1) It wasn’t the cover with cosmetically and electronically enhanced Megan Fox that caught my eye — it was Rolling Stone and I was at the gym.
I should read it more. The recent issue includes a well-documented story about health reform town hall protesters by Tim Dickinson. From “The Lie Machine”:
According to internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights had been working closely for weeks as a “coalition partner” with three other right-wing groups in a plot to unleash irate mobs at town-hall meetings just like (Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd) Doggett’s. Far from representing a spontaneous upwelling of populist rage, the protests were tightly orchestrated from the top down by corporate-funded front groups as well as top lobbyists for the health care industry. Call it the return of the Karl Rove playbook: The effort to mobilize the angriest fringe of the Republican base was guided by a conservative dream team that included the same GOP henchmen who Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004, smeared John McCain in 2000, wrote the script for Republican obstructionism on global warming, and harpooned the health care reform effort led by Hillary Clinton in 1993
They run an excerpt online. Well worth picking up on the newsstand.
2) BHN got an email from HIT czar Dr. Blumenthal and thought he was finally ready to schedule that interview. Instead, it was an update on “meaningful use,” that yet-to-be-defined bar wired docs will need to clear to get federal support. Read it here.
4) The latest issue of that ever timely digest of health policy blog posts is up over at Medicaid First Aid blog. October baseball is the theme and somehow BHN got filed under the American League West. For the record, we’ll be rooting for the Olde Town Team.
Boston Health News 