Tim Pawlenty spouts "bull" on healthcare, Dave Durenberger says

Tim Pawlenty, health care expert.

"I think Obamacare is one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the modern history of the country," he told the fair and balanced network last week. "It is a top down, command and control, bureaucratically run entitlement program."

What a crock, says former Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger, now with the National Institute of Health Policy think tank.

(Read the full Fox News transcript here.)

"Listening to our Gov. Tim Pawlenty run for president against this kind of health system and policy is appalling," he said in a scathing newsletter the other day. "This is outright bull. Unworthy of the governor of a state that has been working hard to create many of the care system and access innovations that the Accountable Care Act ["Obamacare'] will help to fund with federal dollars as an example to the rest of the country."

So deep is Pawlenty's commitment to making sure that his health care dogma trickles down to the rest of us, he unilaterally prohibited any state agency a few months ago from accessing federal dollars made available through the health care reform act.

Pawlenty's executive order to state employees "might as well have read, 'You will henceforth work for my Presidential ambitions instead of the people of Minnesota,'" the Democratic National Committee said in response.

"By the way," Durenberger reminded readers of his newsletter, health care provider groups in Minnesota -- the folks who actually deliver health care -- thought so little of T-Paw's expertise in the field that they endorsed "anyone but the Pawlenty heir" for governor last month.

Hat tip: Gary Schwitzer.