Category Archives: Quickies

F.D.A. Fell to a Push by Lawmakers

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Here’s a surprise. The FDA said that Democratic Senators Menendez and Lautenberg and Representatives Pallone and Rothman and its own former commissioner pushed the FDA to “politically” override the scientists. All four legislators sold out for peanuts–they received a total of $26,000 in “campaign contributions” from the manufacturer–shortly before leaning on the FDA.

These are the guys making Health Care Reform law, right? Jeezum, they’re not even good at being crooks.

Mark Twain wrote, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.“

Campaign finance “reform,” like health care “reform” will have quotes around it until we not only throw da current bums out but we also throw out all da little rules and perks they have passed for themselves over the last few decades.

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

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Earlier this month, Steven Pearlstein wrote in the Washington Post, “As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don’t agree. Today, I’m going to step over that line…”

I was late to the party; comments on the Post site are already closed.

Mr. Pearlstein propagates three significant falsehoods in stepping over his critical line.

(1) It may be true to say the recent attacks by the ideological right … [are] a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation, but Mr. Pearlstein ignores the fact that the recent attacks by the ideological left … [are] the same lies whose only purpose are to scare the public and stop political conversation.

(2) The vast majority of Americans will likely not be able to to buy health insurance from private companies when, as happened in Vermont, the ever tightening rules run private insurers out of town.

(3) The centerpiece of all the plans is not a new health insurance exchange. The centerpiece of all the plans is a new trillion dollar tax, a fact Mr. Pearlstein calls “Another lie.” The fact is, Mr. Pearlstein, that health care in America is a TWO trillion dollar annual expense. If the government raises that amount in taxes and dispenses it for health care, that makes it a TWO trillion dollar annual tax.

I agree that “Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society.” One that both sides have failed. It is a test, in fact a war, that so far only the media, the lawyers, and the politicians have won.

Sorry, Mr. Pearlstein, but fighting a war with fiction isn’t right no matter which side of the angels you think you are on.

Read all about ObamaCare here.

Throw Cash at It

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My friend Lido (“Lee”) Bruhl is a true believer in universal health care. He continues to campaign for a single payer system. “And yet we still have all these vehement protests that our health care system is fine just the way it is,” he said this morning.

Not from me. I vehemently protest that ObamaCare will take a health care system that delivers decent care for way too much money and turn it it to a system that delivers lesser care for way more than way too much money.

Lee took a new tack. “The US already spends more on health care than most other nations, but it gets less,” he said.

Semi-true. Here’s another one: The US already spends more on primary and secondary education than most other nations, but it gets less. And this: The US spent more “stimulus money” on job creation than any other nation, but it got fewer jobs created.

A better question to examine is this: Why do we as a nation throw so much cash at problems and get such a (relatively) poor return?

Big Cuts or Flummery?

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“We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.” President Obama wrote in the NYTimes.

Cool.

Um, wait a minute, Mr. President. Aren’t Medicare and Medicaid already government programs? Why do we need a brand new 1,000 page bill to “cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency” from the programs you are already the boss of?

Why can’t we just cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency out of those right now?

Get a Backbone, Dodd

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The AP reports that, “Facing the toughest re-election fight of his nearly 30 years in the Senate, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) boasts about snubbing lobbyists.” That hasn’t stopped him from cashing their campaign checks and schmoozing them at fundraisers and party gatherings.

I gotta tell you, Senator, if you took my money in the bedroom and lied about me on the street, it would be the last time you got any from me.

Take a lesson, politician. It is time to put your mouth where your money is.