McCain: the WORST opposition to healthcare reform.

McCain's team is known to be flush with "lobbyists" and some of them are top-level people opposed to anything resembling healthcare "reform".

Drug Lobby Spends $1 Billion, Study Finds

Republicans in general, of course, are to blame for much of our screwed-up healthcare in this country. Big Pharma slides them billions of dollars, they in turn give Big Pharma all sorts of perks - illegally and unethically.

Well, George W John McCain is the Official Republican offering for the Presidency and the man is hopeless in the pocket of the GOP's #1 contributor. These are the folks he will be representing.

CPI Executive Director Bill Buzenberg described the pharmaceutical industry as largest lobby in Washington. "The central point," he noted, "is that their massive spending has been highly successful, largely producing the political results the drug industry wants."

According to the CPI, the pharmaceutical industry sought and won key health care policy, mostly through Senate filibusters by Republicans and upholding presidential vetoes of key reforms. These included blocking the importation of drugs to reduce the costs of pharmaceuticals for low-income families, extending pharmaceutical patents to prevent lower cost generics from entering the market, putting US drugs into international free trade agreements to ensure greater access in overseas markets, and preventing Congress from limiting direct-to-consumer ads, which have been criticized for risking patients' health by moving the conversation about health into the market place.

So GOP and the villains in the "healthcare industry" - Managed Care - are in cahoots scratching each other's backs.

That is not really news to some.

This following bit , however, might be "news" to others. It was to me, but not in a way that startled me. And it is very very relevant to our work against McCain now.

I never really thought about it and when it was stuck right in front of me it I said "oh... yeah. Of course"

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, whose campaign is staffed by several top lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, has promised to block universal health care, opposed reforms that would have reduced the cost of drugs, and supports privatizing Medicare and cutting its benefits in order to pay for the war in Iraq.

Amazingly, McCain stands for, represents a commitment by these wealthy companies to stay their course and to block anything like reform of healthcare.

I don't need to go on about how terrible a candidate McCain is - this has already been done yet he continues to run anyway.

So here's to keeping it short and not-so-sweet: when it comes to Iraq, The Economy, Healthcare: McCain is fabulously on the wrong side of every issue that really means anything to anybody this election.

It would ONLY be neighborly of us to ensure that people know how McCain feels about their ability to get healthcare when they need it.

It just isn;t pro-social to let people harbor nice thoughts about John McCain and akin to shoveling snow off their sidewalks if you talk with them about how much McCain wants to screw them further.