Wikipedia says we're 34 in life expectancy: Dollars without oversight are wasted.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy) says we're 34th in life expectancy. This differs from the formerly reported 42nd, but the bottom line is, we're not too good in terms of being a "world power" in preserving the lives of our citizens. While world responsibility and the noblesse oblige approach that George Bush enjoys with African countries decimated by Aids may have some positive results, a little more attention to what's going on here in the US would be a good thing to do.

While touting the free market economy (not so free in terms of who's got the leverage in the US health care industry), Bush is donating dollars on behalf of the US to African countries for HIV/Aids. The US, according to Bush wants to double the $15billion donation to $30billion. We already give more than any other country in this area.

The issue is the oversight of the monies thrown by a check happy Bush administration. He's thrown money away at every turn without the oversight necessary to make sure we get any bang for our buck. Combined with an eager signature on the bottom of endless programs and agreements, George Bush has left a messy, disorganized, thumbprint on lots of issues that are like the blogosphere....millions of random entries communicating nothing much at all.

For instance, look into no child left behind, claims of underfunding and delayed funding have left this test taking fiasco a mess for states trying to comply and then actually have the dollars to fund the program. Money to Africa, from food to medical research has been squandered according to the UN which notes that the political instability of the region has created black markets and corruption that render our dollars meaningless at best and the financing of exploitation at worst.

Well, we're about to meet our match in our own health care environment. As "Medicare certified" becomes widely available, we're giving private insurance companies and their participating providers a government approved license to print money without any substantive changes in oversight. This is outrageous in a field where the amount paid by insureds rises every year.

Right now Medicare relies on individuals, insureds and whistleblowers for reporting fraud and abuse. Sure, there are supposed to be entities providing oversight, but the whine of understaffed and over-worked has been used as an excuse for as long as I can remember.

Oversight and consequences. It's amazing that Mr. Bush, who has done more to erode the freedoms created by our Constitution, including the right of privacy, and free speech, has not applied this same hypervigilance to the health care industry. Like the best of hypocrites, George Bush has refused to provide open answers and full information to those who dare to ask him to account. Waving the coward's flag of double speak and loopholes (remember the Rove thing?), George Bush is great at grabbing the spotlight by making pronouncements and then abandoning the implementation to individuals and agencies that take on a corrupt life of their own.

When asked to intervene in corporate life, George Bush plays the free market economy trump card...the biggest excuse ever for allowing the monopolistic corruption within business to victimize individuals.

Task a day insurance: For all those anti-big government hypocrites who have milked the "we're a nation at war" excuse for our trillion dollar debt, please have them explain how government certification of private insurers to provide Medicare services is not a tepid, middle of the road attempt to pass the responsibility for Medicare off to insurance companies while still footing the bill? There is no competition in this kind of a market, it's just shifting its headquarters from one roof to many and each of those separate places gets a free pass on milking the medicare program.

We should not be so stupid as to think that government funding of a program that is left to oversight by individuals is not a government program, it is. By expanding the medicare certifications and products, our government has grown exponentially and the cost shift to the consumer of the bigger and bigger gaps between needed amounts to cover expense and what is covered means that the insured is picking up the tab for big government.

So, rally behind Bush, but maybe consider how stupid it sounds to tout your support based on the myth of fiscal responsibility and the free market.