U.S. Government

Where's the Outrage Over Obama's Health Care Propagandist, Jonathan Gruber?

US News and World Report blogger Peter Roff is comparing the Obama Administration's payments to Jonathan Gruber to the the pundit payola scandal of the Bush Administration paying Armstrong Williams.

In January 2005, USA Today revealed that a U.S. Department of Education contract paid Williams to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation on his TV show and to ask other African American journalists to do likewise. Democrats and media activists were appropriately outraged at such blatant and hidden government propaganda. A January 7, 2010, report by Marcy Wheeler on her Firedoglake blog exposed the similar failure of the Obama Administration and influential MIT economist Jonathan Gruber to fully and consistently reveal Gruber's role in receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars as a paid consultant to the Obama Administration, while promoting Obama's health care legislation.

Roff, a long-time Republican activist and right wing pundit, notes that in the William's payola scandal "senior Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to President George W. Bush expressing their outrage. In one of those letters, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Henry Waxman, George Miller, David Obey, and Elijah Cummings denounced the payments made to Williams under a government contract as 'illegal covert propaganda' intended to influence the American electorate."

What a difference partisanship makes now that Obama is president. In the Gruber scandal prominent liberals including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have attacked the messenger, Marcy Wheeler and Firedoglake, rather than criticizing the lack of disclosure and the money changing hands, and digging further into the relationship between Obama and his paid health care advocate Jonathan Gruber.

Bernanke: Wrong Speech, Wrong Nominee

Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, gave a speech this week that made headlines and raised eyebrows: “Lax Oversight Caused the Crisis, Bernanke Says.” Finally, many thought, the Fed Chairman would fess up to his role in the crisis! Alas, 98 percent of the speech is dedicated to justifying what the Fed did right over the last decade, and the “lax oversight” apparently had more to do with other agencies charged with regulating mortgages and underwriting practices, not his own.

Senate Health Reform Bill Benefits Big Pharma While Forsaking Cheaper Generic Drugs

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Big pharmaceutical companies benefit from a provision in the Senate health care reform billDespite proclaiming a need to cut medical costs, the Senate health care reform bill contains a provision that will benefit large drug companies while hurting manufacturers of generic drugs. As it is now written, the bill will keep less-expensive generic drugs from entering the market for fully 12 years, far longer than the five to seven years President Barack Obama had advocated. The concession to Big Pharma companies, which manufacture expensive brand-name drugs, follows an $80 billion agreement made earlier this year between the White House and large drug makers like Merck and Pfizer, who promised to support President Obama's health reform plan, cut drug prices and pay additional taxes to help expand health insurance coverage over the next 10 years. Kathleen Jaeger, President and CEO of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said the health reform bill passed by the Senate " ... unfortunately, amounts to a treasure trove to brand drug companies who stand to make enormous profits from health care reform -- putting brand drug profits over patients ... With generics saving the health care system one billion dollars every three days, Congress should be looking at increasing, not decreasing, access to safe effective and affordable generic and biogeneric medicines."

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Main Source: 
Reuters, December 24, 2009
Topics: 
Lobbying
Pharmaceuticals
U.S. Government

Tobacco Companies Blow Smoke in Washington's Face -- Again!

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Cigarettes laying on top of moneyLast spring, President Obama signed a bill into law that raised the tax on roll-your-own cigarette tobacco from $1.10 per pound to a whopping $24.78 per pound. The revenue from the tax was to be put towards expanding children’s health insurance programs.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, November 21, 2009
Topics: 
Health
Tobacco
U.S. Government

GAO Touts Good News! Stock Trades Safe from H1N1

Submitted by Mary Bottari on

H1N1 is here. President Obama declared a national health emergency. Health workers and schools are worried because the vaccine is seriously behind schedule. Parents are worried about how they will stay home with their kids and keep their jobs. What are the watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office worried about?

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Main Source: 
GAO
Topics: 
Corporations
Economy
U.S. Government

Do Contractors Count? Underestimating the War Dead

Submitted by Anne Landman on

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently released updated figures for the number of civilian contractors killed in American war zones since September 1, 2001. A minimum of 1,688 civilians have died, and there have been over 37,000 injuries reported among people working for U.S. contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but the DOL acknowledges that the report is incomplete.

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Main Source: 
ProPublica, October 9, 2009
Topics: 
Afghanistan
Iraq
U.S. Government

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