How Centers for Disease Control Have Moved<br>Into Vote Buying Business
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Public opinion about the Obama health law is split, but no matter what your view, surely you would want Obamacare spending to go towards what it’s supposed to be for — helping people afford health insurance. Yet the money trail discloses billions already wasted, or worse, spent buying votes.
COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION GRANTS: Section 4201 of the health law empowers the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to hand out grants to local organizations that propose to improve the emotional and social wellness of their community, combat environmental hazards, foster healthy living, and reduce health disparities between races. In 2011, the CDC awarded $103 million in Community Transformation Grants and continues to make them.
In September 2012, $7.9 million was awarded to Community Health Councils, based in Los Angeles, California. It’s a large amount for an organization that claims to have a $2 million annual budget. On September 26, the organization posted a long list of job openings.
Community Health Council’s mission is “to promote social justice” and ensure more health and community resources go to people of color. However, executive director Lark Galloway-Gilliam has led protests for more than a decade under the organization’s banner against fracking, for-profit hospitals, and state budget cuts and partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council to file lawsuits against oil drilling.
Community Health Council says that part of the $7.9 million will be used to “educate community members on environmental hazards” and 65% will be distributed to its community partners. One partner is Los Angeles Community Action Network, which, according to its mission statement, “promotes voter engagement as a means of civic participation” and conducts “one-on-one education in the streets” as well as “monthly teach-ins for downtown residents.” Other partners include tenants’ rights advocates, anti-fracking and anti-drilling groups, church groups, and one actual health advocacy group, Families in Good Health.
REACH: The CDC also awards Community Transformation money to national networks that can reach the largest number of minorities. In September 2012, it awarded $7.7 million to REACH, which stands for Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health. REACH’s mandate is to “address the effects of racism,” by providing resources to local organizations. Coincidence or not, REACH’s executive director is the same Lark Galloway-Gilliam. REACH dispersed the new federal funding to two local groups, and one of them is Galloway-Gilliam’s Los Angeles operation,. Community Health Council .
HEALTHY FOOD FINANCING INITIATIVE: On February 19, 2010, the Obama administration announced it would spend $400 million putting supermarkets into areas that lack one within a mile. The notion is that people who live in these “food deserts” have unhealthier diets. Science proves, however, that this is foolish. Access to supermarkets does not foster healthier eating or reduce obesity. (Annals of Internal Medicine, July 2011).
Contrary to the claims by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, similar efforts in Birmingham Alabama, and Leeds, England, failed, according to obesity experts at RAND Corporation. It makes sense. Only 5% of Americans live in a “food desert,” but 67% are overweight or obese. Living far from a supermarket is not what’s making people fat. The cause is eating too much sugary and unhealthy foods.
The First Lady‘s program is not foolish, if the objective is to produce blue jobs that will tilt the election toward Democrats. The White House boasted that the project would produce jobs, and when Mrs. Obama announced her support for a California supermarket initiative on July 20, 2011, Lark Galloway-Gilliam, whose Los Angeles organization is a partner in that program, too, said “for us it translates to thousands of jobs.”
CONSUMER OPERATED AND ORIENTED PLANS: Section 1322 of the Obama health law creates Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or COOPs for short, to compete in each state with for-profit insurers. Coops generally are funded by members, but Obamacare COOPS will borrow their start-up funds and reserve balances from the federal government.
Administration officials predict that even with “flexible” and “individualized” repayment plans, 40% of the loans for start up costs and 35% of the loans for reserves will default, in part because applicants lack insurance experience and their proposals are based on untried models. Week after week, leading up to the election, the administration has announced more of these multi-million loans to flimsy start-ups: 20 in all in 20 states, totaling $1.6 billion, with another $2.2 billion in loans budgeted. It makes the $387 million to failed energy venture Solyndra look small.
The $1.6 billion is enough to buy health plans for 330,000 people for an entire year. The shame is that this and mountains of other misspent money could have helped cover the uninsured.