VOF: While this may be on the up and up (but I doubt it), it rings high pitched and screeching warning bells as contracts are once again awarded to companies headed up by previous cronies of the Bush admin.  A Defense Department medical services contract worth up to $790 million was awarded last month to a Wisconsin-based company three months after it hired a former Bush administration appointee who had supervised military health programs at the Pentagon for the last six years.

William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs from 2001 until April, joined Logistics Health Inc. as a director and consultant in June.

Officials of rival firms also charge that Logistics won the pact despite questions raised about its performance under a previous agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Oh Department of Health and Human Services you say??

You mean the one Tommy Thompson was head of????

You did know, didn’t you that LOGISTICS is also headed by the ex-official of the Bush administration — former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson. The same Thompson that “played a central role in the Bush campaign, serving as platform chair at the Republican National Convention and acting as Bush’s campaign chairman in Wisconsin.”

Are your ears ringing yet? Hear any bells beginning to tinkle?

(quotes from Tommy boy: His remark at a Republican debate in May that employers should be able to fire gay workers drew a torrent of criticism, and his later explanation — that his hearing aid had not been working and that he had urgently needed to use the bathroom — only kept the story alive. And then there was his comment to a Jewish group that making money “is part of the Jewish tradition.” )

Action: Contact your news outlets, let them know, ask them to investigate further into this story.

How Republicans Leech Off the Government

Posted Oct 31st 2007 2:58PM by Cenk Uygur
Video

Listen below to the story of how two former Bush administration officials stole our hard earned tax dollars. That’s at least $80 million more that should have been in our pockets instead. I love how Republicans pretend to care about fiscal responsibility and people leeching off the government, while they’re robbing us blind:

William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs from 2001 until April, joined Logistics Health Inc. as a director and consultant in June. The firm beat out two other bidders with proposals that ranged from $80 million to $100 million less, records show. Under the new contract, Logistics Health will provide immunizations and physical and dental exams for reservists and National Guard members.

Logistics Health of LaCrosse, Wis., is headed by another ex-official of the Bush administration — former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.

“They stacked the deck,” said Fran Lessans, president of Passport Health, one of the losing bidders. Her Baltimore-based firm lost despite a bid projected over five years to cost nearly $100 million less than Logistics Health’s winning proposal.

“It was wired. There is no doubt in my mind,” Lessans said of the Defense procurement process.

Here’s the article on the whole story behind the contract given to Logistics Health. This whole system is set up for former and current government employees to work together to make themselves rich at our expense. No one takes more money from the government than these insiders. You don’t have to be liberal or conservative to get pissed about that.

(Thanks to Cenk Uygur for catching this)