Infection

Noted health care reform killer Betsy McCaughey made a revealing statement on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" recently, and it wasn't about the geriatric euthanasia clause in the current reform bill that she completely made up. She defended the current health care system by insisting that it prolongs life better than any other health care system in any other nation, and that the United States would be number one if life expectancy if not for our high rate of homicides and car crashes.

So, part of the reason Americans don't live on average as long as they should is because we have . . . too many guns and too many cars.

The one good thing about this information - assuming McCaughey didn't make this up too - is that it bolsters arguments for more sensible handgun control and more public transit - two other quality-of-life issues this country can't seem to address.

Did I happen to mention drive-by shootings?

McCaughey served as lieutenant governor of New York under George Pataki in the mid-nineties, which clinches it - that office is for losers. But despite the slapstick comedy going on up in Albany under David Paterson, New Yorkers (the state residents, I mean) should be at least thankful it was Eliot Spitzer and not Pataki who was caught with a prostitute.

McCaughey has lost another job. She was voted out of her position on the board at Cantel Medical Corporation, a New Jersey company that provides infection prevention and control products to the health care market. Ironic that she was involved with a firm devoted infection prevention products, given that she's infected the health care debate.