In health bill, billions for parks, paths and farmer's markets

boston.com ^ | 7/9/2009 | Michael Kranish

[GVnana]

In health bill, billions for parks, paths

Supporters cite prevention, but add-ons’ critics see pork
By Michael Kranish

Globe Staff / July 9, 2009

WASHINGTON - Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.

The add-ons - characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation’s health “infrastructure’’ - appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.

Critics argue the provision is a thinly disguised effort to insert pork-barrel spending into a bill that has been widely portrayed to the public as dealing with expanding health coverage and cutting medical costs. A leading critic, Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, ridicules the local projects, asking: “How can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?’’

[GVnana]

But advocates, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defend the proposed spending as a necessary way to promote healthier lives and, in the long run, cut medical costs. “These are not public works grants; they are community transformation grants,’’ said Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee whose healthcare bill includes the projects.

Somebody stop these maniacs before my head explodes.

[rockabyebaby]

My head already exploded, fat teddy is the senator from my state, pretty soon there will be a chip in the twinkies, when you go to check out a beeper will go off and the brownshirts will come arrest you! Wait and see.........

[ForeignDude]

Look, Kennedy is waaaay gone. The dude is senile; for all we know, he’s already dead and they just trot out a puppet on strings when they need a photo-op.

You want to get something done, nail the staffers. They’re the ones writing all this crap.

[EGPWS]

In health bill, billions for parks, paths

Preventative maintenance...

Maintaining politicians health via reelection.

[OneWingedShark]

I think that death would be a good preventative health-maintenance option for politicians... I mean, who worries about the dead getting sick?

[EGPWS]

I think that death would be a good preventative health-maintenance option for politicians... I mean, who worries about the dead getting sick?

Don't give 'em any idea's, after all the dead need to be able to go and vote.

[KarlInOhio]

Will socialized medicine pay for the fractured frontal cranial bone I get from smashing my head into the wall every time I hear of this stuff?

[SierraWasp]

I guess the paths and street lights are for street walkers, the Jungle Gyms are to teach children not to “bungle the jungle” and the Farmer’s Markets are for Teddy “Potato Head” Kennedy, right???

[socialismisinsidious]

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