Shortages, rationing, political interference – what more can go wrong in the government's H1N1 vaccine program?

Early this year, a new strain of flu killed a boy in Mexico and set off an international warning of a potentially devastating epidemic.

Concern over flu epidemics is well placed. Many Americans died in the great epidemic of 1919, including one of my grandmothers.

By March, "swine flu" (soon called H1N1) had claimed victims in the U.S., and the federal government swung into action promising 120 million doses of H1N1 vaccine would be available by mid-October.

H1N1 claimed about 5,000 dead in the U.S. before the first vaccine had even been produced. By mid-October, only 12.7 million of the originally promised 120 million doses were available, causing the government to ration the vaccine by designating "high risk" groups – children and adults with immune deficiency – as the first to be vaccinated.

Pictures of long lines of people waiting in the cold with their kids to get the vaccine became commonplace in local news coverage. Sometimes, after long waits, parents were told that the vaccine had run out.

Flu shots are normally available through both public health agencies and private doctors. A presidential emergency order followed publicity about the vaccine shortages, confiscating all the vaccine for delivery only from government sources. The lines got longer just as news broke last week that the terrorists confined at Gitmo had already received their shots.

Then things got worse as public health agencies from Nashville to Reno to Seattle reported that the feds had pressured the locals to make sure that illegals of any age or condition get the vaccine. This when many parents could not get the vaccine for their kids.

Then many people, in and out of government, began to doubt the severity of this H1N1 flu strain. First warnings raised the fear of millions of deaths. Now it appears that this flu may not kill as many as the 30,000 or so that the yearly "normal" strain of flu kills. Many began to call this the "Chicken Little" flu.

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The rush to produce the vaccine led to concerns over the safety of the vaccine – even among health-care workers.

When the state of New York told all private and public health-care workers that the H1N1 vaccine would be mandatory, they held demonstrations against the order and the state backed down. It turned out that New York backed down at least in part because the expected vaccine was late and wouldn't be available for the health-care workers or anybody else in time.

Last week, the feds defended the lack of vaccine by blaming the private companies making it. The culture of the virus grew slower in the host eggs than expected. It wasn't President Obama's fault. The excuse was accepted by the Obama press outlets but made no sense since the growth rate of the vaccination was well known back in June when the feds were still promising the 120 million doses by mid-October.

It also turns out that there are five domestic companies available to make the vaccine in 2009. In 2004, during another flu scare, President Bush was lambasted for shortages and delays in the vaccine, even though only three companies made the vaccine that year.

In 2004, flu vaccine shortages had Democrats hopping mad. Hillary Clinton (Oct. 18, 2004, at a health clinic in New York):

"They're more interested in tax cuts for the rich than for flu shots for everyone who needs them."

And John Kerry, on the campaign trail in that election year, in an interview with NPR, thundered:

"If you can't get flu vaccines to Americans, how are you going to protect them against bioterrorism? If you can't get flu vaccines to Americans, what kind of health-care program are you running?"

In story after story, editorial after editorial, the MSM lambasted Bush in 2004 for this failure. Where are the questions now that the exact same thing has happened to Obama?

Make no mistake. Government incompetence knows no partisan boundary. The vaccine shortages, long lines, long waits for vaccine that may run out before it's your turn, the political selection of which groups get the vaccine – all of this is a preview of government-run health care, no matter which party is in power.