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Aren't We Lucky?!

President Bush believes that physicians and other health-care professionals in America don’t use computers as often or as well as they should:

We’ve got the best medical system in the world. The role of the federal government is to keep it that way. Most industries in America have used information technology to make their businesses more cost-effective, more efficient and more productive — and the truth of the matter is health care hasn’t.

What does this quotation reveal about politicians in America?

1) Coherence is unnecessary. (Compare sentence one with sentence three.)

2) Holding high political office gives the holder the illusion of being god-like. Not only does Mr. Bush know how to meddle militarily in world affairs; not only does he know when foreign steel producers are charging prices that are too low and when they stop charging these too-low prices; not only does he know how to lead a team of politicians in designing and implementing an allegedly cost-effective system that forces Smith to pay for Jones’s prescription medications – but he knows also that U.S. health-care providers don’t use enough information technology.

3) The oath taken by each political office-holder in America – to abide by the U.S. Constitution – is absolutely unbinding and ignored with impunity. Taking this oath has no more meaning for, or effect upon, most modern politicians than emitting an ‘uh’ or an ‘umm’ has on each of us when we stumble in speech. (To emphasize the obvious, the U.S. Constitution contains no clause that can remotely be interpreted as giving to Uncle Sam the responsibility for keeping health-care in the U.S. the best in the world.)

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