The governor’s request is languishing on Beacon Hill, even as public health specialists, Democratic lawmakers, and Romney’s aides warn that the failure to act could leave the state vulnerable if a particularly bad flu season strikes. The House Ways and Means Committee is reviewing the plan but has no timetable for finalizing it.
Translation: Forget about it. That press release is now eight months old. Look, The Committee to Elect Romney 2008 is too busy running Romney for President to worry about unfinished business in Massachusetts. Sometimes some (Pandemic Victims) need to make great sacrifices so that others can succeed (Romney). But hey, if we can figure out how to get a “new spin” on this and some press out of it, you might get our attention.
“It’s frustrating to see how ineffective political relationships stall action on important public health policy like this,” said Geoffrey Wilkinson, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association. “It’s very important to get resources into the hands of local health officials.”
Translation: Romney, after years off kicking sand in the faces of the Legislature leadership and rank and file, can’t understand why they don’t jump everytime he files some half-baked legislation backing up his lofty Executive Office press releases. You’d think after four years they would have learned they are supposed to ask, “how high?”, when Romney says “jump”.
On the best days, Massachusetts hospitals have barely enough beds and ventilators to handle the regular patient load, and they would be staggered by an onslaught of wheezing, feverish flu patients in an epidemic, specialists said.
Translation: If the Avian Flu Pandemic strikes, you’re screwed.(Don’t worry about us, we’re deemed essential state employees, so there’ll be plenty of antiviral medicine for the whole national Romney Team.)
That more people will die, without added ventilators is a certainty. The strain on the system will overwhelm current capacity.
The proposal from Romney and the Department of Public Health calls for purchasing 5,000 sophisticated medical cots for overflow patients, 2,000 ventilators to sustain their breathing, and medication to treat and prevent the flu in 44,000 people.
Translation: We wanted to be able to buy these 2,000 additional ventilators, but the 2008 scheduling got in the way. We even had some good Republican businessmen wired for the contract to supply the ventilators. Plus, Romney couldn’t delegate lobbying to Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, because she doesn’t work well with the Senate President and the House Speaker. Meetings behide closed doors were out of the question, even with thousands of lives at stake.
“No matter how aggressively hospitals use their existing bed capacity, the state’s not going to have enough ventilators, enough bed space,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger , associate director of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Public Health Preparedness .
Translation: Let’s hope Romney is President when the Pandemic Flu hits. That way he can declare a national emergency AND blame inaction in Massachusetts on all the vegetarians up there.
And it will be too late to buy that equipment once an epidemic begins spreading, specialists said.
“There are some things that have to be done ahead of time,” said Dr. David Ozonoff , an environmental health specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health . “Making sure there are enough ventilators, that’s something you’ve got to do in advance because when the time comes, everybody’s going to want more ventilators.”
Translation: The Bad News- Massachusetts you are screwed for this year. It will be up to the next Governor. The Good News- Next years flu season is just over one year away.
Disease specialists warn that a global flu epidemic akin to the cataclysmic 1918 outbreak — which killed about 50 million people worldwide — could inflict difficult-to-treat respiratory infections on 90 million Americans. And the crisis, known as a pandemic, would be especially acute in Massachusetts because of the lack of excess capacity. Even a bad flu season, short of a pandemic, could paralyze the region’s healthcare system.
Translation: USA Population= 300 million. Difficult to treat infections will *only* reach 90 million. That leaves 210 million left, a good portion, that probably will support Romney 2008.
So, in February, Romney stood before hundreds of federal, state, and local health officials at a flu summit and delivered his plan to prepare the state for a pandemic.
Almost from the minute the governor’s proposal was unveiled, it met with hostility from the Legislature’s leading voices on health issues.
Translation: The event far exceeded the story boards we had worked up for the 2008 cycle. Look, In February 2006, we were still trying to “project” a “hands-on” style. Plus, we have some great footage for the Romney-Healey Team ads we’re running under the umbrella of the Republican National Governor’s Association PAC. Regarding the legislature, we don’t have time to take away from writing press releases to waste consulting the legislature on proposed legislation. Remember when you run Government by Press Releases, Press Releases take TOP priority at all times.
The reaction is “cause for great concern, and the lack of action by the Legislature is discouraging,” said Eric Fehrnstrom , the governor’s chief spokesman. “To do nothing exposes the people of Massachusetts to a disease outbreak, and that’s inexcusable.”Continued…
Translation: As long as the press doesn’t question Fehrnstrom’s quotes, we can put any spin we want on anything. Ha, just look at the beauty of this one. We do nothing, but we get to call the legislature a “do nothing” legislature and nobody even bothers to question us.
State Senator Richard T. Moore , chairman of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said it was not the Legislature’s fault, but Romney’s plan, which he said was sparse on details. For instance, the Uxbridge Democrat said, it included no provision for where millions of dollars’ worth of emergency medical equipment would be stored.
“If we should have a pandemic or even a serious flu season, the governor’s response is going to be, `The Legislature didn’t act on this,’ ” Moore said, “so it puts us in a bad light.
“But their request wasn’t going to help us do anything meaningful,” he said. “It would have helped the governor’s position to say he tried to do something, and that’s about all it would have done.”
Translation: Why do you need a place to store equipment, when the whole thing was just a freak’n press release, followed by a TV press conference?
In an e-mail, Fehrnstrom emphatically denied that the Romney administration’s interest in the issue had ever wavered. He cited a series of meetings the state’s public health commissioner, Paul J. Cote Jr., conducted with legislators, as well as written communications the commissioner had with members of the House.
Translation: Look we’ve worked hard on this because I say we’ve worked hard on this. We think about it all the time while we’re on the road all across America. PS: Keep your head up and your fingers crossed, and we’ll get through this flu season. And if we don’t,remember, it’s those bastards in the legislature’s fault. And remember,if YOU don’t make it, you faithfully served the altristic needs of the administration. No sacrifice is too great.
