck in his palm. He is bleeding profusely, despite the towel that someone tied around his injured hand. His blood pressure is low, his pulse is up, and he is starting to look pale.

The Boehner Plan calls for inserting a large bore IV into his other arm, so that the rest of his blood can be drained. Once he is completely out of blood, the laceration on his right hand will stop bleeding, and the GOP will pronounce him “cured”.

The Reid Plan is a lot like the Boehner Plan, except that under this plan the offending piece of glass will be removed from the “combat zone” of the man’s hand and sent “back home” to the door from which it came before the IV is inserted and the patient’s blood is drained.

The Cut, Cap and Balance Bill of the House calls for removing the glass from the patient’s right hand and using it to open his left radial artery so that he can be drained of blood, saving the federal government the expense of an IV. The towel will be "privatized" and given to the Koch Brothers to recycle into paper for their Dixie Cup Co.

The Gang of Six Plan calls for doing nothing. Instead, “normal” blood pressure and pulse values will be changed, restoring the patient to “health.”

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/22/us/politics/20110722-comparing-deficit-reduction-plans.html?hp

[glowing]

1. All pretty bad plans for the patient.. I'm assuming half assed messures like this in an ER

would have the patient dying in cruel and inhumane ways.

[dgibby]

2. Freakin' perfect analogy!

(And I say this as a retired RN with ER experience.)