I see the FBI is declaring war on The Scooter Store. I asked my friend John, no stranger to scooters, for his insights. He replied:
Not surprised: the scooter places push the damn things on everyone without any real evaluation of need. Or longevity. I know of two cases where Medicare paid a small fortune for a motorized chair for an elderly person who promptly died. the families got nearly nothing for the virtually unused chairs. They also aren’t built to last – and repairs are pretty hard to find (or pay for). Then there’s the transport problem: most people don’t seem to realize that these things won’t jump into the trunk of your car by magic. So the owner becomes housebound. It’s a racket all the way around.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, in the vanguard of the soak-the-poor and succor-the-rich school of governing, says he has changed his mind and will allow the Feds to shower money on him for the expansion of Medicaid, providing it doesn't cost his folks a red cent. Per the local press:
The governor said he gained new perspective after his mother's death last year, calling his decision to support a key provision of the Affordable Care Act a "compassionate, common sense step forward," and not a "white flag of surrender to government-run healthcare."
Wait, his mother? So far I can't find anything that explains this cryptic remark but I can't think of any reading that puts it in a good light. Is he saying that it took the death of his mother to remind him that Floridians might have a tough time getting medical care if they earned $9,001 a year? If so, he's an impressionable sentimentalist who doesn't have any business making decisions for the mass of us.
Or perhaps he meant it took the death of his mother to teach him how expensive medical care can be? If so, welcome to hard times, guv, and you might want to spend a few more minutes with the briefing book. Or could he be saying he's damn glad his mother fell under the protection of those socialists in Washington who implement Medicare, else he might have had to stump some--but wait a minute, isn't this guy a stalwart of the family values party? Wouldn't it have been the honest and honorable--indeed the life-affirming thing to reject all tainted lefty dollars and make mom comfy on the couch himself?
Afterthought: yes, I am aware that Scott built his personal fortune on the looting of Medicare. I'm open to the notion that his real reason for his changed of mind is tht his cronies in the hospital business can smell money. Mother would have loved that.
Oh. Here's more: Per The Atlantic Wire, the hers of Republican governors who switched sides on Medicaid
bleed for the suffering poor. Florida's Scott, for example, talked about his mother in his announcement Wednesday. "I remember my Mom's heartbreak when she could not afford to give my younger brother the treatment he needed when we learned he had a hip disease," Scott said. "She eventually found him a Shriner's Children's Hospital hundreds of miles away… where my brother would go back and forth for treatment."
I think I'll stand by original snide remarks.
Bruce Bartlett says he is just as angry as the Tea Party and for the same reasons but...well, let him explain:
The final straw for me was the way Republicans rammed the Medicare Part D program into law in 2003. This took place at the very moment when the Medicare program was starting to seriously hemorrhage money. It was grossly irresponsible to add massively to its deficit largely for the purpose of buying re-election for Bush and his party in 2004.
This year, Medicare Part D will add about $55 billion to the deficit – far more than can be saved with all the budget cuts Republicans can possibly hope to achieve in fiscal 2011. Furthermore, it annoys me to see so many of those who voted for Medicare Part D, such as House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), treated as if they are paragons of fiscal responsibility. In fact, their concern for excessive spending is highly selective, directed almost entirely at programs supported by Democrats primarily to undercut their political support, not because they care so much about deficits.
My disgust with the GOP became so intense after the Medicare Part D debacle, I wrote a book on the subject. I thought if conservatives broke with Bush at that time and adopted a more Tea Party-like approach to getting our fiscal house in order that it might stave off the political disasters I saw looming in 2006 and 2008.
Republicans preferred to kill the messenger, leading to my permanent estrangement from both the party and the conservative movement. But perhaps my effort wasn’t entirely for naught. Apparently, one of the few readers of my book was Rand Paul, who quotes me saying this:
The point is that George W. Bush has never demonstrated any interest in shrinking the size of government. And on many occasions, he has increased government significantly. Yet if there is anything that defines conservatism in America, it is hostility to government expansion. The idea of big government conservatism, a term often used to describe Bush’s philosophy, is a contradiction in terms.
So why is it that I have been disdainful of the Tea Party from its first manifestation in early 2009? The main reason is that so many of its members simply don’t know what they are talking about; they seem to think that strong opinions are a substitute for facts, research and analysis. Consequently, many Tea Party members hold views on various topics that are, frankly, nuts, and these views have been embraced by some Republican voters as well.
Read the rest here.
Update: The Crank is not impressed.
