This from the government that wants to control your health care:

ATLANTA — About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired — meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million are being written off as trash.

"It's a lot, by historical standards," said Jerry Weir, who oversees vaccine research and review for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The outdated vaccine, some of which expired Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, as much as four times the usual leftover seasonal flu vaccine, likely sets a record. And that's not even all of it.

About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste.

MSNBC has the full story here.

Let’s not forget that when “swine flu” or H1N1 started to get rolling, the US government was (once again) totally behind the eight-ball, with major bureaucratic fubars preventing pharmaceutical companies from responding effectively.  So what did Soddom on the Potomac do? 

Their default response:  overreact.  And now, we are torching about 43% of the total supply created.

Of course, we will never really know if the massive spool-up of resources – the purchase of tents for parking-lot triage, a gazillion surgical masks and other prophylactic kits, and the creation of millions of vaccines that were never used – actually prevented a true “pandemic”.  Just like Y2K, those involved in pushing the pandemic line can claim victory because it never happened.

But in the case of Y2K, the vast amount of resources spent re-coding massive computer systems was spent using private resources.  By private resources I mean the government did not spend taxpayer dollars (except on government system upgrades) and did not borrow gobs of money to cover its very own fubars (except for its own systems).

And Y2K had the side “benefit” of creating vast economic opportunities that, despite the “dot-com” bubble, are still driving American technological innovation today.

Can we say the same thing about H1N1?

O’Guvnah has really blown an appointment.  With the long-awaited departure of William Hackerman (CEO of Whiting Turner) from the Maryland Health and Higher Education Facilities authority, O’Malley had an opportunity to make a real difference.  But as he has done for the past four years, he shied away from being courageous and opted for stupid.

First, it was never a good idea to have Whiting Turner on the authority.  Why?  Just look at the number of dollars in state contracts that Whiting Turner has.  They essentially own the construction contracts for the University of Maryland Medical System.  There have been swirling rumors around that relationship for years, to the point where there are certain construction services firms and architecture firms that just don’t even bid on those projects anymore.

So O’Malley had a great opportunity here to really clear the deck and begin to put in some fresh faces and competent folks whose interest would have been serving the taxpayers of Maryland, and not a major campaign contributor.

In fact, when you look at the authority, even with the appointment of Toby Bozzuto, there is not one member of the American Society of Hospital Engineers.  NOT ONE. There is no one on the authority with substantial experience in the design, development, construction, deployment, or operation of health care facilities. NOT ONE. 

Instead, O’Malley appointed Toby Bozzuto, the son of Bozzuto Group CEO Thomas Bozzuto.  What does Bozzuto Development specialize in?  According to their website, “Bozzuto Development Company specializes in the development of high-end multifamily rental communities in both urban and suburban settings.”  Further examination of their portfolio on their website reveals that the company has zero experience and zero upcoming projects in the Health Care field. 

But what O’Malley DID do was to reward a family and a group of companies with a long history of political contributions to Democrat candidates in this state, proving once again that money does buy access.

Health care facility construction is expensive, and the risks are high.  One would think, with the current concerns over construction of new facilities by Adventist Health Care and Holy Cross in Montgomery County, the impending collapse of Dimensions Health Care in Prince George’s County, and UMMS’ failure to get a new hospital off the ground to replace the dinosaur known as Easton Memorial, that this would be a serious issues that a self-proclaimed serious leader would tackle head-on.

But no, our Governor, who lies in office continue to mount, used this opportunity to reward contributors and an ally instead of taking a visionary, forward-looking approach to the state’s involvement in hospital construction and finance.

On behalf of the taxpayers of Maryland, I say this:  the sooner you get back to playing Irish Rock music on regular schedule, the sooner you move out of Government House, and the sooner you are looking for work, the better it will be for the entire state.

And in case you are asking the question, “Well, Tim, who would you have appointed?”  Here’s my answer:  my Dad, who knows more about hospital facility operations, construction, planning, design, and construction than just about any other facilities professional in the state of Maryland.  Oh, and by the way, he knows a little about educational facilities planning and construction, too.  If O’Guvnah happens to show up in Salisbury for the opening of the new Bennett High School, or he visits Peninsula Regional Medical Center, he might want to ask about that.

Robert Little of the Baltimore Sun does a fairly good job of covering the whole stent mess at St. Joseph Hospital, detailing how attorneys (many of whom stand to make a fortune) feel that the lawsuits could grow.  Keep in mind that this whole mess grew out of the scuttled merger between MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates and MedStar Health’s Union Memorial (a competitor).  The physician in question, Dr. Midei, had been a co-founder of MidAtlantic who was working in a dual role as head of St. Joe’s cardiac cath lab.  (Talk about your conflicts of interest!)

The big unanswered question that no one has gone into yet is simple:  MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates is the cardiovascular practice for almost all the major Baltimore hospitals.  How is it not a conflict-of-interest, or at least a little hinky, to have a single practice with so much power and working for so many different health care organizations?

The University of Maryland Medical System is either getting set up for a bad deal in Prince Georges County, or the taxpayers of the State of Maryland are once again about to get boned in a massive scam.  The Baltimore Business Journal is reporting that UMMS may become the “savior” of Dimensions Healthcare, the Prince Georges County healthcare system teetering on the edge of oblivion.

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A woman named Doris told the President she felt she was overtaxed.  President Obama responded with a 2,500 word, 17-minute wandering and listless response that literally bored the audience to death.  In the process, he upped the number of insured in the United States by another 20 million, and declared them all to be citizens.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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By now, there has been at least one word written for every dollar spent in the Obamacare plan, which is really quite impressive.  But I couldn’t be left out in giving my view which I will admit, is a mixture of opinion and logic.  But I think that we need to continually repeat these truths, because the majority of the United States Congress has abandoned six thousand years of economic and moral reality in pursuit of self-interest, power, and tyranny.

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The Mayo Clinic is dropping Medicare patients in Arizona because the government "pays too little".

Nice job, Barry.  You hail them for delivery high quality and low cost, and they say "up yours".

Read more here.

Nice Job, Harlem Hospital Center.

Answer Me This, Oh Proponents of National Health Care:  how can a government which is now facing its second major recall of H1N1 vaccine, after having a period of substantial delay in delivery of said vaccines, be trusted to run an entire health care system?

How can a government that cannot pass all of its spending legislation in twelve months be trusted to run an entire health care system?

According to CNSNews.com, Rep Bart Stupak is facing serious pressure from President Hopeychange and San Fran Nan no to speak out on the egregiously mislabeled “abortion compromise” in the Senate health care bill.  It seems President Hopeychange and San Fran Nan are deathly worried that the so-called compromise on abortion language will not pass muster in the House (where apparently, some are still willing to call a turd a turd), and thereby torpedo the one initiative President Hopeychange has been able to push through Congress in 2009.

Unlike the great Senate Whore Ben “Cornhusker Con Man” Nelson (Dumbass, Nebraska), Bart Stupak is not willing to fold so easily.  President Hopeychange is facing serious resistance to his plans to nationalize and thereby destroy the most productive health care system in the world. There is overwhelming public resistance to his plan, and it only was able to get out of the Senate by buying off Senate Whores like Chris “What Special Privileges” Dodd, Mary “Louisiana Purchase” Landrieu, and Socialist Bernie Sanders.  He knows that an overwhelming majority of Americans are not willing to have federal dollars pay for abortions, either directly or indirectly.  That is why the Hyde amendment remains so popular nearly three decades after it was first attached to Medicaid and Medicare funding.

He knows that his party’s obsession with protecting the “right” of women to kill their unborn children may very well kill his desire to inflict America with a nationalized health care system that will end up killing people.

From his mouth to God’s ears.  Keep the faith, Congressman Stupak.