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Tuesday, July 28, 2009
What Senators Dodd & Hagan Have in Common (Other Than Uncommonly Good Health Insurance)
Both senators are receiving really marvelous mega-$$ support from Big Pharma, the drug industry's lobbying arm (the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA for short). According to today's NYTimes, Dodd...has not only benefited from the hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertisement courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry and Families U.S.A., a health-care advocacy group the industry teamed up with. But a few weeks ago, Mr. Dodd attended a $1,500-a-plate campaign fund-raiser sponsored by lobbyists representing U.S. Oncology, a provider of cancer drugs and services.
Dodd chairs the key health committee in the Senate that has already written its version of health-care reform, a bill which contains a public option.
Kay Hagan sits on this committee. She's received the same fawning support from PhRMA, with TV ads the group has paid for in N.C. praising her.
Doesn't make us feel any better about our chances, when the chips are finally down, of getting a consumer-friendly vote out of either senator.
We all knew that Congress was being bought & paid for by Big Business well before the reform of insurance industry practices was a gleam in Barack Obama's eye. They've bought key members of both parties. Sen. Dick Burr was schmoozing the same creeps last night. Ordinary working-class citizens can't get into such meetings. They're for the Big Boys only, and for the politicians they buy. Like, say, the effing Blue Dog Democrats.
We deserve this sorry state of affairs if we put up with this sorry state of affairs. I'm about past the point where I'm willing to put up with it, especially from elected representatives I might have considered philosophical allies.
Labels: Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, health care, Kay Hagan
Thursday, September 25, 2008
It Wasn't a Frickin' Stream!
As John McCain was using the financial crisis as a means to save his mortgaged candidacy, and decided to air-drop himself into the negotiations, El Presidente graciously invited both candidates and a host of Congressional leaders in this afternoon to share in the disgrace of his presidency.For those many voters who told us in 2004 that, although they thought George W. was a bald-faced liar and multitudinously inept, they were afraid "to change horses in the middle of the stream," we wonder how they're feeling now that El Presidente has ridden us into the deep blue sea.
Thrown us into the drink and then announced that we'd have to pay MUCH more for a life preserver and that we needed to pay for it RIGHT NOW.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's original demands of Congress are posted in their entirety here, for your amazement and edification. Be sure to get a load especially of the notorious Section 8, titled "Review," which runs one whole sentence, to wit:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
That's the Bush administration in a nutshell.
NUT. SHELL.
Sen. Chris Dodd's counter legislation is also posted here, but we understand that it's been tinkered with further in consultation with U.S. House leaders, so this isn't the final version being discussed this afternoon at the Booby-Hatch (a.k.a., White House).
John McCain's grandstanding about all of this is just this side of pathetic. We're supposed to get BACK on this particular horse/elephant? Gee thanks, but this time I think I'll walk.
Labels: bank failures, Bush administration, Chris Dodd, George W. Bush, John McCain
