PanFlu Preparedness Plan: Step One - Protect Big Pharma

In preparataion for Day Two of Operation Save My Agenda, when the big PanFlu preparedness plan is set to steal some headlines, please take a minute to read this post at Effect Measure, which puts the lie to the whole thing:

What are we to make of these two stories? The first says Bush is going to unveil the long-awaited (and unforgiveably tardy) pandemic flu plan tomorrow. The plan includes proposals to beef up stockpiles of vaccines and antivirals and allegedly also a fund to build infrastructure (AP via Yahoo News). Sounds good, if they are serious about it.

Then there's this: "Congress Weighs Big Cuts to Medicaid and Medicare." That's the Republican Congress, folks, Bush's party. I guess they aren't in on the "plan." Or maybe they are another part of the plan, the part that won't be publicized on Tuesday:

Congressional committees have proposed substantial cutbacks in Medicaid and Medicare, the nation's largest health insurance programs, which together cover more than one-fourth of all Americans.

[snip]

The House bill would take all of its savings from Medicaid, the program for low-income people, while leaving Medicare, the program for those 65 and older and the disabled, untouched, as the Bush administration wants. By contrast, the Senate bill would squeeze savings from both programs.

The new cuts are estimated to save $4 billion for the feds and $3 billion for the states in the next five years. $7 billion dollars in five years. We will burn $7 billion in a little over a month in Iraq. The Iraq mistake is already costing almost thirty times the estimated savings from five years of painful cuts to our oldest and most vulnerable citizens. al-Qaeda must be delighted.

Not everyone will suffer, however. Big Pharma doesn't want to get hurt and it's putting on a full court press to see it doesn't happen.

We really can't be surprised.  When faced with any crisis - natural or manufactured - the Republicans' first response is to get that profiteering machine up and running.  Go see what a few million dollars in well-placed pocket lining can buy you in the good ol' U.S. of A.   

Comments

[DavidByron]

There are two kinds of fake headline that I consider so cliché that I literally don't even bother to read the stories any more.

The first is that the Israelis are going to take a step towards peace in the Middle East but the second is only slightly less silly and that's the idea that Bush will ever do anything for the poor.