Lest this go unnoticed: Republican Lawsuit Shuts Down Flu Shot Program, Claiming Democratic Benefits

HOUSTON, Nov. 2 (AP) — The city has stopped offering free flu shots at early voting sites after Republicans alleged it was a ploy by the mayor to lure more Democrats to the polls.

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The vaccinations, for people 50 and older, had been offered at early voting sites in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Health officials said they had singled out medically underserved areas, not Democratic neighborhoods.

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Republicans accused Mr. White of using the program to increase Democrats’ election prospects. The Harris County Republican chairman, Jared Woodfill, said the offer violated a state law barring people from accepting anything in exchange for a vote.

“I think the program was completely motivated by a plan to turn out Democratic voters,” Mr. Woodfill said.

A $320,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation financed the “Vote and Vax” flu shot drives in Houston and 24 other American cities, according to the foundation, a health advocacy organization. The 10-year-old program singles out areas where relatively few people get flu shots.

So somehow this program was okay for TEN FUCKING YEARS back when Houston was safely Republican and promotion of early voting by old people was "safely nonpartisan." But this year when things are razorthin all over, it's better to let old (and brown and black and most particularly POOR) people have a better chance of dying than to let an entirely privately-financed health program continue.

We won't even speculate than many of these old people might possibly have hit the Dreaded Donut Hole in their wunnerful mandatory Medicare-D program right about now, and be thinking bad thoughts about Republicans and their owners in the Big Pharma biz. No,no, I said we were not speculating. Do not speculate, got it?

But of course if you want to drop a drip of this sputum of ugliness into comment threads wherever you roam about the Intertubes this weekend, we can't very well stop you now can we? I'm sure Republicans have stopped all their own programs of health outreach to the poor and elderly this weekend too, so everything is equal.