Policy Irony and Turning Lead into Gold

The latest in the incremental creep toward an expanded medicare system outlines the difficulty of pushing more money at parts of the problem without dealing with it holistically. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/policy/27care.html
The irony is that now that there is willingness to fund more universal care, they can't find anyone to take the funds. Perhaps a solution lies in part in forgiveness of med school loans to doctors who accept Medicare. They do that with other professional school loans. Why isn't this a problem in Europe? In any event, I'll take incremental creep if it goes in the right direction.
On a related note the swine flu story has revived some very valid conspiracy stories (I mean that in a good way) about the connection between such medical crises and profiteering. Although dated, the facts about Donald Rumsfeld's continuing to profit from fresh demand for Tamiflu are still valid. He is no longer an officer at Gilead, which reaps 10% of revenues from Roche, who actually produce the drug. However, he maintains literally millions of dollars in stock, the value of which tripled during the 2005 bird flu "crisis". At last count 68 Americans were sickened by swine flu, none of them fatally, I think that amounts to .0000002% of the population! It's a crisis! Perhaps Rumsfeld's friends in the media--the same ones who continue to give him a pass on the war crimes--are helping him and big Pharma out as usual. Here's a link:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/
Kinda reminds me of old Halliburton. When Dick Cheney took over as CEO, he okayed the merger with Johns-Manville, the insulation company. OOPS! Asbestos lawsuit liability was high enough to drag Halliburton down into insolvency unless they came up with a major new revenue stream. Perhaps if they could land some big ol' defense contract. Sorry, we weren't at war in 2001. If only something were to happen which would energize the country and get them behind attacking Iraq (doing which had other appeals as well)...hmmm. Not that Cheney had any conflict of interest. He had resigned as CEO when he became Vice-roy to the Boy Emperor. But about that "deferred compensation" arrangement he had with Halliburton. Might it cause him to look ahead a little to when he was no longer in government? It is unknown how much blood money Cheney got creating the Iraq war, but I suspect you could cover Wyoming with it. In hundred dollar bills.