Bush has personal ties to a Medicare discount card company.

[madfloridian]

(I will bet this drops like a rock because it is only attacking Bush.)

Apparently he even consulted them about the plan. This is the plan that "discounts" drugs maybe 10 or 15%, a joke.
www.americanprogress.org

SNIP.."The Halliburton of Medicare?

Just two days after President Bush signed the new, drug industry-backed Medicare legislation into law, the White House announced the details of the Medicare discount drug card program, in which Medicare will contract with private, pharmaceutical benefit management (PBMs) companies to endorse existing discount cards. The cards have been assailed for not guaranteeing any price discounts, while potentially driving millions to these PBMs. So why, then, is the President so adamant about the cards? For one thing, he has extremely close financial, professional and political ties to AdvancePCS – the company that stands to make a windfall off the program. Specifically, Bush is close friends with David Halbert – CEO of AdvancePCS. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on 8/18/02 "before starting what would become AdvancePCS, David Halbert helped clean up a deal with Harken Energy that had prompted an SEC investigation of George W. Bush." After the investigation, Halbert then invited Bush to become one of the original investors in AdvancePCS – a transaction that made the President up to $1 million...."

[Occulus]

1. Is the manipulation

of Congress and legislation in general for the benefit of the Presiden't own personal financial gain a high crime?

Is it a crime at all?

An impeachable one, perhaps?

[Parche]

2. bush

More money for his "friends" in the business
That is what he is all about, he doesnt care about anyone
but himself

[kentuck]

3. Interesting....

I will store that in the data base. Good info!

[Rainbowreflect]

4. It is a horrible circle.

* makes the richer so they give more money to him. He makes them richer so they give him more money. And the rest of us are screwed.

[camero]

5. That's why...

His stupid radio address sounded like a commercial.

[JM]

6. Enron revisited

What do you want to bet there is all sorts of nastiness beneath the surface at AdvancePCS

Later,
JM

[TacticalPeek]

10. Ken who?

:evilgrin:

[mmonk]

7. Ha!

imagine that.

[neebob]

8. Thanks, I'll save that

for the next time my mother tries to tell me George Bush is a good person and I can't force myself to let it slide.

Is there a list of his holdings somewhere? Seems to me that would be a most useful list.

[ignatius]

9. Blatant conflict of intrest and pure cronyism that this family

will get by with once again.

The Bush family mafia strikes again.

[Sallyrat]

11. If he can get away with this............

Then North Carolina owes Elaine (the former Agric. comm.) an apology..... beats me how they can get by with this stuff..

[HFishbine]

15. Do you mean

Meg Scott Phipps?

[madfloridian]

12. Halbert helped write the plan, stood with Bush in the Rose Garden. Bragged

I think David Halbert stood beside Bush in the Rose Garden.
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/link.asp?smenu=110&sdetail=804

Looks like this AdvancePCS just sold out to another similar company.
SNIP..."After this latest endeavor, Halbert can afford to do nothing. The 47-year-old president and chief executive officer of Advance PCS signed a $5.6-billion merger agreement in September with rival CareMark Rx, Inc., turning over ownership of a company he took from start-up to one of the nation’s largest independent prescription drug benefit management companies.

All the details of selling a publicly traded company will be worked out during the next few months. It will culminate two years of talks between the companies and create the industry’s second-largest company, with projections of 600 million prescription claims a year and annual sales of $23 billion. CareMark will take over operations, at which point Halbert will step down from active leadership in the company.
....."

That timing goes along with this from www.americanprogress.org
SNIP...BUSH NOW PAYS BACK HIS COMPANY IN KIND: Soon after assuming the Presidency, Bush paid Halbert back in kind – soliciting his help in writing the 2001 drug discount card proposal that is now part of the new Medicare law. Halbert brags about the complicity, saying the White House specifically asked him to help write parts of the plan. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on 7/18/01, "AdvancePCS has been working with the White House to create a nationwide private discount card program ...David Halbert, AdvancePCS' chief executive, said the Bush administration contacted his company about two months ago." When Bush announced the original plan, "Halbert stood next to the president in the Rose Garden" and said "it was quite an experience."

[madfloridian]

13. Kick.

:kick:

[rucky]

14. punt

[Killarney]

16. I'm going to vomit

This man does not do anything without calculating a way to make himself or his friends more profit.

Thanks for the info. Keeping it. ;)

[peekaloo]

17. kick

pass this article around......