I don’t know about you, but the other night I was listening to the radio on my way home from work when I heard the Republican “solution” to the health care crisis, which essentially boils down to everyone buying their own insurance so that the “free market” can control prices.

(Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m kinda hoping I am.)

My reaction was something along the lines of, “WHAAAAA? WHAAAAAAAAA? WHAAAAAT FUCKING PLANET DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE ON?”

Don’t they realize that millions of people try to buy their own insurance but are turned down by the agencies? Don’t they realize it’s as difficult to buy a private policy from a health insurance company as it is to get a sentimental, Broadway-bawling confession of man-man love from Senator Larry Craig? If you’re lucky, you might get one of those emergency policies that only covers you when you are run over by Cheney’s Hummer and put in the hospital.

I am totally agape at this so-called solution. Like, who are these people? Seriously, who are they? Because this goes way beyond the usual out-of-touch politicians syndrome. To make this work, they’d have to do something incredibly un-Republican and anti-free market, which would be to essentially legislate the insurance companies into granting policies to whoever wanted them. Is that what they’re advocating?

I think it was McCain who was speaking and he said that having “free care like in Europe” meant that people would be delayed care. That’s a bunch of horseshit. While there’s the occasional problem with major medical procedures — and that’s a serious consideration — any day of the week in France, for example, you can walk into a doctor’s office and get care. I did, and I was a foreigner. You even get housecalls. No questions asked.

Not that I think the Democratic solution is any better, but they’re a wee bit less out of touch as these characters. This is idiocy at its recent grandest.