Criticism of the Obama administration's handling of swine flu vaccines has bled into another area of politics: the Democratic push for health care reform.
The administration has come under attack recently for reports that swine flu vaccines would be delivered to two of the most maligned classes of people in American politics--Guantanamo Bay detainees and Wall Street executives--before the rest of the country could get them.
A spokesman for the Guantanamo prison said
earlier this week that vaccines should start arriving this month, and
that the facility's medical staff had requested them. That statement
was later contradicted by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who
denied that any vaccines are on their way to Guantanamo at a his daily briefing with the White House press corps yesterday.
The Associated Press reported today that Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and Citigroup have started receiving doses of the H1N1 vaccine.
Now,
the conservative, free-market group American Future Fund will begin airing a TV
ad questioning whether the government can be trusted with an expanded
role in health care--as is being proposed with government-run insurance
plans under consideration in the House and Senate--if it can't run a
vaccine program without controversy:
The ad points to shortcomings in the government's estimates of how many vaccines would be delivered to Americans, plus the Guantanamo reports.
"If the government can't run a flu program, can we trust it to run America's entire health care system?" it asks. The ad will run nationwide on cable; the group says it has spent $450,000 to air it and hopes to add to that figure.
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), meanwhile, the former House GOP whip who is running for Missouri's open Senate seat in 2010, blasted the Obama administration for Wall Street employees getting the shots ahead of other Americans.
"While many Missourians are still at risk, Wall Street bankers are at the head of the line for H1N1 vaccine," Blunt said in a statement released today. "The federal government continues to demonstrate that it cannot manage distribution of this vaccine; yet the Obama Administration wants to manage a complete government-takeover of health care."
And the Service Employees International Union, a political ally of the White House that dedicated tens of millions of dollars to his 2008 campaign, took aim at Wall Street for the vaccine doses Citigroup and Goldman have reportedly gotten, calling on those firms to donate the doses to community hospitals.
"It's obscene that Wall Street bankers think they are entitled to private shipments of H1N1 vaccinations while healthcare workers, pregnant women, and other at-risk Americans are either waiting in line for hours or getting turned away because of shortages," SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger said in an official statement.
"Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and any other bank or corporation receiving private shipments of H1N1 vaccinations should immediately donate them to community hospitals in need."
No wonder they were in a hurry to pass legislation months ago.
They get the flu shot orders wrong almost every year. I guess the actual demand is hard to predict, and if they order too many, the same people will say the government is wasteful. The problem is that it is the government which has to place the order. I would have gladly pre-paid in April to get the H1N1 vaccine in October, but I don't think that is possible.
Unfortunately, individuals are not considered responsible enough to buy flu shots (or Tamiflu - there were reports of shortages of that, too) for themselves and their families. This is indeed an example of rationing as a result of wrong government policy calls, but you can't blame just the liberals for it. The idea that we can't be trusted to own flu shots is more closely related to the conservative obsession with drug abuse.
More questions need to be asked before framing this as a political process story.
It's been reported that it took longer than expected to create the injectable form of the vaccine, because the virus didn't grow as fast as expected in the eggs used to create it. It was biology, not necessarily bad planning thats created the bottle neck.
As to distribution: Does the military get priority to the vaccine available? If so it goes without saying that the Gitmo doctors would have been higher up the list than some civilian organizations. No need to look for a diabolical Obama administration plan. Also what would the narrative have been if a Gitmo prisoner who might still have had value to the intelligence community died from something as basic as H1N1?
As to the Wall Street firms, did their health insurers simply request vaccine more quickly and efficently than others? Maybe the story is that having a lot of money gives you access to better more competant healthcare. If so everyone is missing an angle moving it out of a stupid "government process" story to a chance to look at healthcare distribution in the country.
It's going to Gitmo detainees.
I love this strawman. What bill in Congress intends to "run America's entire health care system" anyway? What programs to provide healthcare have been proposed, exactly? I thought the bills are primarily about health insurance reform and spending money to insure more people.
Yes, detainees who are military prisoners and therefore are treated by military doctors.