Thursday, March 24, 2005

STUPIDITY The stupidity of the Bush administration borders on the absurd and the criminally insane. WashingtonVotes: "Bill 5113 (Regarding rainwater collection) was introduced by Sen. Paull Shin on January 13, 2005, to authorize the Department of Ecology to permit by rule, under conditions appropriate to the water resources inventory area, the use of rain barrels and cisterns to collect rainwater intended for beneficial use on the same property from where it was collected. For many years, people have collected rainwater for use on their property. This practice, while generally harmless, may be illegal." What next, a bill making walking in the sun illegal? Newsday: "The corruption of Congress is so complete that its maneuvers are no longer shocking. They're terrifying. The capital descended into madness Palm Sunday weekend. Republican congressional leaders engineered an intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged and vegetative woman in Florida. President George W. Bush broke from his Easter vacation in Texas to sign the extraordinary measure to hand the federal courts jurisdiction in the dispute." AlterNet: "The media coverage of the Schiavo case doesn't include one important detail: a Texas law that authorizes health care providers to remove their patients from life support. Guess who signed it into law? There is one bit of context, however, that seems particularly salient, and it involves a six-month old boy named Sun Hudson. On Thursday, Hudson died after a Texas hospital removed his feeding tube, despite his mother's pleas. He had a fatal congenital disease, but would have been kept alive had his mother been able to pay for his medical costs, or had she found another institution willing to take him. In a related Texas case, Spiro Nikolouzos, who is unable to speak and must be fed through a tube because of a shunt in his brain - but who his wife says can recognize family members and show emotion - may soon be removed from life support because health care providers believe his case is futile. The Hudson and Nikolous cases fall under the Texas Futile Care Law, which was signed into law by then-governor George W. Bush." CounterPunch: "Terri Schiavo's healthcare bills have been paid from a million-dollar settlement obtained by her husband after medical malpractice put her in a persistent vegetative state. The million dollars has been nearly exhausted by now on medical costs and legal fees. Now Congress - and the Nevada legislature - has passed 'tort reform', making it difficult or impossible for injured patients to collect from doctors, hospitals, or insurance companies. Congress recently passed a bankruptcy law, which makes it difficult or impossible for people who are swamped with medical bills to get a clean slate by declaring chapter 7 bankruptcy. Medical bills are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy." So you see, Bush is only catering to the insurance branch, and when medical bills are not paid it is perfectly legal to stop treatment. Weird, very weird. 11:54:49 AM

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