If I had $300 million dollars...

Today's Managing Health Care Costs Number is $300 million

The Trump Administration took $300 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund a lavish celebrity-infused marketing campaign to "boost confidence in President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic."

Say what?

This is the brainchild of Michael Caputo, a former campaign official who went on medical leave last week.  Caputo hired a business partner's firm with no experience making public health public service announcements. Getting celebrities to participate is apparently difficult.  One agent said "it would be malpractice to my client" to ask them to participate in this misadventure.

This is grift that we'd expect from the Trump Administration,  showing callous disregard for Congressional appropriations and for norms - but Trump has sought to politicize the pandemic from the start. 

Some thoughts about what $300 million could buy if it weren't squandered on this self-aggrandizing nonsense.

o   30 million faceshields ($10 each)

o   60 million N95 masks ($5 each)

o   150 million bottles of hand sanitizers ($2 each)

o   15 million doses of vaccine ($20 each)

o   4000 contact tracers ($75,000 each)

o   2000 scientists ($150,000 each)

Improving reality would be far better than just telling a better but misleading story.

But the reality show President can only think of how to write a new script, not how to help the American people.