Ever eager to name things after public officials who shower them with taxpayer largesse, the University of South Carolina is hosting its fourth annual “Congressman James E. Clyburn Health Disparities Lecture Series” on Thursday.
And get ready, people … this year’s forum is actually a two-day event that’s being held at the swanky (by Columbia, S.C. standards) Grand Ballroom of the downtown Marriott Courtyard.
The topic of the forum? “Health Equity in the 21st Century: Saving the Next Generation.”
Its objective? To “offer a comprehensive program on what federal and state budgets and healthcare reform will mean at the local, state and national levels for children and adults.”
In addition to Clyburn – whose “transportation center” at S.C. State University is currently being investigated for fraud – the list of event attendees is comprised almost exclusively of government officials. Among the federal bureaucrats attending? Department of Health and Human Services deputy secretary Garth Graham, Office of Women’s Health director Frances Ashe-Goins and Region IV director Anton Gunn, a former S.C. lawmaker.
Also attending are Barvetta Singletary, (Clyburn’s D.C. “pork maven”), Democratic State Rep. Joseph Neal, Mary Lynne Diggs (who runs South Carolina’s “Head Start” program) and Bill Jenkins – who runs the “Institute for African-American Research” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Numerous other state-level government officials are also attending the Clyburn event, which will feature a pair of ritzy receptions at the conclusion of each day’s events.
One current state lawmaker who asked not to be identified blasted the two-day bureaucrat-fest, calling it “nothing but a taxpayer-funded commercial for Obamacare.”
USC spokeswoman Margaret Lamb objected to that characterization, telling FITS that there is “no cost to (the) university” associated with hosting the forum. Lamb also said that none of the speakers are being paid to attend – and that all of the costs are being picked up by a grant.
That may be true … although you can bet your bottom dollar (assuming Uncle Sam hasn’t taken it by now) that all of these state and federal bureaucrats – along with University staffers from the administrative office, the Arnold School of Public Health, the USC School of Medicine – are devoting considerable taxpayer time and resources to this boondoggle.
Also, count on there being plenty of travel-related reimbursements associated with this event.
Seriously … if you don’t think the taxpayers are ultimately paying for this thing, you’re nuts. Also, we’re pretty sure USC’s taxpayer-funded lobbyists are going to have their hands full explaining this event to antsy GOP lawmakers still scarred from their most recent brush with Obamacare.
Nonetheless, Lamb defended the event – objecting to criticisms that promoting Obamacare wasn’t part of the school’s core academic mission.
“A vibrant university sponsors all manner of panels, symnposia, programs and events for internal audiences (faculty, staff and students) and the community,” she said. “Moreover, the student poster session allows graduate students to present their work, have their abstracts published, and participate in discussion that will generate new ideas and opportunities for public health research.”
Damn … she’s good, isn’t she?
Lamb added that the Clyburn event invited S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s Health and Human Services director, Tony Keck, in an effort to incorporate “all viewpoints for a lively and informative discussion”
Really?
The last time we checked Haley’s administration should fit right in with this crowd. After all, in her first 100 days in office Haley has approved a pair of $100 million Medicaid bailouts (here and here) and has signed an executive order authorizing the implementation of Obamacare’s controversial exchanges.
Of course she’s consistently ripped Obamacare in public – most recently at a Tea Party rally earlier this month.
In January, a federal judge in Florida struck Obamacare down in its entirety – although that hasn’t stopped U.S. President Barack Obama from continuing to implement the new law. Also in January, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives repealed Obamacare – although that effort died in the U.S. Senate.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hold a hearing on the law on June 8 – and after that it’s on to the U.S. Supreme Court.
After Obama signed his socialized monstrosity into law over a year ago, Democrats vowed to undertake a massive educational and public relations campaign aimed at selling the American public on the benefits of the legislation. That didn’t happen … and health care data that’s been released over the past year hasn’t helped their cause (click here, here, here and here for a few examples of that).
Maybe forums like this one are an effort to begin that “educational” process?
We have consistently opposed Obama’s socialized medicine law. We hate its infringements on individual liberty, but the bottom line is that America can’t afford its exorbitant costs or the new burdens it would place on the private sector.
In addition to its estimated $2.5 trillion price tag, a recent report issued by The Cato Institute found that Obamacare will result in massive new Medicaid expenses for cash-strapped states. Hundreds of leading economists have also blasted Obamacare as “a threat to U.S. businesses,” one that “will place a crushing debt burden on future generations of Americans.”
CLYBURN LECTURE SERIES (Official Site)
Pic: via Daylife
***
By jim lewis April 28, 2011 at 9:17 am
Oh boy!
Two whole days of watching Snails Fuck.
By Darth April 28, 2011 at 9:31 am
Let me see, this will be more justification for the Innoscamvista and another diversion from the missing $25M as SC State…
By Maxwell April 28, 2011 at 9:46 am
I’m with Jim. Nikki’s Inner Circle of Fumbling Freaks would be far more entertaining. After all, this is the Mad Magazine of SC politics, right?
By Rijiv April 28, 2011 at 9:59 am
Well, has MajorC heard the one about the Indian girl’s missing panty hose???
By The Cato boys a little late to the party April 28, 2011 at 10:08 am
“will place a crushing debt burden on future generations of Americans.”
The Beltway Libertarians are certainly the masters of the universe when it comes to obviousness.
You only have to mosey over to the archives of mises.org or lewrockwell.com to see that the “crushing debt” was being talked about decades before Cato’s pandering ass decided to comment on it.
I hate that Cato even uses the word “libertarian”.
I’m going to start calling myself “classically liberal” and be done with it…all the fake conservatives,dumb tea partiers and Cato/Reason have ruined the word “libertarian”.
By Asha April 28, 2011 at 10:22 am
We do not wear hose or stockings.
By Ramon April 28, 2011 at 10:34 am
Boz – Spill some dirt. Sic is weak, Balsac is missing, OWB is bored, Gary only shows up for Nikki, and Wesley’s site is a joke.
By randy April 28, 2011 at 10:38 am
Perhaps Clyburn can wield his clout with Obama to make sure Boeing doesn’t leave North Charleston.
yeah, right!
By Popeye April 28, 2011 at 10:39 am
jim, wat up with the dolls and needles???
Pingback: The Jim Clyburn “Obamacare” Commercial
By Above and Beyond April 28, 2011 at 10:43 am
Boeing has enough problems without SC. It’s a joke. Haley has nothing in the commerce pipeline. She is simply filling her daily lying quota. It has worked well for her so far.
By Jan April 28, 2011 at 11:06 am
Before Medicare if you were over 65 or disabled and lived in South Carolina, there was a 65% chance you had no health insurance. If you became ill you went to your county hospital where you paid what you could, possibly you were bankrupted, and the county picked up the balance. You were treated, by a doctor paid for with county funds.
Now that was socialized medicine. Today if you are over 65 or disabled we have government health insurance, not socialized medicine.
Of course if Congressman Ryan and South Carolina’s Congressmen and Senators have their way, we will go back to that old system, and the state can once again determine what to do about all of those uninsured senior citizens and disabled people. I guess we will either let them die or return to socialized medicine.
By Marble April 28, 2011 at 11:37 am
Ok Sic, where’s the scoop on Tim and the First Dude????
By Huhhh??? April 28, 2011 at 12:04 pm
“Mary Lynne Diggs (who runs South Carolina’s “Head Start” program)”
Please explain where this person works. During the Berkeley Dorchester EOC Headstart scandal of 3 or 4 years ago, I learned that the EOC/Community Action Agencies, which handle Headstart, are “managed” out of the SC Office of the Governor.
So does Ms. Diggs work for the Office of the Governor or the regional EOC office in Atlanta? Thanks.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach April 28, 2011 at 2:55 pm
/// By Ramon April 28, 2011 at 10:34 am
Boz – Spill some dirt. Sic is weak, Balsac is missing, OWB is bored, Gary only shows up for Nikki, and Wesley’s site is a joke. ///
Hmmmm … dirt … dirt … dirt … let’s see now …
Well, there’s this guy named Anthony Trinca down here who is in the dirt biz, see … in more ways than one. Also in tight with Coastal Carolina University, one of the entities that alleged likely FBI/IRS “Coastal Kickback” target Mark Kelly is a snake oil salesman for. I think you high-fallutin’ political expert types would call him a lobbyist. You know Mark Kelly, also a lobbyist for The Greater Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, who some say is joined at the goo-nads with Katon Dawson, right?
Trinca is the weird-with-a-beard dude who runs the Grand Strand Tea Party (NOT the Myrtle Beach Tea Party), and who mounted an all-out spittle-spewing attack on Johnnie Bellamy at a Repub club meeting down here a couple of days before Horry GOP Convention. That attack went right on this miscreant’s web site the next day, just in time to get lots and lots of emails out with links to it to likely delegates and other attendees of the convention.
Among the charges: She went to the same school as Obama, Harvard. She used to live in San Francisco. She worked at a couple of outfits, YEARS AGO, that NOW support ObamaCare, and she once attended a meeting with various community activists in Horry County that included a muslim, an athiests and communist. (Hell, in Columbia, that could be the Rotary Club!) From all that, Trinca concluded that she was a flaming liberal with “San Francisco values”. Guilt by association has rarely had such thin and questionable associations, but to hear and read Trinca’s boilerplate condemnation of Bellamy, she was a more subversive version of Frances Fox Piven mixed with Bernardine Dohrn — possibly hiding cloven hooves under her pumps.
(continued)
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach April 28, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Later …
By Joe April 28, 2011 at 5:32 pm
“Of course if Congressman Ryan and South Carolina’s Congressmen and Senators have their way, we will go back to that old system, and the state can once again determine what to do about all of those uninsured senior citizens and disabled people. I guess we will either let them die or return to socialized medicine.”
That’s just a good ole fashioned lie.
Will you mind pointing out where in Congressman Ryan’s budget plan he proposes getting rid of Medicare?
By Jan April 28, 2011 at 6:25 pm
OK Joe, I will be glad too. Let me make it simple. Congressman Ryan’s plan is to repeal Medicare for everyone under the age of 55 and enact a voucher scheme whereby the government gives you a voucher for a small amount of money and then allows you to go into the market place and hope you can buy insurance.
Lets say I am 52 years old, and have been working full or part time since I was 16 (true by the way). Under Medicare when I can no longer work, either because I am too old or because I become disabled, I am guaranteed admission into the Medicare program. That means I have reasonable health insurance. Consequently I can plan for my future knowing that I am unlikely to be bankrupted by the cost of my health care when I can no longer work. Under Ryan’s scheme I have know idea whether I will have health insurance when I can no longer work. I might receive an $8000 voucher and the least expensive insurance plan available to me might be $30,000 a year. If I cannot afford to pay the additional $24,000 a year I have no health insurance. Consequently if I contract cancer or have a heart attack, I will be bankrupted and will be left with no access to reasonable health care and no way to support myself.
Ryans plan relies on the unsubstantiated HOPE they will be able to convince health insurance companies to sell health insurances to people they do not want to insure for a price they can afford, and to compete for their business. There is nothing in the Ryan plan mandating that insurance companies sell to senior citizens and the disabled, and nothing capping what they can charge senior citizens and the disabled.
What insurance company is going to compete for the business of a 70 year old man with heart disease, or a 69 year old woman with cancer. The answer is none. Because they cannot possibly charge those people enough money to make money; and if they do you can bet they are going to charge a ton of money and have very low out of pocket caps on coverage.
The CBO estimates that under the Ryan plan the average senior citizen would have to pay 69% if the cost of their health insurance out of pocket. That means if you received a voucher for $8000 you would be paying $17,800 a year or $1450 a month out of your pocket for health insurance. What if you can’t eat and come up with $1,400 a month. You have no Medicare to turn to, because that was repealed.
Only and idiot would exchange Medicare in the hopes this nutty scheme will produce insurance for him to buy 10 years from now, because if it doesn’t he is screwed.
Prior to Medicare nationwide 50% of Senior Citizens had no health insurance. In SC that was probably closer to 65%. Those people were forced to rely on county hospitals if they became ill. No heart specialists, no cancer specialists. In short kiss your family goodby. That is where the Republican plan will take us again. So yes Ryan and the Republican Congressmen from South Carolina voted to repeal Medicare.
Their plan is to balance the budget and pay for tax cuts on the backs of senior citizens who have worked their entire life. People need to wake up and see what is about to happen to them!
By Ki$$myconservativea$$ April 28, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Jan, if we (USA) do not get our economic house in order, whether you will be able to pay for medical care will be the least of your worries. If there is another depression, it won’t be like the last one on the 30′s, which was generally peaceful. I asked a financial advisor with a well know large bank last summer what was the safest thing I could do with my life savings… His answer? “If you don’t already own one, buy a house, in the country, off a main road. Buy some guns and plenty of ammunition and learn how to use them if you don’t know how. Learn how to farm, can and freeze dry food and so forth to provide your own food. In other words be prepared to be a survivalist”.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach April 28, 2011 at 7:21 pm
(continued)
Ramon, this Trinca character purports to be a conservative and to be against intrusive government and excess taxation, but here locally he supports the “RINOs” and rich Dems of the crony elite that run the Chamber and City, and was attacking Bellamy on behalf of their flunkies, including Wallace.
Since bottom-feeder dirty tricks and black ops specialist Mike Green was also seen at the convention, and Wallace has said that several of the Whetsel gang were personal friends of his, it’s pretty clear that this whole attempt to ambush and kneecap Bellamy had absolutely nothing to do with anyone thinking she was a flaming liberal, and everything to do with supporting the most corrupt element of the GOP in Horry and defending them against a true reformer.
The attempt failed, and Bellamy won. So now on his “Grand Strand Tea Party” site Trinca has suddenly shifted gears. He now claims that he has no doubt that Bellamy is a sincere conservative — but he also has serious doubts that the whole voting process at the convention was legitimate.
HUH?
(to be continued)
By MUSC April 28, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Did anyone see where Clyburn shuttled another 70 million dollar grant to SC State for study of possible switchgrass planting along the I-95 corridor for production of green energy? This was a story in the Post and C in Charleston this past week. Now, why the heck would you send more money to those numb skulls at SCSU?
By Jan April 28, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Ki$$myconservativea$$, you are about the third person to post this story or maybe you have just posted it three times. In any event if that happens, I suppose I will survive. I grew up helping my uncle farm, and I have lots of friends who hunt.
Of course if I am left with no health insurance my farm in the country will do me no good when I go to a hospital, run up a $750,000 bill and the hospital takes my land and sells it at public auction. And my guns want help me when the police arrive to take drag me out of the farm house.
In the mean time, I think there are alternatives that Republicans are unwilling to discuss. Like
1. Cut the military back to where it was under Clinton.
2. Bring our Troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany.
3. Demand that Iraq pay us back the 1 trillion we spent there.
4. Eliminate foreign aid
5. Eliminate the oil company subsidies.
6. Slowly raise the retirement age to 70
7. Increase the wage base on which social security and medicare tax is collected to $200.000.
8. Increase the Medicare Premium by 15%.
9. Return Tax rates to where they were under Clinton.
10. Place Tariffs on goods coming from countries that do not follow the same free market rules we do, both internally and externally. Namely China and most of Asia, noted exceptions being Japan and India.
11. Seal our borders, and fine employers who hire illegal aliens.
12. Legalize recreational drugs and tax them.
13. Notify all manufacturing companies selling goods to the Department of Defense that commencing 10 years from now we will only buy goods produced in the United States.
14. Eliminate ear marks completely.
Some of those things will hurt for a while, but certainly not as bad as your scenario. After we do all of that if we are still losing money, we can talk about more options.