It's very nice to have you back writing here, and I'm sorry it had to be under such circumstances. Thanks for this.

@2, you and those like you are why we are doomed as a species. See you in hell, with everybody else.

Penny wise and pound foolish. It's the Republican way. But the president and his party have been trying for years to get more people healthcare. Republicans have held vote after vote trying to dismantle the care we need.

What I still don't get is, how a man who went to the ER and was diagnosed with a cold (a virus), got sent home with antibiotics, which are knack all use against viruses.

I think this is the best writing on ebola risk in the US that I've read.

@8 Emergency medicine as a culture?



The stated mission of the ER is to stabilize and triage patients. Most ERs are better at the former than the latter. A few thousand words could be written on that subject alone.

@13 it's true. The system is dependent on imperfect people. But the system also has ways of correcting for that.

The problem is - as Jonathan outlines here - the system is hamstrung by morons with moronic agendas.

Take for example the last thread on ebola the very first comment was a panicked plea to close the borders. That's the thinking of about 30% of dumb-as-shit irrational America.

Instead the first comment should've been "Man, we need to triple the budget of our public health systems and emergency responders asap!"

Golob certainly does attract the dumbest trolls.

Holy shit, this is a really great post! There's no fear mongering or bullshit hysteria, and credit is actually given to those who deserve it! Not to mention the ability to touch on the intersectionality of poverty and health care without oversimplifying.

Nice work!

@14 I worry in states that in states where medicare wasn't expanded we're going to have folks who forgo care because of fears of huge medical bills and a belief that "it's just a cold". If nothing else, it will certainly make things more difficult.

"This is what government is for."

Absolutely.

@19: For that impertinent comment, you should be at the intersection of a dyke full nelson and a transsexual kick in the groin.

Welcome back, Dr Golob. Not a minute too soon (we've had some troll issues since your departure) but another voice for reason is a wonderful thing. We've missed you.

Fuckin' A, Golob. Welcome back to Slog (and that was a nice turn you did on the podcast).

Actually, Texas has a lower cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate then California.

Here is the chart to prove it. Just look at the far right part of the column that reads "Supplemental Poverty Measure: Geographically adjusted"

California, that liberal utopia, has the highest while Iowa, that backwards farm state, has the lowest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S…

Supplemental poverty is when you consider the cost of living...let's face it, 30,000 a year in DC is a lot less than 30,000 a year in Wyoming.

And as for "blame Eyman", NO ONE is saying we should cut money to necessary infrastructure, not even him (as far as I'm aware, I could be wrong.) Yes, fund clean water, bridges, hospitals etc. What we fiscal conservatives object to is things like this: http://thetruthwins.com/archives/26-mill…

That, and wasting billions on the war on drugs, wars overseas that never end, corporate welfare, over FIFTY federal law enforcement agencies (why not just one with multiple departments?) etc.

If the government was cut to one half its current size, it would be as big as it was all the way back in...1995. I'm not joking.

We could keep and even expand education, healthcare spending, infrastructure spending etc if the government just stopped doing stupid shit. That's what we Libertarian want. All this "you hate roads and deh hospitals!" nonsense is just a smoke screen thrown up by people who depend on government bureaucracy (i.e., the politicians)

@24 Oh jebus where to start. Ok wtf I'll play.



"Actually, Texas has a lower cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate then California. " *shrug* I'll buy that so what? Texas has a lot of big empty flat land, so yeah so what?



"California, that liberal utopia, has the highest while Iowa, that backwards farm state, has the lowest. " Yeah so what? Have you been there? I have, my sister lives there it's actually got a pretty progressive history and yeah a conservative one lately sure. Lots of farm land not a whole lot of people, pretty homogenous.



A link to a random article about Chinese prostitutes as a refutation to spending money on infrastructure and you expect anyone to take you seriously?



I agree the Government should stop doing stupid shit, like levying taxes where the money is not.

The right's next voter-suppression tactic? https://twitter.com/boygobong/status/518…

It turns out today (per the hospital's admission) that both nurses and doctors knew he'd come from Liberia. But they released him anyway. And they lied at first when they said a nurse did tell anyone else.

Yes indeed, we are definitely ready for more of these cases, because our hospitals really know what to do.

...did NOT tell anyone else.

Even in the third world hellhole the US (according to Doc Golob) has become there's a lot to be grateful for. Here's one. I don't have a physician as poor at basic reasoning as Golob.

@25
So, you read my post saying "yes, we should build infrastructure and hospitals, but stop using tax money for stupid shit like this" and link to one of many examples of the BS government spends money on...and you read it as " a refutation to spending money on infrastructure"
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6712142848/…

And you wonder why no one takes liberals seriously.

@29: You're not one to talk about quality physicians when you think your uneducated self knows more about medicine than they do. (See: your opinions on gender-reassignment surgery and sexual orientation.)

@32: Just a reminder, you are a lying weasel who cares not two whits for the truth: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

@34: Not to dismiss what corruption there is, and there are all sorts of ways of attempting to measure it, but Liberia is smack in the middle of one widely followed index of 177 nations: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2013/resu…

The U.S. certainly has nothing to crow about; it's nineteenth on the list above, and there are plenty of reasons to consider it far, far worse.