Elevating to a diary a too-long comment I left on nyceve's excellent diary, Krugman asks, Can it happen here? YES IT WILL.
What a picture of health care.
I keep coming back to this picture in my mind of August 29, 2005, while Katrina is happening in New Orleans, and Bush was on Air Force One en route to Arizona to eat birthday cake with John McCain
before going on to San Diego the next day to play air guitar
and Balboa Navy Hospital is shut down for his visit and a photo op that never happens after all,
BUSH'S LITTLE TRIP TO SAN DIEGO (WHILE NEW ORLEANS DROWNED) REVISITED
Miriam Raferty reports in the SAN DIEGO UNION that this wasn't all that happened. The article, "San Diego hospital closed to accommodate Bush visit; No chemo," has had virtually no coverage in the mass media. San Diego's Balboa Park Naval Medical Center was shut down to accommodate Bush's Aug. 30 visit, forcing patients to cancel hundreds of scheduled appointments including chemotherapy treatments. They shut down the pharmacy, the emergency room and even told cancer patients who needed their chemo-therapy treatments that day that they would not be allowed on the base. All this for a photo-op (which is what BushCo has Bush doing to make him--and everyone else--think he's a "leader"). And the photo-op was canceled. The SAN DIEGO UNION found that although many staffers at the Naval Medical Center were concerned about the shut-down "none were willing to go on record by name for fear of retaliation, such as loss of jobs or revocation of healthcare privileges.
probably to avoid the protestors who would be in the picture.
On board Air Force One that Monday were press secretary Scott McClellan and his brother Mark McClellan*, then the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mark is on the left.
A press gaggle was held where Scott talked about Bush's readiness for Katrina and Mark talked about CMMS's readiness for the new Part D prescription drug program that was about take effect in January... which when it was instituted was called the "Katrina of health care."
August 29, 2005
Press Gaggle with Scott McClellan and Dr. Mark McClellan
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Glendale, Arizona
10:43 A.M. CDT
I believe that's about here in the timeline:
Mid-Morning: Katrina rips two holes in the Superdome's roof. Some 10,000 storm refugees are inside.
Later that afternoon, with shoutouts to Katrina and terrorists and optimism, Bush gives a speech in Rancho Cucamonga on Medicare Part D.
What a picture.
Thanks to this diary by Not Brit, We Should Use This Photo. Every. Single. Day.
...
* Mark's footnote:
FDA's economist in chief
Mark McClellan's views on healthcare make him popular with the drug industry
By Christopher Rowland, Globe Staff | January 18, 2004
He shares industry's view that profits should be protected to provide money and incentives to keep the United States at the forefront of new drug development. He is demanding speedier drug approvals from the FDA, echoing long-standing pleas from industry that the agency move faster and more predictably. He is lined up with the pharmaceutical industry in warning about potential health dangers of importing low-cost Canadian drugs. Instead of calling for lower US drug prices, he says, Canada and Western Europe should raise their prices on brand-name drugs to match.
'He's really been a disaster, possibly the worst commissioner I've seen,' said Dr. Sydney Wolfe, director of health research at consumer group Public Citizen in Washington. 'He is more well-liked by the pharmaceutical industry than any other commissioner I can remember.'
Drug industry executives readily agree with the second notion.