Dennis Smith --- Unhealthy Habits

Dennis Smith will not make or back applications for federal public health grants that could have totaled more than $9 million over five years.  These grants would have focused on fighting drug and alcohol abuse, assessing health impacts of public policies, and signing up state residents who qualify for state health programs.  Well, there you have it.  No money for three very important programs, even though the money would have cost Wisconsin taxpayers nothing.

Wisconsin, doesn't really have a huge population walking around drunk or high on drugs.  No.  We really don't.  These people are actually in cars, driving on highways and city streets, killing and maiming.  Every day. 

Why would we need a study about health impacts of public policies, when the very public policies are being destroyed?

Signing up people for Badger Care?  How audacious that a poor person gets sick and thinks he or she deserves the same treatment as a corporate executive!  Poor people without insurance are simply advised not to get sick.  Not in Wisconsin.  It is Republican Natural Selection:  "The Poor Will Die if We Deny Them Health Care, Thereby Solving This Problem."

Dennis Smith, as Secretary of Health here in Wisconsin, makes no sense.  The man has no interest in the health of the citizens of Wisconsin, unless it's their financial health and we're talking about the ultra-rich.  Karma would almost certainly assure that Dennis Smith get horrendously sick and die a painful death.  I don't wish this on him, I predict this for him.  I have been around long enough to see karma in action.

Milwaukee's Health Commissioner, Bevan Baker, was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal with regard to Dennis Smith's inaction:

"I, for the life of me, cannot understand why at a time when there is a proliferation of illicit drugs and documentation of binge drinking and drunken driving in the state.....Wisconsin would put its head in the virtual sand and not go after this funding".

Dennis Smith does not have his head in the sand.  It's firmly entrenched in the arm pit of the only group he truly supports or has any real interest in, "The Heritage Foundation", a conservative collection of some of the most misguided Americans in existence.  They have him in a headlock, all his beliefs quickly laundered and spit back out as right wing rhetoric.

We can only hope, desperately, that the Recall Walker campaign is successful, and Dennis Smith is sent packing, right along with Scott Walker. 

Wisconsin ranks 47th or lower per capita among states for both federal and state spending on public health.  We are a sick state with almost no hope of recovery while these yokels are in office.