Opportunistic infections plague Dodd's health care tour

Chris Dodd's effort to change the subject for the 2010 election to health care made a pit stop yesterday at Derby's Griffin Hospital.

Since the Senator got it from both sides, maybe he should have skipped the event and checked himself in.

Before he got there, he was greeted by a picket line of protesters from Dump Dodd. This is a sight he was unaccustomed to seeing in his travels around Connecticut.

Then it got worse, Dodd may have thought he was going to run a pep rally for Obama-style "health care reform", but was confronted with a cadre of militants demanding the immediate adoption of single payer health insurance.

Needless to say, it looks like it was ugly.

DERBY — A “town hall discussion” on health care reform held at Griffin Hospital Saturday became contentious when advocates of a single-payer health insurance system shouted at U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd to put the plan back “on the table.”.......The two people evicted from the meeting in Derby Saturday were members of the group Single Payer Action. Russell Mokhiber of West Virginia, formerly of Simsbury, was the first to stand and shout at Dodd. He asked him several times, “Why did you take single pay off the table?” Then he added, “Tell us about your corporate connections.”Jerry Kann of New York was the second person to stand and ask Dodd why he had taken the single-payer proposal “off the table.” He, too, was escorted from the building. 

The Democrats in general have a rather large problem on their hands which us poor Republicans can;t solve.  There are millions of lefties out there who actually believed their party's diatribes and think the Democrats are going to hand the Gitmo detainees a plane ticket home and an ACLU lawyer; and implement every social policy pipe dream that got a favorable mention in Mother Jones or the Nation.  

The Obama  Adminstration and folks like Dodd now have to cater to Rachel Maddow's whims as well as trying to run a government. Reap what you sow, folks.

Chris Dodd is a lot of things, but if you think he's going to crush the private insurance industry in CT, which only accounts for 65,000 jobs and is the highest concentration of such jobs in the nation, might I suggest you move on to marijuana legalization.

The internal contradictions of "health care reform" are rather immense; it appears to be the theory that somehow better management will lower costs to consumers; lower costs to the government. cover everybody, and maintain the expected standard of care.  I'm not bright enough to figure out how this is going to work, but then again maybe Peter Orslag has invented a perpetual motion machine in his spare time.  It doesn't seem NY Governor Paterson has had much luck reducing the excess cost of his state's health care system  and closing hospitals and laying off insurance workers is not going to be an easy sell in what is likely to be a jobless economic recovery.

So, the Obama team has decided that rather than engage in the merits of the issue, it will merely accuse skeptics of "swiftboating". To wit.

We knew healthcare reform would face fierce opposition -- and it's begun. As we speak, the same people behind the notorious "swiftboat" ads of 2004 are already pumping millions of dollars into deceptive television ads. Their plan is simple: torpedo healthcare reform before it sees the light of day by scaring the public and distorting the President's approach

 Dunno guys, looks like the more dangerous squadron is coming at you from your exposed left flank, arguing you guys aren;t socialist enough.  Gonna explain why healthcare costs money to the likes of them?

Looks like this prescription isn't going to restore the ailing Dodd back to political health.  Then again, every day he spends on this is a day he isn't socializing the financial services industry.

* Full disclosure: My wife works in the CTICU at a local CT acute care hospital (Not Griffin).