WASHINGTON — Richard L. Scott is unusual in these tough economic times: a rich, conservative investor willing to spend freely on a political cause.
Uh-oh. Sounds scary. We've seen this before.
Mr. Scott is starring in his own rotation of advertisements against the broad outlines of President Obama’s health care plans. (“Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central, national board,” he warns in a radio spot.) He has dispatched camera crews to other countries to document the perils of socialized medicine.
Somehow I'm betting his film crews are gonna miss how socialized medicine in places like the UK results in better care and longer life expectancy for less than half as much money as we spend.
He visited with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week, and his new group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, has hired a leading conservative public relations firm, CRC, well known for its work with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that attacked Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, during his presidential campaign.
Oh shit. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Whose definition of "truth" was "outright baldfaced lies" "Dammit Drugmonkey", I said to myself as I read the article. "I hope you enjoyed the Obama honeymoon, because the fuckers who weren't too proud to have decorated military veterans try to convince us that you could become a decorated military veteran by being a pussy are back. Time to suit up for battle."
Mr. Scott’s emergence this spring as the most visible conservative opponent to Mr. Obama’s not-fully-defined health care effort has former friends and foes alike doing double takes, given Mr. Scott’s history.
Once lauded for building Columbia/HCA into the largest health care company in the world, Mr. Scott was ousted by his own board of directors in 1997 amid the nation’s biggest health care fraud scandal. The company’s guilty plea and payment of $1.7 billion to settle charges including the overbilling of state and federal health programs was taken as a repudiation of Mr. Scott’s relentless bottom-line approach.
Wait. The nation's biggest health care fraud scandal? I suit up to fight on the battlefield of ideas and what they send out is some crook who stole millions in taxpayer dollars, probably while complaining all the while that taxes were too high? THIS is supposed to be the big scary face of what will scuttle the health care reform this country so desperately needs?
Fine. Lemmie get out my sword and lop off his head anyway. This won't take long.
Mr. Scott has said his sole policy interest is to see to it that whatever overhaul Mr. Obama and Congress consider does not move the country toward a socialized system and away from what he calls his four pillars of reform: “choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility.”
“After spending over two decades in the health care provider industry, I’ve seen these principles work firsthand,” Mr. Scott said in a recent statement
"Well, maybe not the personal responsibility so much in my own case" he could have easily said but didn't. "I suppose I wouldn't be some rich fuck living it up in Florida if I had taken responsibility for what I had done."
"That probably takes out accountability too now that I think about it." He didn't add. Oh well, that still leaves two pillars!"
By the way, Obama's proposal, while still a work in progress, is increasingly looking like it will feature a new, public insurance plan available to people unhappy with, or unable to buy, insurance in the private market. Now go take a look at those first two pillars again. You will be able to chose a public plan that competes with the Blue Cross from hell that has been prior authing you to death while jacking up your premiums every year. Yeah. So much for the pillars.
Wow that was incredibly easy and unsatisfying.
I miss having a worthy opponent.
5 comments:
PS: A worthy opponent? You should try this: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/186548/october-02-2008/formidable-opponent---business-syphilis
I'd do you both.
I am a devout Catholic as well as pharmacist. I don't ascribe to craziness. Last fall when I started becoming more involved in Mr. Obama's campaign, I started 'reading up' on what the Catholic Far Right had to say, and analyze why I was diametrically opposed to what seemed to be all their arguments for supporting a particular party (and inevitably the candidate from that party), and everything they were saying in the name of 'anti-abortion'.
The only thing that I can really figure out is that bunch of conservatives is opposed to 'Mr. Obama' no matter what. It appears that with regard to any sort of intelligence coming out of the White House nowadays, the members of a particular coalition are opposed--it's as if they should be called the 'Wah, wah, no-no' (or the Whiney-Butt folks. That particular party is typified by ridiculous keynote speakers at the Republican convention last fall. As typified by the sour grape 'rebuttal' after Mr. Obama's address on the state of the union.
As for Catholics in that pocket of opposition, they do a pretty good imitation of the argument, 'well, you can't call yourself a Catholic if you're supporting Mr. Obama'.
I don't like the fact a stance seems to suggest abortion as a method of population control, but neither do I suspect that Mr. Obama was lying nor uninformed when he stated that increasing educational levels would help with decreasing abortions probably more than an arbitrary 'no abortion' law.
On the other hand, that is NOT where these fellow Catholics stop with their disgruntlement. It's pretty laughable to hear they really cannot get themselves together to come out for an argument for their causes that doesn't say, 'me first, me first, and I don't support anything or anyone that doesn't promote my own gimme, gimme attitude.'
I can't help but feel a sense of alarm, or that I'm setting myself up for a potentially dangerous mindset, in merely dismissing
'them' (the semi-characterized opposition) as selfish bigots, because there just might be some 'wheat' in with the 'chaff', but still looking for it in the haystack.
We should be figuring out useful things like high-speed mass transit, what to do with automobile junk (all the 22 mpg new vehicles sitting on lots in Detroit), how to make healthcare more equitable, instead of quibbling over the partisanship of revealing what happened at Abu, in my opinion.
you seem to be hung up on the whole political party thing. being democrat or republian is not a litmus test for good and evil. personally, i prefer seeing good, responsible, mature people getting elected to run our government. the problem is that the only people who run for office are politicians. when organizations get too big, they get bogged down in bureaucratic procedures and they become corrupt. then corrupt people are drawn to these organizations because they view being in charge of the organization as a way to empower themselves. our government is well beyond that point. and it just keeps growing and growing. besides, i thought obama was going to help the middle class and be a champion of the people like all good democrats. instead, he gave billions to the banks, the insurance companies, the car makers. it seems like he's doing more for big business than any republican ever did. i guess we just have to wait for it to trickle down. (where did we hear that before?)
The other side of the coin, is the other side of that same coin.
Found you, wandering around link by link, after a comment left on my own blog today. Here's the post, if you're interested, not in my usual subject matter: http://spindyeknit.com/2009/06/grrr/
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