Michael Leavitt was appointed by Bush to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. His nomination was approved by the Senate in January of 2005. He is now ready to slice and dice Medicare and has made positive steps in that direction of late. But exactly who is this guy?

Michael Leavitt is the former CEO for Leavitt Group Enterprises, still a Leavitt family insurance business. The Leavitt Group writes Medigap policies and underwrights malpractice insurance. Leavitt’s brother, Dane, is now the CEO, and there are other family members on the board. Leavitt still has strong ties to the health insurance industry currently holding investments worth $5 million to $25 million in Leavitt Group Enterprises – the 27th largest insurance broker in the U.S.

As former Govenor in Utah, Leavitt dismantled the state health care system with his “Healthprint” program. Republicans praise him for this accomplishment designed to have the working poor subsidise the insurance companies. He also orchestrated a gubinatorial backroom deal that opened tens of millions of acres of public Utah land, previously under consideration for widerness designation, to oil and gas drilling. His adminstration refused to take action against the Phillips Refinery of Wasatch Front, Utah, when they broke environmental regulations more than 1,000 times between 1994 and 1997, forcing the EPA to step in. Leavitt does not beleive Mercury is a pollutant, saying to the Deseret News in 1999, “in reality it is not pollution”.

At his inauguration speech as Govoner of Utah, Levitt specifically mentioned the LDS church in an inspirational context adding that there was nothing improper in mixing “God and government.”

In recognition for his appauling environmental record in Utah and his support for mixing church and state, Bush appointed him to head up the EPA during his first term. Leavitt followed orders nicely and pushed Bush’s baby, the Clear Skies Innitiave. This harmless-sounding policy allows polluters to dump higher concentratrions of pollutants if they can afford to buy the credits. In particular, Mercury pollution can be increased.

That is convienent for large companies, but there is nothing to protect the a woman who may have child with birth defects because the new “Clear Skies” increased mercury emissions near her trailer. After Leavitt’s second term promotion via Bush to the Health and Human Services Department, let’s say this woman now goes to receive Medicare for special cancer treatments for her child, but Medicare denies the claim. Levitt is making it more difficult for her to appeal this decision.

Under the new policy most hearings will be held with videoconference equipment or by telephone instead of in front of a judge. So far there has been no commitment from Senator Frist if he will render the official diagnosis from his seat on the Senate floor.

If she wants to appear in person before a judge must show that “special or extraordinary circumstances exist,” the rules say. But if she insists on a face-to-face hearing, she will lose the right to receive a decision within 90 days, the deadline set by statute.

The policy change comes as Bush administration officials are predicting an increase in the volume of cases, with the creation of a Medicare drug benefit debacle expected to generate large numbers of claims and appeals.

Let’s sum up: we have blatent comingling of church and state, we have the shifting of financial burdons from Insurance companies to the working poor, we have closed-door deals to open Utah land to oil companies for drilling, we have the relaxation of environmental regulations controlling mercury, we have the exclusion of judges face to face on people appealing Medicare decisions. Yes, Leavitt, you are a Republican Whore.