A healthy (or rather, health-related) smogasboard for your reading pleasure:

Eric Thompson, a gun dealer who sold the firearms that were used in last year’s Virginia Tech massacre, spoke at Virginia Tech as a guest of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.  (Story here.)  He believes that, had other students been armed, the massacre would have been much less deadly.  (Tieki stated the same thing a few months ago.)  Thompson’s speech was not that of a zealot:

Thompson said he supports enforcing existing gun laws and mental health reform to try to prevent further tragedies. He qualified many comments by saying he didn’t believe everyone should own a gun and said the two sides in the heated debate over gun control could find common ground.

Entirely reasonable; sadly, liberals don’t see it that way.

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker released a statement about the visit, acknowledging the importance of free speech but saying that he found Thompson’s appearance “terribly offensive.”

“The organizers appear to be incredibly insensitive to the families of the victims who lost loved ones and to the injured students still recovering from this horrendous tragedy,” he said.

Holly Adams-Sherman, mother of Leslie Sherman, one of the students killed in Norris Hall, said Thompson’s appearance at Tech was in poor taste. She heard about it late Wednesday.

Let me get this straight.  A horrible tragedy occurred.  A man who is arguably part of the chain of events comes to apologise for his role and suggest means by which such tragedies can be avoided in the future, so that other people will not have to suffer so horribly.  This is “offensive” and “insensitive.”

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The MSM uses the term “unborn twins” to describe a tragedy in which a woman, who was five months pregnant, miscarried after being shot.  (Here.)  Serious applause for these words, even if their use was unintentional - those are not “fetuses” or “products of conception;” they are unborn twins.  My condolences to the young woman who suffered so horribly.

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A nationwide study indicated that female residents of Southwest Virginia have experienced a decrease of approximately six years in their life expectancy from 1983.  (Here.)  The study indicated that, nationwide, those in poor and rural areas were the most likely to live a shorter time than people of their parents’ generation.

More, below the fold:

In the 1980s, medical schools capped their enrollment, which reduced the number of doctors in practice.  This has had a disproportionate effect upon poor and rural areas.  In the 1990s, Medicare and Medicaid decreased the amount of money it paid to general surgeons; they receive approximately half of the money that they received in the mid-1980s.  Rural areas cannot support specialised medicine, so those communities rely upon general surgeons.  The result has been a decrease in the medical care available to people in poor and rural areas.  Should we be surprised, then, when people in rural communities have the horrible situation of living a shorter life than their parents, despite wonderful innovations in medical care?

Query whether socialised medicine (which reduces the number of people willing to be doctors, and especially doctors in under-served areas) will actually improve the health of Americans.

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One in four Americans people in America who lack insurance are eligible for coverage (here).  Another one-quarter are illegal aliens, who strain our emergency rooms and health care services, thereby driving up costs for those who are insured… and, of course, making it more difficult for Americans to get affordable coverage.

A quick statistical issue with the study:

The report, based on 2006 data from the 2007 Current Population Survey, also estimated that of the 10 million uninsured non-U.S. citizens, 5.6 million are undocumented immigrants, and 4.4 million are legal residents.

There are at least 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.  Is NIHCMF really suggesting that over half of them carry American health insurance?  Only 59% of American employees receive health care through their jobs; are we to really believe that illegal immigrants (who work in unskilled, transient labour jobs) are equally as likely as the average American to get employer-based health care?  Or, alternatively, that the people who are too irresponsible to insure their cars and keep their kids out of L.A. gangs buy individual policies from Blue Cross/Blue Shield?  I don’t think so!