Lots of really lame things are said in election season. The Dallas Morning News reported this particularly boneheaded comment from John Goodman, who supposedly helped create Sen. John McCain's health care policy and who is head of a Dallas think tank.

The nation's number of uninsured has dipped from 47 million in 2006 to 45.7 million last year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. That's misleading, Goodman said, because you can always get care in an emergency room.

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime. The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American -- even illegal aliens -- as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should designate people according to the likely source of payment should they need care. So, there you have it. Voilà! Problem solved."

Goodman -- who probably has really keen re-definitions for poverty and hunger -- drew this response from Dr. Linda Lawrence, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians (Community Medical Centers has a fair number of docs in that group):

"Emergency physicians can and do perform miracles every day, but taking on the full-time medical care for 46 million uninsured Americans is one miracle even we can't perform. Access to care in the emergency department is no substitute for the comprehensive health care reform policy that should be at the heart of the platform of any presidential candidate."

Yeah, but it's so much fun waving that rhetorical wand and yelling "Shazam! All better now!"