Pawlenty Brags About His Moves to Thwart Health Reform in His State
Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota joined Greta Van Susteren's show to brag about how he decided to play politics and refuse federal money for health care. As an editorial at the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked "How much federal money will Minnesota lose to other states because Gov. Tim Pawlenty dislikes the new federal health care reform law?"
Pawlenty's refusal of federal money smacks of politics.:
How much federal money will Minnesota lose to other states because Gov. Tim Pawlenty dislikes the new federal health care reform law?
The ticker clicked another $1 million on Wednesday, the deadline for Minnesota's application for a grant to help fund the establishment of an exchange at which people can shop for affordable health insurance.
That's chump change compared with the money he has already turned down, to the detriment of sick and needy Minnesotans and the professionals who treat them. The Republican governor has already spurned early enrollment of the state's poorest adults in the state-federal Medicaid program. DFL legislators say it would bring an additional $1.4 billion to the state's health care industry through 2013 and fund an estimated 22,000 private-sector health care jobs.
Also on Pawlenty's rejection list: $68 million to bring a federal high-risk insurance pool to Minnesota (a justifiable choice, since Minnesota's own pool is less expensive for most people than the federal one); $1 million for premium rate reviews, and $850,000 for teen-pregnancy prevention -- though Pawlenty did apply for a $500,000 abstinence-only sex ed grant. The latter program will cost the state an additional $350,000 and offers weaker evidence of effectiveness. Pawlenty must have been persuaded by something other than cost and results. Read on...
It's really pathetic this guy looks like he's putting presidential politics and his hope for a run in 2012 ahead of the citizens of his state. Shameless. I've said this before and I'll say it again. As bad as anyone on the left thought the weak tea we managed to get passed with this health care bill and with our corporate bought Senate was, all the Republicans will do is make it worse when given the chance as Pawlenty has shown us here. They don't care how many suffer as they help make the bill and its application worse instead of better to score political points. I feel for the residents of his state that deserve better leadership.
For all that this post rightly slams Pawlenty, more importantly it points out a major flaw (by design?) in Obama's highly touted "Health Care Reform" bill - it leaves participation up to the states instead of creating a truly national health care system.
Presumably some states with forward-looking governance (Vermont) will take advantage of this arrangement by negotiating truly efficient health care for their citizens, but in the meantime citizens of other states will suffer.
More importantly, leaving implementation to the states adds yet another layer of bureaucracy to the system as each state is required to create its own health care system.
And worse yet, it will create a different system and a different bureaucracy in every state (and DC, Guam, etc) so anyone moving from one state to another will have to start all over with a new system.
And further compounding the problem, each state will have to determine how to negotiate with each of the other 50+ systems if one of their citizens should require health care while visiting or working in another state.
Could anyone have created a more complex bureaucratic nightmare if they had tried?
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Sure, Repugnants and RepugnaDems like Blanch Lincoln, Ben Nelson et-al.
This is what happens when you negotiate with your enemies. Dems gave the Repugs everything they wanted in the bills to get them to vote on it and they voted against it anyway.
Dems like Rep. Pelosi took any investigations of the Bush shenanigans "off the table". Rep Darryl Issa has promised to open up investigations of ALL Democrats when he and the Repugs take over the house. Which they will when we fail to vote for Dems and let the Tea Party and Repugs have their way. No investigations make it seem like the Repugs did no wrong.
Wake up folks. We may not like what has gone on in the last 18 months but it will become far worse.
Read "The Shock Doctrine. The rise of disaster capitalism" by Naomi Kien. The Disaster Capitolists/ Milton Freidmanites have planned this for a long time. This is the next "shock" to our way of life so they can then take more of our rights away.
Stay home and not vote will be the same as voting for a Rethug.
Go to Dem candidate nights and hold their feet to the fire. Shap up or no money and NO vote.
"Dont piss on my leg and tell me it's raining", Judge Judy.
I'm tired of having my leg pissed on.
Surely Timmy couldn't have thought of this wonderful service for his constituents without help from Michelle!
Is greta van susteran lookin' more and more like Kurt Russell?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Pawlenty should be impeached. He hasn't been thinking about Minnesota for over a year. He knows the Republicans are unlikely to take Minnesota, and he's only thinking about Republican primary voters in other states.
The word is he has no chance for the Presidential nomination and is gunning for VP. Being Palin's VP would be a wild ride, that's for sure.
If that works its on the population not him. They would be the idiots, not him. Unless of course Diebold and their secret software play a role in the election or a mysterious death occurs like in the case of Paul Wellstone up there.
"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
-- Paul Wellstone
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
What he is doing is nothing short of evil and inhumane.
I've never seen change without a fire
The Rick Springfield-wannabe, political lightweight Pawlenty has not taken an active role on a single topic during his entire stint in office. His only accomplishments are blocking or vetoing legislation, and attending the yearly fishing opener.
In a way I guess we're fortunate - he could have done a lot more damage if he tried. Lucky for us he's been spending more time running his PAC than anything else!
show me one, single solitary government document that uses the name Obamacare to describe
Health Care Reform.
It's just another dog whistle to excite their ignorant base.
I am amazed that these pricks can walk outside without being stoned, tared and feathered.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
has never, I repeat never put the state of MN first. His political ambition has been crassly apparent from the first political run for governor. He is so smug, so out of touch and lacking in the compassion it takes to care about the state he serves. It has been as painful to have him as governor as it was to have Bush and Cheney in the White House. None really understood the concept of serving the people.
Jeanne
Pawlenty was fairly sane for a Reich Wing governor but once he committed to making a run for President , literally over night he turned into a Tea Bagger and a radical lunatic , playing to the base of morons .
The new C&L interface doesn't work very well for me. e.g. the "Load New Comments" button never works.
BTW, Windows XP/Firefox.
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