Your Daily Dose of Health Care Reform Stupidity

Lie, obstruct and delay.  It's all Cons can come up with for health care reform.  Now, McConnell's advocating delaying for weeks and weeks because - well, just cuz.

I like Sen. Harkin's response:

Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Democrats have mischief planned for the Republicans if they do that type of obstruction.

"If the Republicans want to stay here this Saturday and Sunday to read the bill, then let them stay here," he said. "We are planning to do something that would require Republicans to be there 24 hours a day, and if they leave the floor, we'll ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, and that'll be the end of it."

The big news, however, is that the Chamber of Commerce got caught soliciting funds for a fake study:

Now that the Chamber has been caught trying to finance a phony study on health care reform, the organization's credibility is poised to reach new lows.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber's senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Maybe," you'll be tempted to argue, "the Chamber and its allies simply wanted to do a legitimate economic study. How do we know the report would be rigged to bolster a preconceived anti-reform narrative?"

The answer, of course, is that the Chamber's memo already points to the agreed-upon conclusion of the economic review that does not yet exist. From its email: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

They're not even trying to hide their fuckery anymore, are they?  Health care reform supporters shall have a field day with this little bit of con artistry, and I have a feeling the over 5000 medical professionals who are already urging the AMA to leave the Chamber will shortly be joined by many more.

In case you ever wondered who runs D.C., here's the answer: lobbyists are ghostwriting lawmakers' statements on health care reform.

And in case you were wondering if pharmaceutical companies would behave themselves, the answer is no.

In case you were wondering what kind of fuckery Conservadems would get up to next, they're now demanding  they be allowed to gut Social Security and Medicare - or else.

I think Conservadems and Cons alike need to consider the fact that a No vote on health care reform has some rather dire consequences - such as allowing your previously-trailing election opponent to surge ahead of your ass. 

And, finally, CNN may have rid itself of Dobbs, but that hasn't made the rest of its programming any better.  John King decided it's perfectly fine for Giuliani to claim that newly-minted Dem Rep. Bill Owens voted no against health care reform, and let that stand without correction.  For any in doubt, Owens voted Aye.

Health care reform's certainly bringing out the worst in just about everybody, innit?