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When is Health Care Reform not Health Care Reform?

By Doug Bandow on 6.18.09 @ 5:17AM

When it is hiding pork.

Sen. Enzi points to the $4 trillion Kennedy bill:

Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Senate's only accountant, today criticized wasteful spending in a health care reform bill released by HELP Committee Democrats this week.

"The Kennedy-Dodd bill will pave sidewalks, build jungle gyms, and open grocery stores, but it won't bring down health care costs or make quality coverage more affordable," Enzi said. 

"In a time of record debt and deficits, how can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?  

"We need to root out the waste, fraud and abuse that is driving up health care costs - not create a whole slew of new wasteful programs," said Enzi, the only Senator to serve on the HELP, Finance and Budget Committees, which share jurisdiction over health care reform.  

The HELP Committee Democrats' bill would:   ·        

Establish a "Community Makeover Program" to spend billions to beautify streets, up to $10 per person in selected communities; ·        

Fund a federal government program to build new sidewalks and bike paths, and put up street lights; ·        

Finance new grocery stores and farmers' markets; ·        

Revoke employers rights to provide free wellness benefits to employees; ·        

Mandate that a new Washington health police bureaucracy dictate what local restaurants can offer their customers; and, ·        

Subsidize community projects like building jungle gyms in parks.

It must be genetic.  Legislators can't keep pork out of military appropriations.  They can't keep it out of health care reform.  They can't stop even when the U.S. is running a nearly $2 trillion deficit.