Healthcare Slush Fund Wastes Taxpayer Dollars

After using an Obamacare slush fund to pay for the student lending bill last week, House Republicans have sparked a firestorm of public speculation on what the $15 billion pot of taxpayer money has actually been used for. Reports now reveal hundreds of millions are being spent from Obamacare’s Public Health and Prevention Fund on a variety of government-run programs under the guise of public health.

Among the more ridiculous examples of government waste, slush fund grants from the fund distributed through the CDC’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work program went to $7.5 million on pet spaying in Nashville because “it wasn’t fair to ask residents to get outside and walk for fitness when they had to worry about stray dogs nipping at their heels.”

Health and Human Services has a list of grants from the aforementioned Prevention program totaling $373 million including $6.3 million in Jefferson County Alabama to “disseminate health information through mass media and targeted radio dramas.” We didn’t know radio dramas were still popular.

In 2010, as part of the National Public Health Improvement Initiative, almost every state received $100,000 from the slush fund to establish a full time Performance Improvement Manager who will “participate in a national network of performance improvement professionals supported by CDC.” Sounds like another taxpayer-funded vacation a la the GSA travel model.

Pima County, Arizona received $15.8 million in funds that went to programs like “composting cooperatives” while the Indiana State Department of Health received $4.5 million that went to a variety of projects including “health prompts at stairwells and elevators in public venues.” Finally, Washington State received $15.5 million, some of which went to “supporting the development of healthy corner stores.”

Axing the fund is one of the best ways to start dialing back the Obama Administration’s war on personal choice and free enterprise. House Republicans showed leadership in going after one of the most farcical aspects of the law; the resulting media attention to what Democrats believe to be “public health” concerns should inspire even the most virulent advocate of government intrusion to wonder whose interests Nanny State lawmakers actually have in mind.

Wasteful expenditures authorized under Obamacare's government health slush fund are now coming to light.

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious

2 posted on 05/03/2012 3:20:56 PM PDT by Piranha (If you seek perfection you will end up with Democrats.)

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