Things You Didn’t Know Were In The Health Bill, Part 3: Playgrounds?
When the health bill was in its early stages, the word “tea party” referred to a point of historical pride and not a crazed mob, and the public had only begun to froth at the mouth about reform, the Democrats were dealing with some bad press from what may or may not have been actual provisions in the health bill (see: death panels.) The majority party’s apparent solution to the negative image of health care legislation was to include a series of adorable little earmarks in the bill, a few of which we are only finding about now.
Hands down one of the strangest of these is a provision, as reported in the New York Times, to fund the building of bike paths, sidewalks, and playgrounds. The justification for these addenda is apparently that they are part of an initiative to focus more on illness prevention, and exercise is supposedly one of the best ways to achieve this. Don’t these politicians know that playgrounds are only used for bullying, late-night affairs, and narcotics deals?
-Michael B. Sauter