Friday, April 03, 2020

Another Willing Conscript


Seema Verma has been administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since March of 2017. Previously, she worked directly for Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and thereafter as a consultant working for Daniels' successor, Mike Pence.

As outlined here, throughout her stint in Indiana and in Washington, D.C. Verma has been hostile to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.  And now we learn that her knowledge of comparative government is roughly equal to her concern for health care for the poor and the uninsured. She was asked on Trump TV "What is the Vice President referring to when he's saying the best model we have is what's happening in Italy?" Verma responded

Well, I think if you look at these other countries, if you look at China and South Korea, right, those have very different approaches . Uh, we're a free country, we're giving recommendations to the American people and hoping they adhere to those.

The governments of mainland China and South Korea are approximately as comparable as the government of the Phillipines is to that in Australia.  According to Wikipedia

The Government of South Korea is a centralized democratic republic with the three primary branches of government; executive, legislative and judicial. The president acts at the head of state and is the highest figure of authority in the country, followed by the prime minister and government ministers in decreasing order....

As with most stable three-branch systems, a careful system of checks and balances is in place. For instance, the judges of the Constitutional Court are partially appointed by the executive, and partially by the legislature. Likewise, when a resolution of impeachment is passed by the legislature, it is sent to the judiciary for a final decision....

Elections in South Korea are held on national level to select the President and the National Assembly. South Korea has a multi-party system, with two dominant parties and numerous third parties. Elections are overseen by the Electoral Branch, National Election Commission (Republic of Korea).

Once "selected for the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network," Verma is probably performing as expected for President Trump. She is helping advance the mission of Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) and Grover Norquist, to destroy government in service of the barons of the private sector. ignorance is not a bug but a benefit. Like most of the Trump Administration, she is not there to make government work but to impel its failure and ultimate destruction.



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