All I want is for you to explain how ANYONE BUT THE DRUG COMPANIES take the hit had your two gripes with the program been handled (i.e., reimportantion allowed and negotiating a deal with the drug companies).
For crying out loud...of course biddind and re-importation results in lower costs to consumers and lower profits to drug companies. That's exactly the idea of competitive bidding. You bid work out to get the best price you can get. You give no bid contracts out and you get screwed, because you haven't tested the market and you have suppressed competition. That's exactly what the reps did here. Read the articles. You'll be better informed and sound less stupid than you typically do.
Only yesterday, you were accusing the Republicans of fraud. Today, you can't even back up the simplest of allegations.
What allegation are there that I can back up? I made three assertions:
1. They set up a no bid legislation.
2. They further restricted competition by 1) and forbidding re-importation. The prez by the way said that this was done for the safety of comsumers. LOL...what a joke.
3. The the true cost of the bill was suppressed before signing it and Rick Foster was threatened with his job if he told the truth.
Is 1 true? Yes. read the legislation. Is 2 true? Yes again. Read the legislation. Is 3 true? Yes. Rick Foster testified before a (partisan) congressional commission that this is what happened.
Rick Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has said that then-agency chief Thomas Scully threatened his job if he answered questions from congressional Democrats about the cost of the bill before a series of key votes last summer.
"Tom Scully sent an e-mail directing that we not respond to these requests and warning that the consequences of insubordination were extremely severe," Foster said. "I took that to mean that if I sent the responses, they would go ahead and fire me."
At issue is an assessment by Foster that the bill -- in its form in June -- would cost $551 billion, far more than the $400 bilion limit set by Congress.
If he had been able to tell the truth before the bill was signed, chances are good it would not pass, or the limiting provisions would be removed. Did anyone get fired for keeping the truth from congress? NO!!! Why? Because republicans are in the pocket of these drug bills and perpetrated a crooked fraud. And another thing...the final vote was held for three hours, during which a member of congress, Nick Smith was bribed and threatened at the same time to change his vote.
Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?
Stop protecting him, Congressman.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, at 3:17 PM PT
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports,
On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
Speaking through Chief of Staff Kurt Schmautz, Smith assured Chatterbox that Novak's account is "basically accurate." That means Smith was an eyewitness to a federal crime. United States Code, Title 18, Section 201, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses," states that under federal law, a person commits bribery if he....
Al |
