(Rick Scott Is TOAST)-This is what healthcare looks like when austerity trumps public health policy.

[kpete]

SUN JUL 08, 2012 AT 05:17 PM PDT
Florida Tuberculosis Cover-up: Rick Scott is toast
bymikeypawFollow

...........................

..believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision not to not tell the public, repeating a decision they had made in 2008, when the same strain had appeared in an assisted living home for people with schizophrenia.”

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/worst-tb-outbreakin-20-years-kept-secret/nPpLs/


But here is where shit gets real in a hurry. The CDC issued a report advising the state of taking concerted action against the strain. But the problem is that nobody was paying attention. You see Governor Rick Scott announced the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital and the downsizing of the State Health Department only nine days prior to the CDC advisory. A.G Holley State hospital had been responsible for treating the most difficult of these strains. And it turns out that not only did they close the hospital, they closed it six months early. You got to get that austerity on as soon as possible don't you know.

So here is the toll: 13 dead. 99 infected most of whom were poor black men. Over 3000 exposed in homeless shelters around the Jacksonville area.

The monetary toll? Up to $500 per patient to treat. Up to $275,000 per patient if it becomes drug resistant.

MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/08/1107620/-Florida-Tuberculosis-Cover-up-Scott-Walker-is-toast


http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/simgad/5906937714701903296

[demwing]

1. Bad news for Floridians

but a career ending issue for Governor Voldemort? He doesn't seem to give a shit.

[valerief]

44. And a crapload of those Floridians would vote for him again in heartbeat. nt

[peace frog]

47. Absolutely correct, anyone who thinks Rick Scott is "toast"

clearly doesn't know Flori-duh. As unpopular with most Republicans as he is, they would still vote for him before they would EVER vote for some soshulist, satinist, commie-lovin' Democrat.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Selective elimination?

How wouldn't this catch up to Rick Scott? Really? Are these people nuts!

[marsis]

53. Really?

You have to ask that question(?), I didn't see a sarcasm icon.
I'll give you the short answer, yes they are!

[Sancho]

3. the worst governor ever!!

a liar and a thief...

[ellenfl]

4. i just hope we can overcome the election fraud he started. eom

[MrMickeysMom]

10. Don't forget Medicare Fraud Artist...

Hospital Corporation of America.

As an ex Floridian of 30 years, I get to hate his ass for the crimes he served in training... that fucking piece of shit.

[Tigress DEM]

42. I don't know... he's got so much competittion

[GETPLANING]

5. There are no coincidences

This comes awfully close to murder through neglect and then a cover-up.

[kestrel91316]

14. It's GENOCIDE as far as I'm concerned.

[PatrynXX]

6. Florida and Wisconsin bound to go broke in a hurry..

one would think that after spain and Greece have tried this. Republicans would have nothing to run on......

Choice is rather simple. want America to be like Greece vote for Mitt R Money. if you wanna vote for America vote for Obama.

[AllyCat]

43. Is it the name? Scott Walker and Rick Scott.

I always think we have it bad here in Wisco, then I hear about Fla. Not sure which is worse, I just hope both states survive these criminals and we can move on at a later time.

[riderinthestorm]

7. Holy shit, he's a one man death panel. Not that Gov Scott cares, just poor black men

probably thought nobody would notice.

Disgusting.

[freshwest]

12. Defintely. Not sure why the article says 'only the underclass' which includes the disabled...

The Ayn Rand 'producers' like Scott, Ryan, Boehner, etc. are busily eliminating the 'parasites,'or what the Nazis called 'worthless mouths.'

Looks like a duck, walks like a duck... Yeah, we got more than enough clues what these guys want America to look like and it won't be pretty.

[kestrel91316]

15. Rick Scott is committing genocide.

[freshwest]

24. They are all doing it whenever they cut Medicaid and public services. It is what it is.

People didn't used to get caught up in all the weasel words and just said it. FDR, MLK, RFK, Bernie Sanders and Chris Hedges don't play around with what this is about, anymore than most of the veterans of WW2.

I remember working with a group fighting the closure of facilities such as that in the article. A man who was one of first into the concentration camps to rescue those that were still alive, said in his testimony against closures that he had not fought his way with others to Germany to see the same things happening here.

Today, as was predicted by Jefferson, Lincoln and others, the corporatists get away with eugenics and murder by nature of ideological euphemisms, reforms, privatization, efficiencies and such other terms. Germany ran on slave labor, plunder and murder. Most fascist regimes do. The Germans went after the disabled first, since they were easy pickings and the moved ahead.

We have the GOP criminalizing anything and anyone who isn't of a certain type. In the big picture, it's not the kind of bigotry they keep us divided with, it's all about money and power and connections, and the assumptions that the disadvantaged are not good for the bottom line. The bottom line and purpose of those fascist regimes was met, and a lot of money changed hands.

The secret is for the masses to not get caught up in the mass illusions, venality and prejudices that have always been used to make us kill each other. In that way, sad to say, I think the super rich have a moral case. They don't hate each other, so they endure, but they sell us on it.

People in Florida and other states that don't resist this have their reasons. Some feel helpless, others think those people should die anyway, but won't say so publicly. They pretend to have some other cause to be interested. Like what's going on in someone's else's body or pants. Just not the big stuff, the slaughter.

Sorry to be so long but I have to vent sometimes.

[Lifelong Protester]

39. A very good post, I recomment it

It was a good 'venting' or rant, or whatever, you tell it like it is.

[Rain Mcloud]

54. Rant away.

I enjoy reading your thoughts even when the subject is as gruesome as this one was,your perspective is indeed fresh.
Thank You.

[malaise]

8. That's the good news

Cholera has spread from Haiti to Cuba. Jamaica is watching very closely since our last cholera outbreak was in 1854. Just contemplate the thought of cholera spreading to Florida.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18758325

[kestrel91316]

16. The RW will cheer. That will make it even easier to eliminate the useless eaters.

They have turned to genocide to eliminate their political opposition.

[malaise]

18. No there's nothing like a good health scare

to make RWs have a rethink

[kestrel91316]

26. They won't give a damn until some 1%er or family member

gets drug-resistant TB.

[valerief]

45. Bingo! nt

[haele]

19. Last major cholera outbreak in US was in NYC, brought by a ship of immigrants in 1910.

NYC public health and sanitation were on top of it as soon as the ship hit port, quarantined anyone that had come in contact with the ship, and only 11 people died. If this action against TB is any indication of the reaction of Florida's public health and sanitation departments, we could be looking at a large number of deaths quickly expanding across the country due to the availability of quick mass transportation and exposure to even a single carrier. The sanitary infrastructure of the US has degraded over the past five decades to a level that we hope is equivalent to that of 1910...

The "second pandemic" of 1827 through the 1850's in the US killed over 150,000 across the US - in cities and rural areas, and all types of communities. A carrier could be contagious for days before they show symptoms - but once they get sick, death comes pretty quickly. And it didn't matter if they were poor or wealthy; just one contagious servant, or a delivery man, or even produce bought from a market-woman who just hadn't gotten sick yet, and the rich who would wall themselves off thinking that would keep them from getting sick died just as easily as the push-cart vendor,
Cholera is still rather strange; it's thought to be a mix of poor sanitation and bacterial contagion, but there are several distinct bacterial strains in the wild that have suddenly flared up without warning and propagate for a couple decades, then just go dormant just as quickly for no apparent reason, and people have been recorded developing the disease without apparently being at risk due to exposure or poor sanitation.

This modern strain from Haiti has already infected over 500,000 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and may have killed as many as 15,000, depending on if you believe the Haitian government or the WHO. Cuba's medical system should be able to handle the disease, but the other islands may be in trouble. Just as much trouble as Florida would be in.

[spanone]

9. this is what happens when criminals become governors

[HIlton Brackett]

11. Who needs voter suppression bills.

[kestrel91316]

13. There is a name for this:

"13 dead. 99 infected most of whom were poor black men. Over 3000 exposed in homeless shelters around the Jacksonville area." = GENOCIDE

Somebody call the UN.

[Diclotican]

36. kestrel91316

kestrel91316

GOP doesn't care for UN - They doesn't care for everything, or anyone who are not rich, and powerfull... Even I who live abroad understand it. why could not enough americans do it too?

Diclotican

[southernyankeebelle]

17. I know I read something somewhere about how something like this will help decrease the

populations. OMG this a living hell. Scott should be thrown in jail as a murder. I can see some of these people going to visit their families and friends in other states and spreading this all over the place. Shame.

[Firebrand Gary]

20. Is this story just breaking today? These links make it look so.

If thats the case and it has not hit the MSM, it's gonna be a fun ride to watch that criminal mother fuc*er go down.

[Doctor_J]

31. This will not receive as much as a peep in Big Media

and he's not going anywhere

[LiberalLovinLug]

46. Unfortunately I fear you are right

I've grown so cynical about our "fourth estate" and I've seen many celebratory posts of impending GOP collapse come and go.

"the ignored "Bin Laden sure to attack memo" will be the death of BushCo."
"Outing a CIA operative will take down the neo-cons!"
"Illegal wiretapping will result in impeachment!"

etc....etc....etc.......

In any other country the Republican Party would be a dead elephant, if the press just did its job. Here the MSM's job is not to report the truth. No, their job is to make sure there is as close to a 50/50 horse race as possible which usually means having to have on right wing Rethug defenders on twice as much as Democrats in order to drown out those pesky liberal facts and where cons can implement their favorite tactic of accussing the left of nasty or criminal acts that in fact they themselves are guilty of, thus confusing the populace...and the ignorant TV host at the same time it seems.

[csziggy]

21. Add to the death panel aspect, covering up the decisions made by

The State Health Department.

From the Palm Beach Post link in the OP:
They spoke about CDC’s report Friday, only after weeks of records requests from The Palm Beach Post. The report was released late last week only after a reporter traveled to Tallahassee to demand records in person. The records should be open to inspection to anyone upon request under Florida Statute 119, known as the Government in the Sunshine law.

Whoever tried to keep this information from the newspaper should be charged with violating the Government in the Sunshine law. It's our only defense against some of the stuff the GOP has pulled.

[Doctor_J]

32. It's not the only defense

check out RagAss's sig line

[Beartracks]

22. If you can't disenfranchise 'em, why not just kill 'em off, eh Rick?

Way to go on the money-saving scheme there, Rick.

===================

[Canuckistanian]

23. I say quaratine the whole state of Florida

Until this pestilence ends. And by "pestilence", I mean the rule of Rick Scott.

[april]

25. so what will happend to R Scott ? (ass )

this is sick !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RagAss]

29. Nothing. This isn't even being reported in Jacksonville, where it happened.

[Orsino]

38. And this is the sort of thing an awful lot of Scott supporters WANT.

Poor brown people dying of diseases just reinforces their stereotype of poor brown people as...diseased. There will eventually be some outrage, but enough to successfully recall this governor? I doubt it. Floridian political discourse tends toward the mean-as-hell, and Scott delivers.

[HiPointDem]

27. kr

[RagAss]

28. Kicked

[Doctor_J]

30. So Governor Medicare Fraud is also a serial killer

I predict no adverse affects on his career, due to Hate Radio

[retread]

33. I'm sure the undead Governor is fine with these results. After all, most of these people would

vote Democratic. That is, if they were allowed to.

[Demonaut]

34. Repukes with knowledge thrive on death and suffering, he'll get a second term now

it just seems to be the trend

[era veteran]

35. This came up on my Facebook page

small world

[obxhead]

37. I doubt Scott is toast for this.

"most of whom were poor black men."

That alone will likely encourage a majority of his voters.

[Lifelong Protester]

40. Two things, and boy is this bad stuff

but 1) the dailykos link says Scott Walker is toast {I'd sure like that to be true}
And 2) As much as repub politicos might like the idea of poor brown and black folks dying off, aren't those people also "the help"? You know, the folks that cook and clean for them, the ones who cook in restaurants, bus dishes, pick vegetables and fruit, etc. So, isn't there a pretty good chance that this could spread to the 'voter class' as the repubs would like to think of the all whitey group?

Despicable.


Start marking your calendars, folks, this is the year it is really starting to go down. IMHO.

[The Blue Flower]

41. So he's responsible for the spread of TB in the population

This is reckless endangerment at the least.

[patrice]

48. People need to understand better how "Pro-Lifer"s have been killing health care legislation

for decades if it had even the most indirect funding for even the smallest family planning policies in it, that's legislation directed to here at home and also foreign aide and military stuff.

Decades of health care legislation that included Anti-biotic Resistant TB fighting funds in it, affecting disease prevention efforts ALL OVER THE WORLD, killed by a bunch of people so obsessed with fetuses and with controlling women that they don't give a shit about killing INNOCENT people in un-necessary wars and contributing to the spread of nearly un-treatable diseases, including TB, all over Earth.

Pro-Life is a DEATH cult.

[raouldukelives]

49. Must feel odd to be so void of empathy.

So bereft of ethical conundrums unless they pertain to the the holy dollar.
Bet he's a hoot at parties!

[freshwest]

52. Actually, Scott, like Ryan, is the epitome of the Randian Superman ideal:

The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible.

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation.

Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)

If ones really wants to get into the mind of Ayn Rand, read this link with details of what Hickman did, that Rand clearly knew about and built her philosophy upon. The woman Libertarians, Ron Paul and Paul Ryan worship. Never trust anyone who uses these terms. Be warned, this is sick stuff, but it was well known and published. There is no excuse for this.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=entire

[raouldukelives]

57. That really is sick stuff.

I just came off reading the post about the schizophrenic young man who was beaten to death by the police officers and reading the lines about "First they came for the communists".
This whole Rand superman thing which is an awful like Nietzsche and his superman philosophy which of course lead to some problems in Germany. I don't know. Sometimes it feels like the same playbook with a different name. Especially after reading something as disturbing as the police brutality story, the way it is allowed to flourish, the commendations for brutality in the military and public service. Sure doesn't feel like Kansas anymore.

[freshwest]

58. You ever seen what a flock of chickens, or dogs if one is injured, does? They'll try to kill it.

It's that same reptilian part of the brain that reacts to what does't seem to match. We all need that part of the brain and we all have it. It's the part that has us react to save ourselves, also to get anything done that requires high focus and repetition.

The fore brain is supposed to buffer that and allow us to reflect and decide whether to act. In a mob situation, the reflection is gone, it's all reaction. That is what causes police brutality, an over excitation and the reptilian brain takes over just like a snake. We all have it, but to have a society that isn't completely sociopathic, it has to be restrained. It can never be eliminated, it must be tamed.

There are many things in this life that require this. But talk radio and non-stop media feed right into the part of the brain that has no conscience, no morals, no reason. That's why this stuff happens.

And they did not come for the communists first, if you're talking Nazis. But in keeping with what you said, it turns out that a lot of the SS were college educated. So we're not talking stupid here, we never were.

Cunning, clever, intelligent and ruthless, yes, they were that. Many of these qualities have been useful over the centuries. But it's not a basis for government or society and should be recognized for what it is, part of the human race, not superior.

[raouldukelives]

59. That darn reptilian brain wins every time.

The managers of the message know the buttons to push and we obey like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Hope we can break the cycle freshwest. Great food for thought.

[midnight]

50. The "money trumps peace" crowd hide the facts.... Hidden facts end up costing many times more

when the teabirchers take hold....

[Lint Head]

51. Knowing the warped mindset of the GOP thety probably think only poor people get TB.

[Dont call me Shirley]

55. 20 years keeping silent? Wouldn't jebby have had to have been silent as well?

[Smilo]

56. And yet they are spending billions

on the off chance that a bio-terrorists releases an infectious disease into a community.

And here is Scott, home grown terrorist governor, who knowingly allows a very serious and infectious disease in his community - where is homeland security when you need them?