Doctor Michele Bachmann: I Oppose "PerryCare"

Screeching video at this link, but here's some text:

“Hi, I’m Michele Bachmann. There are many important issues in this presidential campaign – including the role of government, abuse of executive power and crony capitalism. As a mother of three daughters, I believe that parents are the ones who should decide whether or not their young daughters should receive injections for sexually transmitted diseases. These are decisions that are best left to parents, the children and their doctors and should take into consideration the child’s health and the family’s values.

“Whether its Obamacare or Perrycare I oppose any governor or president who mandates a family’s healthcare choices and violates the rights of parents on these issues – especially if the decision-making process occurs behind closed doors, bypassing legislative action, and favors campaign contributors over families. That’s not right. As President, I’ll do what’s right for families.”

Favoring campaign contributors over families?

We got that.

Meanwhile, Bachman has taken somewhere north of $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Those donors include Abbott Labs, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Bayer. Yet, not a dollar of all that pharma money, from such a wide range of the world's largest drugmakers, came from Merck. Might Bachmann be going after Merck on behalf of that company's competitors who also happen to be Bachmann donors?

But really, if Bachmann is carrying water, it's likely not for her pharmaceutical patrons, but her insurance ones. Over the years, Bachmann has taken in huge donations from the insurance industry, including big names such as Allstate, American Family, Aetna and AFLAC, as well as umbrella organizations like the National Association of Health Underwriters and the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. There are also several professional insurance association and agent PACs. In the 2009-10 cycle, "insurance" was the largest single industry donor to the Congresswoman. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, Bachmann ranked eighth in total fundraising receipts from insurers.

Now, if Bachmann likes a good follow-the-money insinuation, she might like the hypothetical that she is only going after Perry's Gardasil decision because, as a covered treatment, such an order would cost insurers for every injection (a full vaccination requires three shots, and they cost about $120 each). Perry worked to secure about $40 million from the state to match about that same amount from the feds to cover the uninsured and those on state health assistance.

It should also be noted that while selflessly defending innocent little girls from the needle-rape of sex-predator-doctors wielding jabs of Liquid Whore, she also is now fundraising off of her brave stance.

She's not backing off her previous claim that some woman "cried hysterically" to her and told her that her 10-12 year old daughter (that's the age Gardasil is recommended for) got the shot and became "mentally retarded." She deflects, now, saying she's not a "doctor or scientist," so she cannot evaluate this claim. (She can only fundraise off it, it seems.)

Not to be a dick, but she has previously claimed to be a doctor.

And one more thing: Lest you think she doesn't have the brains to do battle with Obama, she rattles off her degrees. "I'm not only a lawyer, I have a postdoctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary," she told Fox News' Chris Wallace in June. "I work in serious scholarship."

But there was one résumé item that was missing: a Ph.D. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Bachmann traveled the state as an education activist, she went by "Dr. Michele Bachmann," even though she had never obtained nor sought the advanced degree that's a prerequisite for the title.

From 1998 through 2003, Bachmann was a leading opponent of a Minnesota curriculum standard called the Profile of Learning.... Along with a local education activist named Michael Chapman, she toured the state and the nation to drum up opposition to state and federal education standards. And according to eyewitness accounts and material put out by the group, she picked up an advanced degree along the way.

....

" Bachmann's 2002 anti-Profile film, Guinea Pig Kids, likewise twice identified the then-state senator as "Dr. Michele Bachmann."

And in 2000, when Bachmann knocked off incumbent GOP state Sen. Gary Laidig at the district nominating convention, the MREC fired off a news release repeatedly invoking their candidate's honorarium. "On the first ballot, Dr. Michele Bachmann was endorsed 62% to Laidig's 38%," it read. "Dr. Bachmann herself, who arrived at her convention with no intention of running, was shocked by her victory."

So I'm confused. Is she a doctor or not? Currently she's not, I guess.

Why No Mention of RomneyCare? So wonders Matt Lewis.

He's hinting at an idea, which I think is daffy myself, that Bachmann is some kind of stalking horse for Romney.

I don't buy that. I think at the moment, though, they have a tactical, circumstantial alliance based on shared interest. Both want to stop Perry, so they can go back to the old way of dividing up votes between them, moderates and more establishment-oriented people for Romney, social cons and Tea Partiers for Bachmann.

I can't imagine her being a stalking horse for Romney. What would Romney give her? I'll tell you one thing, he's not going to give her any kind of cabinet position.

posted by Ace at 03:18 PM

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