tagged w/ Public Option
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"Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers united, saying Socialized Health Care would wreak havoc on our economy. They proceeded to deem President Obama as an evil Socialist trying to turn this country into an evil-Marxist-Maoist-Communist [just fill in the blank] entity, but the following countries have socialized medicine and they have an AAA status with Standard & Poor’s.
Now that the USA no longer has a stellar AAA status, all remaining countries with AAA ratings have socialized medicine."
http://freakoutnation.com/2011/08/06/s-all-of-which-have-socialized-health-care/"Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers united, saying Socialized Health... more
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Republicans in Congress, we need to talk. Congrats on your inspiring vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I know you hate Obamacare -- and on some levels, I agree with you. This bill is so watered down Dick Cheney could take it to Gitmo and pour it on Khalid Sheik Mohammed's face. Distributed by Tubemogul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9JGT6Z4Dc4&feature=player_embedded#!!
Republicans in Congress, we need to talk. Congrats on your inspiring vote to repeal... more
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Media Matters has obtained leaked emails that show how a top Washington editor at Fox News directed his journalists not to use the phrase "public option."
Instead, Bill Sammon, Fox News' Washington managing editor, told staffers to use the phrase "government option." This happens to be the exact phrase that Republican pollster Frank Luntz had advised Republicans to begin using to describe the public option -- on Sean Hannity's show, no less.
Speaking to Hannity in August 2009, Luntz said that "if you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," but that "if you call it the 'government option,' the public is overwhelmingly against it."
Media Matters obtained an email that Sammon sent the day after Harry Reid introduced the health care bill in the Senate. The bill included a public option. In Sammon's email, sent on Oct. 27, 2009, he reminds journalists not to use the term:
From: Sammon, Bill Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers Subject: friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the "public option"
1) Please use the term "government-run health insurance" or, when brevity is a concern, "government option," whenever possible.
2) When it is necessary to use the term "public option" (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation's lexicon), use the qualifier "so-called," as in "the so-called public option."
3) Here's another way to phrase it: "The public option, which is the government-run plan."
4) When newsmakers and sources use the term "public option" in our stories, there's not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.
The directive was echoed by Michael Clemente, senior vice president for news, who urged people to use the third option when describing the plan.
Whereas before, journalists had often used the terms "public option" and "government option" interchangeably, Media Matters found that, the evening after Sammon's email, all journalists on "Special Report" only used the "government" phrase.
The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz spoke to Sammon about the emails. Sammon did not deny sending them, and he also said he was merely trying to use accurate language:
The term public option, he said, "is a vague, bland, undescriptive phrase," and that after all, "who would be against a public park?" The phrase "government-run plan," he said, is "a more neutral term," and was used just last week by a New York Times columnist. "I have no idea what the Republicans were pushing or not," Sammons says. "It's simply an accurate, fair, objective term."Media Matters has obtained leaked emails that show how a top Washington editor at Fox... more
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The Washington, DC managing editor at Fox News appears to be caught red-handed in the art of spinning.
As the health care debate was reaching a high point last year, a leaked e-mail shows Bill Sammon asked his news department to refer to the public option as the "government run option."
Later that evening, Fox News flagship news program, Special Report with Bret Baier, used the very phrase Sammon had requested.
The e-mail, obtained by the liberal watchdog Media Matters, indicates that Sammon sent the request after Republican pollster Frank Luntz said that polls show the "government option" was opposed by the public.
According to the report at Media Matters, in August of 2009 after Fox News' Sean Hannity used the term "public option," Luntz encouraged him to say "government option" instead.
"If you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," Luntz said. "If you call it the 'government option,' the public is overwhelmingly against it."
"It's a great point, and from now on, I'm going to call it the government option," Hannity replied.
Luntz also claimed that the "government option" would be "sponsored by the government." In fact, the proposed public option bills would have funded the program with the fees paid by those who enrolled in it.
Only a day before Sammon sent the e-mail, Brett Baier had referred to the "public option" as well as the "government-run option."
An e-mail titled "friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the 'public option'" was sent to Baier and other Fox News reporters the next morning.
"Please use the term 'government-run health insurance' or, when brevity is a concern, 'government option,' whenever possible," Sammon wrote.The Washington, DC managing editor at Fox News appears to be caught red-handed in the... more
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WASHINGTON – What, did you think the fight for health care reform was over?
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the progressive caucus, is making good on her promise to continue pushing for a public health insurance option after the enactment of sweeping reform legislation.
On Thursday afternoon, the Northern California congresswoman will announce the introduction of a bill offering consumers a choice between private plans and a "robust" public plan in the health insurance exchanges set up by the law.
"The robust public option offers lower-cost competition to private insurance companies," Woolsey told Raw Story. "This will make insurance more affordable for those who do not have it and keep insurance affordable for those who do. We are introducing the public option now so is will be available as a ready-made off set or deficit reducer in this or the next Congress."
In an email, she promised it would "rein in the spiraling costs of premiums" and "save billions of dollars and improve health care while doing it."
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0722/woolsey-robust-public-option/
The bill currently has 121 co-sponsors in the House, Woolsey said, and has won strong praise from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
"I am very pleased that Congresswoman Woolsey and 120 of her colleagues in the House are introducing a bill to create a strong public option operating in every state exchange," Sanders told Raw Story. "I have long been in favor of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system, but in the post-Affordable Care Act world I think the very least we can do is to offer every person the option of choosing a government-run health insurance plan over a private one."
While the insurance industry fears competition from the government, polls have suggested that a large majority of Americans support a public option, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a provision would help reduce the deficit.
"It comes as no surprise to me that the CBO continues to recognize that such a public option will save significant amounts of money for the federal taxpayer," Sanders said.
Progressives are enthusiastic about the provision, for which there is strong support in the House. But it could be a nonstarter in the Senate this year, due to the busy calendar and fast approaching November midterm elections.
Woolsey was a vocal supporter of a public plan during the grueling yearlong debate. Though she voted for the bill even after it was removed, she told Raw Story in February she wouldn’t stop fighting for the provision.
In an op-ed for The Hill last week, Woolsey called the Affordable Care Act a "historic first step," but argued that the law enacted in March must be followed by "an even longer stride into history by establishing a robust public option."WASHINGTON – What, did you think the fight for health care reform was over?... more
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer took the opportunity to stick it to the neighborhood.
For the uninitiated, Webby winners are held to a strict five-word limit for their speeches. It’s pretty difficult to say something profound, relevant or even just funny in that space, but Bob did a great job.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/our_webby_acceptance_speech_20100615/Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer took the opportunity to stick it to the neighborhood.... more
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How do we explain to our children that we tried for 100 years to get universal health care and the bill signed by President Obama on 3/23/10 still leaves 15 to 25 million without health insurance. In America money rules. We have stooped so low that we can spend billion$ to keep financial and manufacturing corporations and foreign countries alive but we cannot do the same or our friends, neighbors, and relatives. Corporations can't feel pain, they don't leave loved ones, they don't serve in the military, they can't show compassion, and they usually avoid taxes and can write off their bad debts.
Here is a proposal that will save the Federal government close to $50 billion per year enough to pay for the public option with only an executive order. Most office space is very expensive yet white collar workers only use it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This amounts to only 30% efficiency which is completely unacceptable in today's economic and ecological environment. We can no longer afford to let all white-collar workers that still have jobs work banker's hours when we can work two shifts per day in government and private industry and cut our overhead costs in half. This simple paradigm shifts solves three problems: It jumpstarts economy and fights poverty, cuts pollution, reduces budget deficits. It is simple based on sound economic principles, will save money instead of adding to the deficit and would only require an executive order.How do we explain to our children that we tried for 100 years to get universal health... more
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However, those of us, and this would include me, who have pre-existing conditions will have a better chance at getting insurance and therefore treated for that condition that could kill us.However, those of us, and this would include me, who have pre-existing conditions will... more
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The House of Representatives just passed the Health-Care bill 219 – 212. Now, I’m waiting to hear if the latest ReThug and RePub nonsense stops it (The voice vote on the motion to recommit just failed).The House of Representatives just passed the Health-Care bill 219 – 212. Now,... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Image Courtesy of Lindsay BeyersteinLast night, the House of Representatives passed comprehensive health care reform after more than a year of fierce debate. The sweeping legislation will extend coverage to 32 million Americans, curb the worst abuses of the private insurance industry, and attempt to contain spiraling health care costs.
The main bill passed the House by a vote 219 to 212, after which the House approved a package of changes to the Senate bill by a vote of 220 to 211. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama will sign the main bill into law. Then, the Senate will incorporate the House-approved changes through filibuster-proof budget reconciliation, perhaps as early as this week.
Landmark legislation
Last night’s vote was a resounding victory for the Democrats. John Nichols of The Nation compares the passage of health care reform to other great milestones in American legislative history, including the Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act.
Like all great progressive victories, this one was hard fought. Paul Waldman writes in the American Prospect:
This effort will be remembered as one of the most anguished legislative battles in history, alongside the Civil Rights Act, the Federal Reserve Act, the creation of Medicare, and a few others. The positive outcome is not enough to restore one’s faith in the American political system, because the process did so much to destroy that faith. American politics has never been particularly reasonable or reasoned, but this debate saw a plague of demagoguery, fear-mongering, and outright lies that puts anything most of us can remember to shame.
Tea partiers slinging slurs
Months of inflammatory rhetoric about communism and death panels whipped the right wing into a frenzy. Opposition reached a fever pitch this weekend as tea partiers and other anti-reformers gathered in the Capitol. On Sunday afternoon, some House Republican legislators further inflamed the angry protesters by shouting encouragement from the balcony of the Capitol building, as Suzy Khimm reports for Mother Jones.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) chastised his colleagues for riling up the protesters, saying “It’s like the Salem witch trials—the health care bill has become their witch. It’s a supernatural force, and we’ve got hysteria.”
In separate incidents several anti-reform protesters hurled racist slurs at Democratic legislators. Brian Beutler relates this shocking incident for TPMDC:
Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming “kill the bill”… and punctuating their chants with the word “nigger.”
Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, “kill the bill and then the N-word” several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Cannon House office building.
Adele Stan of AlterNet reported that one protester was arrested after spitting on African American legislator Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO).
The racial undercurrent to the anti-reform movement has been obvious from the beginning. The carefully coded language dropped away this weekend as protesters began to lose hope of killing the bill.
No public option…yet
To the chagrin of progressives, the final bill does not include a public health insurance option. However, going back to Mother Jones, Suzy Khimm reports that Rep. Lynne Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, promised to introduce a bill to create a strong public option as soon as Obama signs health care reform into law.
Stupak, stopped
As tea party protests raged outside, it seemed as if abortion might derail health reform. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) insisted that he had the votes to kill the bill. At the last minute, Stupak was placated with an executive order from the president reiterating that the health care reform would not fund elective abortions.
The executive order is a red herring. It won’t impose any further restrictions, it just restates the status quo. Mike Lillis posted a copy of the order at the Washington Independent. The president might as well have reiterated a ban on federal funds for vajazzling. Health care reform was never going to fund vajazzling or abortion, but if Stupak finds the repetition soothing, so be it.
The chair of the pro-choice caucus, Rep. Lois DeGette (D-CO) acquiesced to the Stupak compromise, describing the overall bill as a “strong foundation,” according to John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent. Pro-choice groups will be angry, but realistically, the executive order was the best possible outcome. For a while, it looked like Democrats were going to have to make substantive concessions to Stupak. In the end, he flipped his vote for a presidential proclamation of the status quo.
In a last ditch effort to derail reform, the Republicans tried to reinsert Stupak’s strict anti-abortion language into the reconciliation package. The Republicans were trying to poison the reconciliation bill in order to threaten its chances in the Senate, explains Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent. The gambit failed. When Stupak rose to speak against the motion, he was shouted down by Republican representatives. One unidentified member called Stupak a “baby killer.”
Bad with the good
Health care reform is not the progressive panacea that many had hoped for. The private insurance industry remains firmly in control, buttressed by government subsidies and no competition from the public sector. However, real changes are coming.
Within the next 6 months, children will be allowed to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26. Lifetime benefit caps are history, and annual caps will be regulated. Insurers will no longer be allowed to dump customers who get sick, or offer coverage to children for everything but their preexisting conditions.
Going down in history
Whatever else Obama may accomplish, he will go down in history as the president who put the United States on the path to universal health care. Skeptics said it couldn’t be done. Adele Stan observes in AlterNet:
It took the first African-American president and the first woman Speaker of the House to do what generations of politicians had failed to do: create a federally regulated health-care reform program that extends health insurance coverage to the majority of Americans.
Health care reform is not an end in itself, it’s a process. Passing this legislation is the first step towards establishing health care as a right of all Americans. Like any attempt to expand the rights of the disenfranchised, the struggle will be met with fierce resistance.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Image Courtesy of Lindsay... more
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AMY GOODMAN: Florida Congress member Alan Grayson speaking on the House floor last week. His bill has since attracted fifty co-sponsors.
Congress member Grayson joins us now from Washington, DC. He’s a freshman Congress member, and he’s no stranger to controversy. In October, he came under heavy criticism from Republicans after he said on the House floor that the Republicans’ healthcare plan involved wanting people to, quote, “die quickly.” He also established the website namesofthedead.com, honoring those who’ve lost their lives because they were uninsured. This past weekend, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin traveled to Grayson’s Florida district and urged voters at a Republican fundraiser to oust Grayson in November.
Well, Congress member Grayson, welcome to Democracy Now!, still speaking to us from the nation’s capital. Can you start off by explaining your bill that you’ve introduced, and then where you stand on, well, the whole healthcare reform bill that is being pushed through now?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: I’ve introduced a simple three-and-a-half-page bill that opens up Medicare to anybody who wants it. If you want it and you pay for it, it’s yours. It’s that simple. It’s open to everybody under the age of sixty-five, whether or not you’re handicapped. And you pay the same amount as other people your age would pay.
And the reason to do this is because we need a public option. We need an option that doesn’t involve putting us at the tender mercies of insurance companies, particularly if there’s a mandate to do so. A lot of people feel that there is a fundamental conflict of interest between themselves and private insurance companies. The private insurance companies make money by denying you the care that you need to be healthy, and sometimes to stay alive. And a lot of people are just sick of it.
So the way to get beyond that is to open up Medicare, which is now available to only one-eighth of the population, to anybody who’s willing to pay for it. And it makes perfect sense when you think about it. I mean, we don’t say the federal highways are only open to senior citizens. And the Medicare provider network is an enormously valuable, expensive thing that we’ve created with federal tax dollars that ought to be open to everyone, not just seniors.
AMY GOODMAN: And how does this fit into the major piece of legislation that will or—I don’t know would even pass—won’t be voted on by the House?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: My hope was that we would vote not only on the Senate bill, which doesn’t have a public option, not only on the reconciliation amendment, which probably will not have a public option, but that we’d also vote on this, that there’d be three votes instead of two votes. And if we voted on this and we passed it, then it would be presented to the Senate and subject to reconciliation in the Senate, so that we could end up with a public option.
AMY GOODMAN: Now?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Now.
AMY GOODMAN: Right, but now?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: And if not, then it’s something to build for in the future.
***READ MORE AT LINKAMY GOODMAN: Florida Congress member Alan Grayson speaking on the House floor last... more
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The public option is dead. How many times have we heard this over the past few months? The Republican party doesn't want it, the bought off Democrats don't want it the double talking white house doesn't want it and most importantly the insurance companies and wall street don't want it and the media keeps saying it's dead. The only people who support the public option are the people and who cares what they think right. So it's dead forget about it.
But something strange is going on a few weeks ago Senator Mike Bennett of Colorado wrote a letter calling on an up or down vote on the Public Option. Almost right away twenty five other Senators signed on. So in response the white house came out with it's strongest anti public option statement saying it was politically not possible. Since that time another sixteen Senators have signed on bringing the total to forty one. With some prominent supporters not yet having signed.
Is the voice of the people being heard? Make your voice heard. You can really make a difference because you can bet if people weren't calling, writing and putting the pressure on this deal would be over with by now. Here is a link to a list of the Senators and where they stand and more information on how to make your voice heard.
http://whipcongress.com/
Here's a link to a Rachel Maddow interview with Senator Bennett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCHuUzb3zBAThe public option is dead. How many times have we heard this over the past few months?... more
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Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando), today introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States. The “Public Option Act,” also known as the “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act,” would open up the Medicare network to anyone who can pay for it.
Congressman Grayson said, “Obviously, America wants and needs more competition in health coverage, and a public option offers that. But it’s just as important that we offer people not just another choice, but another kind of choice. A lot of people don’t want to be at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that will make money by denying them the care that they need to stay healthy, or to stay alive. We deserve to have a real alternative.”
The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish enrollment periods, coverage guidelines, and premiums for the program. Because premiums would be equal to cost, the program would pay for itself.
“The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote,” Congressman Grayson said.
In keeping with the “Grayson style,” the bill is clear and concise. It is only four pages. You can read the bill here.Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando), today introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would... more
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Do You Want To Change The Future? Carpe Diem
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/05/89910/the-nations-capital-is-one-sorry.html
This started out as a quick link to an article and has turned into a full on plea. Because I started thinking about the things I've recently seen going on in Washington and one issue really got me going and this is the result.
It sure is and spectacle is just the word to describe what I've witnessed for the last year as I've watched the debate over health care reform. The Republicans want to destroy social programs so compromising with them only serves to lessen the chance of these programs succeeding. Last year the Republicans said they were going to destroy Obama over health care. It was going to be his Waterloo. And instead of fighting for what was really right time and time again he caved in and compromised.
The far and away best solution to the health care crisis a single payer/Medicade For All plan was not even part of the opening discussion. It's supporters were not even allowed to participate in the discussion they were hauled off by the police. That's when you got the idea that things weren't going to go well. And then the second moment occurred when president Obama laughed at the idea of putting the health insurance industry out of business.
Here is an industry that makes money by denying people care. They deliver no care themselves they only serve to make a profit. We are alone in the developed world that supports such a wasteful inefficient system. Other countries may have insurance companies by they are non profit in nature. In this county they make 10-20% profit by doing paperwork and then spend enormous sums of money to defeat any attempt at reform.
So that's one mans view of this ugly spectacle and as a side bar this is not a new spectacle but one that has been going on for a good many years. It is because the government has been so self serving and dysfunctional for so long that our problems have become so huge.
There is one way that we as Americans can turn this situation around and serve notice to our leaders. Senator Mike Bennett has a letter signed by 35 other Senators calling for a vote on a public option. We need fifteen more names to make this happen. What we need is a virus and I am asking no begging to to help. All the polls say that a large majority of Americans support a public option. Seize The Day you can add your name to the letter and contact those Senators that haven't signed on. Here is a link
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/284
MindsiMedia has several channels on YouTube and other video sharing outlets you can access all of them from our web portal at http://www.mindsimedia.info/ . You can also link up to our Pandora radio stations there and our Facebook and Cafe Press presences. We also have a Facebook page which serves as our blog. Here is a couple of links to videos I put together at the beginning of this health care debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7mCC2DN_1s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5U6chUTEIY&feature=relatedDo You Want To Change The Future? Carpe Diem... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user seiuhealthcare775nw, under Creative Commons LicenseToday, President Barack Obama will deliver a speech to Congress outlining his plan to move forward on health care reform. The president is expected to advocate the use of budget reconciliation.
Art Levine of Working In These Times warns that some centrist Democrats are already getting cold feet on reconciliation. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, went on TV to declare reconciliation impossible. These guys just don’t get it. It’s reconciliation or defeat. There is no other way. Without reconciliation, the bill dies. Without a bill, the Democrats get massacred in the mid-term elections.
Health care reform to date
Quick recap: The House and the Senate have both passed health care reform bills. The original plan was to merge those two bills in a conference committee and send the final version back to both houses of Congress for a vote. However, the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate when Republican Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley in the special election in Massachusetts.
Once they recovered from their shell shock, Democrats reluctantly converged around Plan B: Let the House re-pass the Senate version of the bill, thereby skipping the step where the Senate votes on the conference report. However, the Senate bill could not pass the House in its current form. So, the Senate needs to tweak the bill to make it acceptable to the House—either before or after the House re-passes the Senate bill. In order to make those changes without getting filibustered, the Senate Democrats will have to insert the modifications through budget reconciliation, where measures pass by a simple majority. Whew!
Of course, the Republicans trying to paint Democrats as tyrants for using reconciliation. Nevermind that 16 of the 22 reconciliation bills passed since reconciliation was invented in 1974 were passed by Republican majorities.
Whither the Public Option?
Reconciliation would appear to give the public health insurance option a new lease on life. The House bill has a public option, but the Senate bill doesn’t. The public option was traded away on the Senate side to forge the original filibuster-proof majority. As a procedural matter, the public option could easily be reinserted during reconciliation because it has such a direct impact on the federal budget, i.e., it would save the taxpayer a lot of money. The White House claims to support a public option. Yet Obama didn’t propose one in his health care plan last week.
Some observers take that as a sign that the White House doesn’t think the votes are there. (Cynics say it’s proof the White House never cared about the public option in the first place.) Even Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) told radio host Ed Schultz that he can’t support a public option for fear of killing the health care bill, according to Jason Hancock of the Iowa Independent. Harkin has been taking a lot of heat from progressives for refusing to join with other senators in signing a letter calling for a public option.
Abortion Storm Clouds
Speaker Nancy Pelosi had little to say about how she plans to overcome resistance within her own caucus on abortion and immigration issues within health reform, as Brian Beutler reports for TPMDC. Pelosi needs 216 votes to pass a bill. The original House bill only passed by 5 votes. Rabid anti-choice Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) claims to have assembled a coalition of like-minded Dems who consider the Senate’s slightly less restrictive rules for abortion funding “unacceptable.” There is no reliable public vote count on how many of these representatives, if any, would vote to kill health care over abortion. If they do, it would be purely out of spite. Abortion language can’t be tweaked in reconciliation because it doesn’t directly affect the budget.
Stupak and the myth of federal funding for abortions
In The Nation, Jessica Arons takes a closer look at Stupak’s radical and misleading anti-choice rhetoric. The federal government is already legally barred from funding elective abortions, and nothing in the Senate bill would change that. Arons explains that the Senate bill would allow plans that participate in the federally-subsidized exchanges to offer abortion coverage provided that customers buy that coverage with their own money, not with subsidized federal dollars. If the government pays 30% of the cost of the policy and the consumer pays 60%, the money for abortion coverage comes out of the consumer’s end.
There’s a long tradition of segregating government money. Both Planned Parenthood and Catholic hospitals get federal funds. By law, Planned Parenthood can’t use that money to perform abortions, but it can use it to do pap smears and offer other health care. By the same token, a Catholic hospital can take federal money to provide medical care, but not to proselytize to patients. Arons ably satirizes Stupak’s extreme position:
If everyone thought like Bart Stupak, a woman seeking an abortion:
(1) would not be able to take a public bus or commuter train to an abortion clinic, even if she paid her own fare;
(2) would not be able to drive on public roads to a clinic, even if she drove her own car and paid for her own gas;
(3) would not be able to walk on public sidewalks to the clinic, even though she paid property taxes;
(4) would not be able to put her child in childcare while she was at the clinic if she received a tax credit that offset the cost of childcare;
(5) would not be able to take medicine at the clinic that was researched or developed by the government, even if she paid for the medicine herself.
Bunning backs down
In other health care news, AlterNet reports that yesterday Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) ended his one-man filibuster of the extension of a bill that would have prevented a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursement rates and extended unemployment benefits while the Senate finalizes the jobs bill. Bunning caved under pressure from his own party. Even Republicans realized that there was no political percentage in stiffing doctors and the unemployed.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user... more
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Alright my Brothers And Sisters, the word has come down, and I doubt if many, if any of us are surprised. Once again the public option has been sacrificed, in the hopes of getting enough votes to pass Some kind of health care reform bill.Alright my Brothers And Sisters, the word has come down, and I doubt if many, if any... more
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From the moment when the Senate began it's hearings into health care reform one proposal has been consistently ignored. Single payer in study after study over almost 20 years it has been shown that such a system would lower costs and provide care for everybody. Here is a link to some of those studies
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_system_cost.php
Last year when the hearings began in the senate and supporters of single payer where removed by force after being denied a seat at the table I crafted this little video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5U6chUTEIY
And now a year later at the big health care summit once again the one proposal that would save money is not on the agenda
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/26-1
Why because it would spell the end of the health insurance industry that exists only to make a profit for itself.From the moment when the Senate began it's hearings into health care reform one... more
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