Amen, Bill Hobby
This is not funny.
Bill Hobby is the former Lt. Governor of Texas. He’s 82 years old and has learned a thing or two in this life.
He’s talking about the so-called ebola crisis in Texas – another suspected case in Texas – but has a different take on it than Rick Perry does.
Ebola in Texas. It’s scary that the almost-always-fatal virus is here in our state. But your chances of getting run over by a city bus are far greater than coming down with Ebola. Local, state and federal resources have been mobilized to stop this menace.
It makes me wonder why we can’t respond as well to the state’s longer-term crises — in health care and education.
It’s a real emergency that 22 percent of all Texans — about 5.7 million people — lack health insurance. People without insurance may not get vaccinated for the flu or other communicable diseases, receive pre-natal care, or seek early treatment for chronic diseases like diabetes and cancer. Why haven’t we mobilized resources to deal with this emergency, particularly when the federal government offers to shoulder most of the cost?
Amen, Bill, amen.
Wish we could spread Mr. Lobby’s wisdom to governors, school boards and employers. Yes, health care for all, an end to mandatory school attendance (with Enterovirus D68, colds, flu and other childhood diseases, let the little ones stay home when they’re sick and if they can do the work give them passing grades), and sick days for workers, before a serious flu is passed around and mutates into a more serious flu, etc.
1Once again, Bill Hobby has it right.
2Wow – a sane Republican! Not many of them flittering around these days.
3Personally, I’m very concerned that finding Ebola in Texas isn’t being handled with more care. The original patient has died. The people he was in contact with weren’t initially quarantined. Officers issuing the quarantine orders went in without protective gear as did the initial clean up people.
4Thank you Bill Hobby!
5Notice how easy it is to promote Liberal/Progressive principles and expose harmful Conservatism.
@publius
6Mr Hobby is a Democrat.
Look it up in that wiki thing.
Wow! I accede to what my mama told me years ago. She was right. Wisdom can come with age! And Marion, I feel your frustration! Mr. Duncan died the minute they did not admit him when he walked in with symptoms and went home. You know, home. Where when you go there they have to let you in.
7Austin is where I live and it’s the state capitol. All the state officials go back and forth from all over Texas, including Dallas.
Do I trust our officials to tell us the truth about the danger? Not at all.
810, 9, 8 count down until we read headlines that Mr. Lobby has been found dead near the border wearing a serape and a spray on tan because he didn’t play nice with Teabagistani.
9“Dallas County’s death toll from the flu grew to 35 on Friday, health officials reported Friday.
That represents nine additional deaths for the week ending Jan. 11, according to the Dallas County health department’s latest surveillance report.
The CDC uses statistical models to estimate the number of annual flu deaths nationwide. The U.S. averages about 23,600 flu deaths each year, according to the formula.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20140117-dallas-county-reports-nine-more-flu-related-deaths-bringing-the-toll-to-35.ece
But geez, one person dies of Ebola and the world is ending. Meanwhile, 5.7 million people in Texas lack health insurance and many more that do have health insurance do not get the flu vaccine for multiply reasons, some down right stupid.
Does the state of Texas want to protect its citizens from infectious diseases? Apparently NOT since “We ain’t gonna expand no damn medicaid or support none of that damn obamy care”
Meanwhile, people die.
10Without looking up his party registration, I knew he had to be a Democrat. This is a man with intelligence and compassion, two characteristics sadly missing from the republican’ts’ character.
11Courtesy of Jon Stewart and the High Desert Beacon: Million Ways to Die in the U.S.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ysfr9u/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-u-s-
“Please Excuse Me If I Don’t Panic”
http://desertbeacon.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/please-excuse-me-if-i-dont-panic/
Damn! The NRA will kill us first, if fast food doesn’t.
BTW Apologies to Mr. Hobby for my terrible typo of his name earlier.
12Now there’s a thought. Combat a possible Ebola outbreak in Texas by providing the citizens of the state with better health care than is available in West Africa.
Even people in gated communities might consider it money well spent when they have to drive to the mall, get out of their cars and walk among the general public.
13Rick, the privileged send their kids to private schools staffed by the not so privileged. Until the .01% consider things like teaching their own kids, doing their own gardening, cleaning and a myriad of activities, could be that Ebola will be the impetus for them to remove their heads from their collective posteriors and comprehend the necessity for universal health care in the US and world wide.
14I’m more worried about Fukushima raduation then ebola.
15Why haven’t we mobilized resources to deal with this emergency?
That would be because right-wing politicians are seldom affected by these problems directly and they can cater to their base by opposing government health, education, and other services that would help the poor.
16I know it is a spilt milk thing, but I now opine that Bill Hobby, as well as Bob Bullock were under-appreciated during their time in office. Maybe because Gov Clements and Bush and wannabe pRick hogged-up the spotlight. Maybe for some other reasons.
17Good to see our former Lt. Governor is still active in politics.
However, ………. I do wish he and his family had kept, and continued to publish, The Houston Post, and not left Houstonians with one really lousy newspaper. …. (which yesterday endorsed John Cornyn for U.S. Senate.) JMHO.
18I’ll probably get yelled at for this, but it’s not the ER’s fault the guy got sent home. They followed their screening form exactly. First question, have you been to one of the infected countries? yes Which leads to the 2nd question, have you been in contact? to which he answered no. They apparently ask that question in multiple parts, several different ways, all answers no. Then they look at the symptoms, the fever Ebola diagnostic marker is 101.5, his fever was 100.1. His other symptoms are headache and stomach ache. At this point, no other cases had been diagnosed in the US. So, should they have gone for the very low chance that he had ebola or do they treat him for what they think he has? Now, it turns out he did have ebola, but it was an extremely low chance that night. If his answer to #2 had been acurate, he would have been tested and might have survived, but ER docs and nurses are not mind-readers. Nobody is saying the airline shouldn’t have let him fly because he wasn’t accurate on that form. But, somehow the hospital is to blame under the same circumstances.
19Well, I make a comment and immediately a news article comes out with new info to put egg on my face. According to the AP, he had a 103 fever. To me the biggest mystery is why he denied being around someone sick. Once he got sick, he had to be suspicious. He had to be in deep denial. That’s why I tried to avoid saying he lied. So, I still think it’s understandable the ER missed it, but now somewhat less understandable.
20On a happier note, Malala Yousefzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize. Both of them want to make the world a safer place in which to be a child, and one of them’s only 17.
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