What average man?

Health insurance: a statistical nightmare

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports

on his conduct agree That in the modern sense of an old- fashioned word, he was a saint.

— W. H. Auden, March 1939

OUR HEARTS go out to Andy Davis, our man on the health- insurance beat. As for our minds, he exhausted their poor powers of analysis long ago. For it seems there is every possible form of government- subsidized health plan and quite a few that aren’t— federal, state mixed and other. Then sand and polish them all to a fine frog’s hair split 10 ways from Sunday.

And that’s not counting the Private Option, which isn’t so private. Welcome, follow citizens and suckers, to this House of Mirrors and good luck if you ever make it out.

Surely simple is better, and simplest best of all. Why not just let everybody take responsibility for his own medical bills and learn to live with the consequences? Experience is a dear school, and even if fools will learn in no other, it remains the best.

Once upon a time, Americans dealt directly with their doctors and their doctors directly with them. That way, the doctors could spend their time doctoring— instead of filling out forms. It’s a patient art as old as Hippocrates, who described in detail, beginning First Do No Harm— and what could do more harm than rushing both doctor and patient? And treating both as soulless statistics instead of real, living, fallible people?

He was married and added

five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says

was the right number for a parent of his generation; And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd. Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.