-By Warner Todd Huston
Democrat leader Senator Harry Reid said that he has no interest in funding cancer treatments for kids today in a press conference about the ongoing government shut down fight. Instead of treating kids with cancer, Reid prefers to have a political tool to use against Republicans.
In the presser CNN’s Dana Bash asked a very poignant question making Reid look like the partisan hack he is–purely by accident I’m sure–when she asked about funding cancer treatments for kids who have been turned away at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
As it happens, about 200 patients a day will be turned away from the NIH because of the government shut down.
The Republicans have offered a separate funding bill to fund the NIH but the Democrats in the Senate and President Obama have refused to allow this bill to pass. So, the truth is that it is the Democrats refusing to allow these kids to get their cancer treatments.
Dana Bash pointed this out to Sen. Reid. “But if you could help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?,” she asked.
Reid coldly replied, “why would we wanna do that?”
Transcript:
Dana Bash, CNN: You all talked about children with cancer unable to go to clinical trials. The House is presumably going to pass a bill that funds at least the NIH. Given what you’ve said, will you at least pass that? And if not, aren’t you playing the same political games that Republicans are?
Sen. Harry Reid: Listen, Senator Durbin explained that very well. And he did it here, he did it on the floor earlier, as did Senator Schumer and it’s this: what right do they have to pick and choose what part of government is going to be funded? It’s obvious what’s going on here. You talk about reckless and irresponsible, wow. What this is all about is Obamacare. They are obsessed – I don’t know what other word I can use. I don’t know what other word I can use. They are obsessed with this Obamacare thing. It’s working now and it will continue to work and people will love it even more than they do now by far. So they have no right to pick and choose.
Bash: But if you could help one child who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?
Reid: Why would we want to do that?
It is disgusting that the Democrats are playing these games with the lives of cancer stricken children, isn’t it?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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