While signature trolling this morning at a local coffee shop, I asked a woman for hers, upon which she asked me how I felt about a bill presently on Boston’s Beacon Hill about nurse staffing. She felt the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should tell hospitals how many patients nurses should be responsible for, while adding that hospital CEOs make too much money.

At some point, after I officially make the ballot, I’ll have to bone up on more state issues like this one. The woman, who it turns out is a nurse, kind of threw me for a loop and I had to think quick.

I responded that I didn’t feel the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should be telling any business how it should staff. Once you open that door, it’s very hard to close it later. Also, I don’t believe the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should be regulating the pay of a CEO, or minimum wage worker for that matter.

I’ve previously argued that just because one is a politician, doesn’t make one an instant expert on any given topic. I’m sure a lot of you remember Hillary Clinton’s personal crusade to institute universal health care nationally. One would think she would know all about the topic, given the size and scope of her undertaking.

But contrast her apparent expertise on the subject with her highly publicized visit last summer with Michelle Estrada, a nurse at St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada.

According to Susan Page of USA Today,

The nurse's 12-hour shift at the hospital's Siena campus started as usual at 7 a.m. but at mid-afternoon Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived. The New York senator spent more than two hours shadowing Estrada in the fourth-floor medical/surgical ward before heading to Estrada's home for dinner with her and her three children.

"I'm following Michelle around today to see what a nurse does," Clinton explained to the patient in Room 471.

Now, I may have missed something here.

Save for the fact she’s a politician, is thereby granted expert status on every topic, and was very close to crafting legislation for every hospital, medical school, insurance company, and patient in the United States, if she was THAT qualified to do so, why did she need to follow a nurse around all day just to find out what she does?  Continued...