From Michelle Malkin:

I blogged about Michelle Obama’s role in creating a patient-dumping scheme for the University of Chicago Medical Center back in March. With her husband and the Democrats unleashing health care horror story anecdotes to gin up public fear and build support for the beleaguered Obamacare plan, my syndicated column today revisits the kind of “reform” the Obamas and their Chicago cronies champion — and who benefits.

Here’s a challenge to the ABC News Obamacare infomercial producers. I dare you to ask President Obama this question: What have you done for Dontae Adams, lately?

***

The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

The White House, Democrats, and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor, minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.

Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago have raised red flags about the outsourcing program, run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has non-profit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care. Yet, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 when Mrs. Obama was employed there—1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the non-partisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.

Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: “Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds.”

Don’t expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.” The program guaranteed “free” shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics.

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!” at the top of their lungs.

Joe Stephens of the Washington Post wrote: “To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Axelrod’s firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign—appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party ‘validators.’ They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.”

Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and her public relations man, David Axelrod—yes, the same David Axelrod who is now Mr. Obama’s senior adviser at the White House. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired Axelrod’s public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, to promote Mrs. Obama’s Urban Health Initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett – now White House senior adviser.

Axelrod’s great contribution: Re-branding! His firm recommended re-naming the initiative after “[i]nternal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word ‘urban’ is code for ‘black’ or ‘black and poor’….Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative.” Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.

In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas’ community exploded after a young boy covered by Medicaid was turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams’ mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama’s hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics, and Tylenol and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.

I’ll guarantee you this: You’ll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the First Lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.

Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Mr. Axelrod’s grand plan. The group released a statement expressing “grave concerns that the University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA)” – signed by President Reagan, by the way – “and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”

Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.

***

You can pre-order Culture of Corruption now at Amazon.

***

Related reading: David Catron on Michelle O’s “Urban Health Initiative” (now run by Obama longtime crony Dr. Eric Whitaker) and see also registered nurse Carol Peracchio on ACORN General Hospital.

From PrisionPlanet.com:

Obama’s Insurance Proposal May Grab Power From States
Erik Holm
Bloomberg News
Friday, June 19, 2009

June 19 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s plan to create a U.S. insurance office after the $182.5 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. may take powers from the states that have overseen the industry for more than 135 years.

Obama called for the creation of a federal Office of National Insurance within the Treasury Department to monitor the industry, represent U.S. interests in international insurance agreements, and look for gaps in state oversight. The proposal was announced this week as part of Obama’s planned overhaul of the U.S. financial regulatory system.

The administration endorsed broader federal oversight of firms posing a threat to the financial system, and said more regulation may be needed for parts of companies outside the reach of state supervision. AIG’s Financial Products unit, which brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy after it sold credit protection to firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wasn’t under the states’ umbrella.

“AIG highlighted gaps in our insurance regulatory system,” said Leigh Ann Pusey, president of the American Insurance Association, which has pushed for federal oversight for a decade. “We had 20 different states with authority over 72 insurance subsidiaries of AIG just in this country.” The states didn’t work together “until the crisis hit,” she said.

The creation of a federal regulator is supported by some of the country’s largest insurers, including Allstate Corp. and Travelers Cos. Some smaller firms are opposed. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, a trade group for policyholder-owned companies, said in a statement it had “concerns with some of the language in the draft paper” released by the Treasury to coincide with Obama’s announcement.

Full story here.

From GOPUSA.com:

Next Up… The Health Care Infomercial
Posted by Bobby Eberle
June 17, 2009 at 7:30 am

Remember the good, old days when reporters were tough on everyone… working hard to find the facts and get the scoop? Ok, ok, neither do I. I guess I’m too young. How about the days when the line between journalism and political advocacy was starting to blur? Remember those days? Well, now that line is completely gone.

With Obama’s big push for a national health care system that is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion in coming years, ABC News has decided to help get the message out. Next week, they are broadcasting a special called “Questions for the President: Prescription for America” from INSIDE the White House. It will be a question and answer session with questions selected by ABC News from members of an “audience.” The only side of the health care debate that will be presented is Obama’s. So much for that blurry line of separation…

As reported in a FOXNews.com story, on June 24, “ABC News will host an hour-long special on health care reform in the U.S. next Wednesday from the White House East Room — a move that ABC is defending but critics are calling a surrender to the Obama administration’s effort to control the debate.”

According to ABC News, “participants will present a broad range of ‘divergent opinions in this historic debate.’” The problem, as anyone can clearly see, is that only Obama will be doing the talking, and we all know what kind of program will result.

In a letter to ABC News President David Westin, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chief of Staff Ken McKay wrote, “I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue.”

McKay goes on to write his letter, which was distributed widely on the Drudge Report and news web sites, that “in addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news ‘will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.’ This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.”

McKay noted that a request to ABC News that the Republican Party’s views be included “to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented” was rejected.

I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party’s opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith offered a rebuttal to McKay’s comments in a letter posted on the ABC News web site. She said that she hopes “we can all agree that a robust debate of health care issues and potential policies is in order.”

To that end, ABC News announced plans to broadcast a primetime hour from the White House devoted to exploring and probing the President’s position and giving voice to questions and criticisms of that position. We hope that any American concerned about health care will find our efforts to be informative, fair and civil.

“Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control.  To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience,” Smith wrote.

Informative, fair, and civil? Give me a break! Legislators and researchers are currently engaging in a health care debate. However, this program has no resemblance to a debate. A debate needs two sides. It makes NO difference if the questions come from all sides, if the only one doing the answering is Obama.

The entire premise of the program already sends a message that the Obama plan is the right plan. ABC News is simply helping Obama clarify the plan to “confused” Americans. This is simply outrageous.

The Democrat Majority Leader of the House, Steny Hoyer, doesn’t seem to share my concern. In a story on CNSNews.com, Hoyer said he was “sure” that ABC News will cover comments by the GOP. “If Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell or others want to comment, I’m sure ABC would cover them,” Hoyer said.

Cover them? How? With a one-hour primetime program? I don’t think so.

Please take the time to contact ABC News, and let them know how you feel. Not only will the primetime program feature only Obama and air from the White House, that evenings regular news programming will also be broadcast from the White House. This is outrageous. No news organization should set up camp in a facility it is charged with covering.

Related posts:

1. ‘Obamacare is Not a Good Fit for Women’
2. The Obamacare Rationing Threat To Your Mammograms
3. Upton investigates Obamacare advertising campaign, stimulus funding
4. 45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting Under Obamacare
5. Obamacare’s Last Best Hope
6. Obamacare’s Prescription for Inanity
7. CBS Uniquely Notes ObamaCare May Result in Some Children Being Denied Health Insurance
8. No Media Bias?
9. Elena Kagan’s Old DOJ E-mails On Obamacare Kept ‘Private’
10. More Proof That Obamacare Leads to Rationing