'Tard of the Week - Max Baucus

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Poor Max Baucus. Here he is, trying to line his pockets by selling out health care reform to the for-profit health care industry, in the tradition of every elected representative since the dawn of democracy, and he's SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS.

You see, the senator from Montana heads up the Senate Finance Committee, and they're supposed to be drafting a health care reform plan. The only problem is that ole Max has accepted just a ton of money from the health care for profit lobbyists, and his "plan" is nothing short of handing the keys to the kingdom to his paymasters. The proof?

Prior to releasing his so-called "plan" to those for whom it's actually supposed to be written, i.e., the people of the United States and their elected officials, he sent a copy over to the K Street lobbyists whose profit driven interest is matched only by the lobbying money they spent to the get the plan they wanted.

But it gets better. Seems that Max's senior counsel, a woman named Liz Fowler, actually wrote the plan. There's nothing untoward about this, of course - Senators and Representatives have staff members for a reason, and simply can't write every single thing that comes out of their office theirownself. What's fishy is that Liz used to be a VP for Wellpoint, and during her tenure, this is what happened:
Blue Cross of California [parent company: Wellpoint] 'routinely' violated state law when it canceled individual health insurance coverage after policyholders got pregnant or sick, making no attempt to determine whether they did anything to merit such 'harsh' treatment, according to a state investigation of practices that appear to be industrywide.

State regulators plan similar investigations of other health plans in California, and the findings against Blue Cross ratchet up the risk of liability for other insurers, many of whom face lawsuits from consumers who claim they were illegally dumped and subjected to substantial hardships.

As a result of its unprecedented investigation, the Department of Managed Health Care on Thursday said that it had fined Blue Cross $1 million -- an amount immediately criticized by canceled policyholders and consumer advocates as too small to matter to an insurer whose parent company, WellPoint Inc., earned $3.1 billion in profit last year on revenue of $57 billion.
Yeah. So the plan that will supposedly cost us less and provide more care to more people was written by an insurance company stooge with a history of shady dealings, who wasn't even smart enough to cover her tracks before releasing it to her masters.

Max, you are a 'tard. You hire stupid people who do stupid things, and then try to convince the world that what you're doing is in your constituents' best interest. Of course, that's only true if your constituents are comprised solely of the for-profit health care industry.

At least you've left no doubt.


H/T to Bob Cesca

1 comments:

Steve Buchheit said...

If for nothing else, I love this healthcare debate. While shaking the tree all sorts of nuts keep falling out (on both sides). It's a smorgasbord of delicious 'tardiness.