Via Josh Marshall, the genuinely demented Investors’ Business Daily published this in an editorial:

The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the “quality adjusted life year.”

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

As Josh points out, Hawking is, in fact, British, and has lived his entire life in the UK.

I Best He Has Whiplash, Too. You may have heard that a African-American, anti-health reform protester in St. Louis was attacked beaten by SEIU “thugs” last week. According to the rightie blogosphere, the protester, Kenneth Gladney, is in serious condition. This is supposed to be a video of the attack:

I’m with Steve Benen — I can’t make out what’s going on in this video, or who is doing what to whom. The only two people I see in SEIU shirts are women who don’t look physicially capable of harming anyone, unless the one limping lady smacked the guy with her cane off-camera.

Let me be clear that this kind of shouting and probable smacking around of somebody, although I can’t make out who exactly, is unacceptable and inexcusable.

Still, Steve Benen gives us this tidbit from local news:

Gladney did not address Saturday’s crowd of about 200 people. His attorney, David Brown, however, read a prepared statement Gladney wrote. “A few nights ago there was an assault on my liberty, and on yours, too.” Brown read. “This should never happen in this country.”

Supporters cheered. Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance. [emphasis added]

And he has a lawyer, who no doubt is preparing to sue somebody. So much for tort reform.

Good Morning, Little Lulu. Malkin is outraged about the “freedoms” that will be taken away from Americans by “Obamacare.” What freedoms, you ask? Here they are listed; I paraphrase the first three somewhat to clear up some ambiguities.

1. The Freedom to be ripped off by less-than-comprehensive junk insurance policies.
2. The Freedom to see your premiums jacked up if you get sick.
3. The Freedom to pay for your health care out of your own pocket or savings, or do without.

Here Lulu pisses me off:

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan.

The entire reason the Obama Administration avoided marching to single payer or Medicare-for-All is to allow people to keep their employer-based insurance, and this is the thanks he gets. We shoulda just said “screw ’em all” and go for single payer.

And the last is just a lie:

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

We lost that freedom already, after most of us got shuffled into HMOs. Catch up. Lulu.

See also: Chris Good and James Fallows at The Atlantic;