PUBLIC NUISANCES
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
PUBLIC NUISANCES R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR. A Dark Cloud Over Dr. Dean WASHINGTON UST AS THINGS WERE GOING swimmingly for the presidential campaign of Dr. Howard Dean, a thick gray storm...
...In fact, I have more medicine cabinets than Arianna Huffington, and I did not even have to divorce a multimillionaire to afford them...
...Dean is not going to get the feminist vote...
...The other problem is that Medicare will go bust someday...
...In New Hampshire, scene of the first primary, he has forged ahead of his nearest opponent, Senator John Pierre Kerry...
...I would want the hangnail option, which might cost a bit more than Senator Kennedy's (unless he took the weight-watcher's option...
...The only does I avoid are plastic surgeons, and that is because they would have me looking like Senator John Pierre Kerry...
...In fact, services are being cut back even now...
...Now it has apparently thrown in the towel...
...I have more medicines in my medicine cabinet than does Arianna Huffington...
...He's not running a campaign, he's running a 58 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2003 movement," writes Natasha C. on the Dean website, if the New York Times is to be believed...
...Howard Dean's spontaneous crowds...
...Yet Dr...
...We are particularly pleased that out of a field of strong progressive candidates, the strongest feminist candidate turns out to be a woman," intoned N.O.W.'s president...
...PUBLIC NUISANCES Drug Fix WASHINGTON I write as a confirmed hypochondriac...
...The problem Dr...
...Of a sudden 20,000 Birkenstocks are stomping towards Dr...
...He hopes to corral them by striking the one chord that holds them all together, hatred of President Bush...
...So it looks like Dr...
...The proposed bills will force all of us into a health-care straitjacket...
...Even a hypochondriac can admire it...
...He has the antiwar crowd, but what about the other groups...
...Howard Dean's supporters remember Nixon, not with fondness...
...Nixon lied to the American people...
...Democrats get very mad when they think someone other than a Democrat is lying to them...
...They love it when Dr...
...If the contemplated prescription drug coverage is thrown in, add another $6 trillion to $12 trillion...
...Howard Dean can face up to that problem later...
...You know, word spreads from Starbucks to Starbucks, from health food shoppe to health food shoppe: "Dr...
...Dean says things such as, "When this President talks, sometimes the opposite of what he says is really the truth...
...In Seattle, 10,000 showed up in another of what the New York Times reports are "seemingly spontaneous crowds...
...Howard Dean is the maddest...
...Senator Edward Kennedy is opposed to such measures...
...Howard Dean, a thick gray storm cloud floats over his shiny oval of a head...
...Elsewhere, vast crowds are turning up all over to hear him...
...Howard Dean's venue...
...This seems to be the reason for the large crowds...
...They are really mad too...
...At any rate, former Senator Braun was equally obscure...
...He never lied to the American people . . . unnecessarily...
...Government employees then select the policy of their choice...
...Frankly I cannot understand why Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on extending it beyond government employees to the rest of us...
...As with Nixon so with George W. Bush—liberal Democrats do not like to be lied to...
...One of his opponents for the Democratic party's coveted nomination, former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, has been endorsed by the National Organization for Women's Political Action committee and by the National Women's Political Caucus—two in one day...
...He wants to move towards a single-payer health system whose proper name is socialism...
...The government then pays between 72 percent and 75 percent of the policy premium...
...Actually the government already has a solution to the healthcare muddle, but it is only available to members of Congress and government employees, namely, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program...
...Nixon wore wingtips...
...Dean, attired in button-down dress shirt and a nice tie—he never wears a jacket, sports or otherwise...
...Dean faces is that his party is a melange of one-issue enthusiasts...
...Possibly she does not know how big the White House is...
...We know that the unions lean towards other candidates...
...The only reasons I can ascertain are that A) Republicans are not up to the political fight, and B) Democrats are holding out so as to move national healthcare away from market-based reforms...
...With a proper array of health-care programs, I just might be able to get insurance for my hangnails...
...We hypochondriacs need to be able to make choices...
...He is very angry with President Bush...
...All of us, hypochondriac and otherwise, need to remember what the great economist Milton Friedman pointed out a generation ago, to wit: healthcare demand is elastic...
...For now he has that storm cloud overhead...
...Yet I might want to take my hangnail to a doctor and I ought to be able to, assuming I pay for it...
...The only problem this protest movement faces is that there is almost nothing to protest...
...I have half a dozen personal physicians...
...In its 28 years, FEHBP's costs have been no greater than Medicare's and its benefits are more extensive...
...Of course, any market-based reforms can be expected to rouse Kennedy's ire...
...Under FEHBP the government's Office of Personnel Management annually sends a memo to health insurance providers, outlining goals and soliciting each company to put together plans consistent with those goals...
...t:i,= I write as a confirmed hypochondriac...
...Thus you might think I am exultant over the advance of the new prescription drug bills through Congress...
...Now what if Senator John Pierre Kerry takes the gay vote...
...Dean's wardrobe is only part of his magic...
...Howard Dean is coming...
...In fact, of all the Democratic candidates Dr...
...It has many doors, and I cannot recall any with a "Men Only" sign on it...
...Said she: "Together we are going to take the 'men only' sign off the White House door...
...That is one of the things they admired about Bill Clinton...
...He does wear pants, usually the suit pants to the jacket that he does not wear, and he wears leather shoes, but rarely wingtips...
...Scholars at the American Enterprise Institute calculate the long-term shortfall at more than $30 trillion...
...FEHBP has wide acceptance among health specialists and health-care providers...
...Any policy that damages Medicare he believes will push us closer to his quaint 1930s goal...
...I have more medicines in my medicine cabinet than does Arianna Huffington...
...And what if the environmentalists go to Congressman Dennis Kucinich...
...By now it is pretty clear that today's reactionaries are with Senator Kennedy...
...The cheaper and more available it is the more it will be in demand...
...If fees were paid by government, without restriction, we hypochondriacs would be in the doctor's office all the time...
...And still I cannot get my hangnails treated...
...There they will hear Dr...
...What strikes me as an unendurable affliction might strike you as a hangnail...
...In fact, I have more medicine cabinets than Arianna Huffington, OCTOBER 2003 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 59...
...I suppose this is another first—a woman Democratic presidential candidate who is also a feminist or is it a feminist Democratic presidential candidate who is also a woman...
...Instead, I reach for the Prozac...
...Just as he is forging ahead in the polls and fund-raising appeals are enriching his campaign, comes devastating news...
...As the shortfall mounts ordinary Americans will not be able to get some genuinely urgent procedures covered...
...Furthermore, employees can negotiate with the companies as to which options are included in their personal policy...
...And very few African Americans appear in Dr...
...A lot of Dr...
...The Bush Administration until recently included market-based reforms in its plans for prescription-drug legislation...
Vol. 36 • October 2003 • No. 5
