News Today

Republicans claim that the proposed Health Care Reform Bill does little more than add to our government’s deficit and represents government intrusion into our health care system.

I guess it just sounds a little funny to me, these claims coming from many of the same G.O.P. lawmakers who just six years ago approved a major Medicare expansion that was not paid for and added tens of billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

That 2003 program, pushed through by a G.O.P. controlled Congress and White House, will cost at least a half-trillion dollars over 10 years. Also since the party of newly found fiscal responsibility didn’t introduce any new taxes or spending cuts to pay for the expansion, that cost has been added straight to the federal debt.

Can we get an explanation for this?

“It was standard practice not to pay for things,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “We were concerned about it, because it certainly added to the deficit, no question.”

$500 billion dollars added straight to the deficit just wasn’t a big deal six years ago? It was this kind of thinking that has gotten us in the mess that we find ourselves in now.

Hatch, George Voinovich, Olympia Snowe and other G.O.P. lawmakers defended the 2003 vote, saying the program had done a lot of good, but it’s still hard to clear away the stench of hypocrisy. 24 of the 40 Republican Senators who stand in opposition to the current health care reform bill, mostly for fiscal ‘principles’, had no problem supporting a completely unpaid for medicare expansion under George W. Bush’s administration.

“As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt,” said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

He made his comments in a Forbes article titled “Republican Deficit Hypocrisy.”

From the article:

Even with a deceptively low estimate of the drug benefit’s cost, there were still a few Republicans in the House of Representatives who wouldn’t roll over and play dead just to buy re-election. Consequently, when the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

Among those congressmen strenuously pressed to change their vote was Nick Smith, R-Mich., who later charged that several members of Congress attempted to virtually bribe him, by promising to ensure that his son got his seat when he retired if he voted for the drug bill…

The bill would pass, with a final vote of 220 to 215. In the end only 25 Republicans voted against the bill and all but 16 Democrats voted no. The gross cost of that bill will be more than either of the current health care bills being considered in the House and Senate. Give the Democrats some credit too, at least they paid for their bill (unlike their G.O.P. counterparts in 2003), and according to the CBO it will not add a cent to the deficit in ten years.

Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/republican-budget-hypocrisy-health-care-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091225/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_deficit

Oh I would not want to be in Harry Reid’s shoes right now…

Nevermind his prospects in the 2010 election, the Nevada Democrat is now charged with two unenviable tasks. First Reid must successfully combine the Senate’s two committee bills into one final version, a task that is proving to be not so easy. Then the Senate Majority Leader must find a way to combine the Senate’s final draft with the drastically different House bill.

Among the differences he will have to work around include a last-minute abortion amendment that likely gave the House bill enough support with moderate Democrats to pass. The House bill passed 220-215 on Saturday after 219 Democrats and one Republican (bi-partisanship?) voted in favor.

Getting a bill passed in the Senate will be harder as well. In the Senate 60 votes are needed for passage, as opposed to the simple majority required in the House. While Democrats do hold the coveted “super-majority” (filibuster-proof 60-vote majority) in the Senate, it’s not clear if the left will be able to keep rank with all of its members (something that will probably be needed as all 40 Republican Senators will likely vote in opposition).

“If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” Sen. Joe Lieberman told Fox News on Sunday.

Joe Lieberman refusing to work with Democrats is nothing new, but Lieberman isn’t the only one standing in opposition of the bill.

“If it isn’t clear that government money is not to be used to fund abortions — whether it’s subsidies or direct payments or tax credits or something like that — I will not support it,” said Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. “If it doesn’t make it clear that it does not pay for abortion, you can be sure I will vote against it.”

Quotes like these demonstrate the tricky task that Harry Reid is faced with as health care legislation makes its way through Congress.

Right now Reid’s strategy is to include a public insurance plan that states would have the option (but would not have to) of signing up for. To pay for the measure the Senate is planning on taxing high-value insurance plans and making companies face tax-penalties for not providing insurance to their employees. Congressional Budget Office cost projections for the Senate bill will likely be released in the next couple days.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125779914376639381.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-health-bill-major-hurdles/story?id=9030942
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125765850379236569.html

While working families, pregnant women and children are struggling to get access to scarce doses of the H1N1 vaccine, workers at the New York Stock Exchange, bankers at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and employees at the Federal Reserve have all been given doses of the vaccine.

The bankers at Goldman Sachs have a stockpile of 200 doses of the vaccine. To put this in perspective, that’s the same amount of doses that Lenox Hill Hospital in New York was given. Citigroup has been supplied with over 1,200 units.

This is disgusting, even more so than the bonus-gate scandals.

“If we know that the distribution is the weak part of this entire thing, why not put doctor’s offices and hospitals at the top of the line,” said Dr. Nancy Schnyderman, NBC’s chief medical editor, “and say to corporate America, no matter who you are, you’re you’re going to have to go through clinics and hospitals like everyone else.”

Instead, while hospitals, schools and community health clinics are in desperate need of the H1N1 vaccine, Wall Street’s investment bankers are allowed to just cut in line and secure scarce doses.

If this story makes you feel as disgusted as it made me, I’d urge you to click this link. Clicking will add your signature to a Credo Action petition urging Goldman Sachs to donate their vaccines.

After receiving over $1 billion in taxpayer bailouts during the financial meltdown, being the single-largest recipient of taxpayer money in the AIG bailout, and preparing to give its bankers as much as $23 billion in bonuses while the rest of country struggles through this jobless “recovery” — I’d say it’s the least they could do.

Sources:
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/h1n1_vaccine/
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2009/db2009112_606442.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/swine-flu-vaccine-banks-g_n_346907.html&cp

Not really related at all but enough of a coincidence to make me angry. My friend, we’ll call her Amanda, has been in the hospital since last Friday. She has yet to receive H1N1 medication and her boyfriend informed me that her situation is turning worse and worse.

. . .

“Now watch this drive” — former President George W. Bush.

Hard to forget that Bush quote. Always looking to outdo his predecessor, President Barack Obama was able to accomplish in under ten months what took Bush over 34 months to do — play 24 rounds of golf.

Of course I suppose we should be happy, because by playing with his chief domestic policy adviser, Melody Barnes, Obama became the first U.S. president to play a foursome round of golf with a woman.

Still, as my friend Amanda sits in the hospital, using all of her strength to hold on until the doctors finally give her medication, I have a hard time feeling proud of our president even though he broke such an important gender-equality barrier.

Kind of seems like the same shit on a different day to me.

Sources:
http://online.worldmag.com/2009/10/26/obama-ties-bush-in-golf/
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_WOMAN_IN_FOURSOME?SITE=NCAGW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.freakingnews.com/Freak-Show-Pictures–2327-4.asp

Every once in a while you have to give credit where credit is due. Too many people in this country have forgotten that a truly great public protest is like a fine work of art. It has to be carefully planned, timed and choreographed…

Anyways, regardless of what you think about their politics you have to admit one thing, the group ‘Billionaires for Wealthcare’ know how to protest. They recently interrupted a conference held by the health insurance lobbyist group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) by spontaneously breaking out into a sarcastic song (using Annie’s “Tomorrow” as theme music) thanking the lobbyists in attendance for killing the public option.

“People were surprised and laughed in that nervous ‘I don’t know what’s going on here!’ way.” Said Melissa Collom, one of the protestors. “Even the speaker himself chuckled as he stepped aside from the podium.”

Sources:
http://www.billionairesforwealthcare.com/
http://www.mediaite.com/online/singing-public-option-protesters-punk-health-insurance-lobbyists/

A reform of the U.S. health care system took a crucial step closer to becoming a reality Tuesday after the Senate Finance Committee approved a 10-year, $829 billion plan. The bill even gained its first Republican supporter after Olympia Snowe chose to once again break rank and vote for a Democrat-sponsored bill.

“When history calls, history calls,” said Maine’s Olympia Snowe on her decision to break rank.

The Finance Committee was the last of five House and Senate panels that had jurisdiction on the issue. So what happens next with reform? News Today takes a look at what to expect from all of the major parties involved.

. . .

President Barack Obama

Obama, perhaps trying to learn from the Clinton’s mistakes, has left most of the bill-writing process to the legislature. However as the bill begins to make its final push the president will have a crucial role to play in the days ahead.

Expect to see an even larger dose of Obama on the television, internet and radio in the days ahead as he attempts to rally public support for reform. Behind the scenes you can also expect Obama and members of his administration to continue to hold numerous meetings with on-the-fence lawmakers.

Obama had one such meeting Tuesday afternoon with Sen. Evan Bayh, a moderate democrat whose vote could be crucial to a reform bill passing.

. . .

In the Senate

Majority Leader Harry Reid will now be charged with the unenviable task of merging the Finance Committee bill with a more liberal version passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. How well Reid is able to do this will determine if a health care reform bill can attain the 60 votes needed to stop a Republican filibuster.

One of the key differences Reid must overcome while combining the bills is the issue of a public option. The Finance bill does not include a public plan, while the health committee’s bill does.

. . .

In the House

House Democratic leaders will be walking a very thin line as they work to combine one of the seperate bills approved by committees over the summer. For many moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats, support of a bill could cost them their jobs. Democratic lawmakers have also received backfire from liberal supporters who argue that the proposed bills don’t go far enough to achieve real reform.

The health overhaul bill in the House will likely not grab a single House Republican vote and Pelosi can afford to lose 38 Democrats and still grab a victory.

Sources:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28256.html#atssh-digg
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul;_ylt=AqpV7N5Y0xq8jtVFQJ9JI5eMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTJxNzI1OGwzBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMDE0L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX292ZXJoYXVsBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2hlYWx0aGJpbGxjbA–

What a bizarre news day.

Most Americans woke up to hear the rather surprising announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, who praised Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” his push for nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world, selected Obama out of a pool of over 200 candidates. The President did his best to downplay the remarkable achievement.

“Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations,” said Obama at the White House. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.”

There is a $1.4 million cash award that comes with the prize which Obama says he will donate to charity.

Moving on, later on in the morning NASA reverted back to a classic American strategy — If you don’t understand something, shoot it. In an attempt to find water on the moon NASA scientists fired a 5,000-pound rocket into one of the moon’s craters. It will likely take days to analyze the data from the NASA mission, codenamed LCROSS.

“We’re going to take our time and build up a case for water in the ejecta, if it’s there, or a case against it if it’s not there,” said the project’s principal investigator Anthony Colaprete. “And then understand if we’re seeing variations, what do these variations mean? We’ve got to understand that before we say anything.”

In some other odds and ends, a Pakistani suicide bomber killed 49 people today after detonating his bomb next to a car in a crowded market. Pakistani officials are swearing revenge.

The stock market rallied on Friday, and the Dow Jones ended the week at its highest point so far this year.

And finally, the H1N1 world death toll has reached 4,500 casualties, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.

Sources:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10372298-239.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091009/ts_nm/us_nobel_peace_obama_17

We’ve heard a lot of comparisons to other countries health-care systems in the last couple of months as Congress debates how to move forward on health-care reform in the United States. Skeptics of Obama’s health-care proposals have cited long waits and substandard care in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile liberals have been steadfast in their demands for a “public option,” despite critics claims of socialized medicine.

Is it possible to achieve universal coverage without having socialized medicine? In fact it is, and it’s cheaper too.

I want to draw your attention to an op-ed written in the Washington Post a couple of days ago by Matt Miller, a former Clinton White House aide.

“The first fallacy of the ‘public option or nothing’ mantra is the notion that we’ll never cover everyone without a Medicare-style program for Americans under 65. The experiences of Switzerland and the Netherlands prove that this isn’t the case. Both have pioneered market-based universal health care. Both cover all their citizens using private insurers, and they do so for much less cost — 10 percent of gross domestic product for the Dutch and 12 percent for Switzerland, compared with 17 percent in the United States, where nearly 50 million people are still uninsured,” said Miller in the op-ed, “Why liberals should drop the Public Option.”

You see, in Switzerland and the Netherlands citizens buy health insurance from a private company that has to provide the customer with a “basic package of services” defined by the government. The government provides subsidies for people that need them.

So basically, the insurance companies don’t make a profit off of the “basic package.” Instead they make money by offering additional packages, such as dental care, cosmetic surgery, life insurance, homeowners insurance etc. While this would require a lot more government oversight and regulation, I think we can all agree that health insurance is an area that needs some oversight and regulation, and that is what the role of our government is supposed to be.

The other positive about those countries, their health-care system is cheaper.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the Dutch spent 9.8 percent of gross domestic product on health care in 2007, while the Swiss spent 10.8 percent. The United States, on the other hand, spent 16 percent.

Bonuses.

White House officials admitted to misjudging the strength and ferocity of the public backlash that was triggered by the “bonusgate” scandals earlier this year. Hopefully that will make them a little more prepared this time around as Congress waits for a response from 15 of the top health care providers in the country.

Some of the numbers are already known. Health insurance companies have doubled premiums over the last decade, causing many Americans to face months or even years without health insurance. At the same time many CEO’s and top executives of health insurance companies have been making more money than ever in the last decade.

According to the Corporate Library, the head of Cigna (CI, Fortune 500) made $11 million and the head of United Health Group (UNH, Fortune 500) made $9.4 million last year.

Representative Henry Waxman, head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is still waiting on fifty-two health and accident insurance companies who have until Friday to turn over salary details for employees making more than $500,000 a year. Also Senator John D. Rockefeller, who runs the Senate Commerce panel, asked the biggest health insurers to turn over particulars of premium dollars spent on patient care.

“I think they will get some information that will surprise policyholders, because there’s not a great deal of awareness of how much these executives do make,” said Wendell Potter, a former Cigna vice president. “A lot of money they’re paying in premiums is going to make executives richer and richer every year.”

If this does turn out to be the case, the public backlash may help the Democrat’s quest for a public option.

Medical Loss Ratio

This is one of the things that Congress wants to learn more about. Most executives earn their big pay checks from bonuses and discounted stock options. Health insurance executives, on the other hand, earn their profits from the money left over after premium dollars are used to pay for patient care. That ratio is called “Medical Loss Ratio.”

According to a Price Waterhouse Coopers report, In the early 1990s health insurers spent more than 90 cents of every dollar collected on patient care. Contrast that to 2007 when national publicly-traded health companies spent just 81 cents of every dollar on patient care.

“These guys are operating on the sole basis that they want to retain as much as they can in premium dollars for their investors and their own pay,” said Robert McGarrah, counsel for the AFL-CIO Office of Investment. “That’s why we need a public plan, so we’ll have a benchmark.”

Advocates like Wendell Potter for the public option argue that those dollars which are currently going towards executive bonuses could instead be going towards patient care in a public option.

“I think it’s significant because Americans are spending more and more of their premium dollars on compensation for the executives and other highly paid employees,” said Potter.

I think the title “Wake me up when September ends” is appropriate given the month that we’re in for. It is going to be a hot, and I’m not talking about global warming. Scorching would be a good word to describe America’s political scene over this last month, with town-hall meetings erupting into shouting-fests all across the nation. If you noticed the heat in August, get ready for another sizzler this month. Here are News Today’s top five political stories to keep an eye on in September.

. . .

Health-care Reform

The Democrats are bound and determined to get a bill passed this year, and if they’re going to accomplish that September will be another huge month for the issue. It will be especially interesting to see what strategy Democrats utilize with the recent loss of Senator Edward Kennedy.

It will also be interesting to see how the Democrats deal with the two-pronged attack of insurance companies and the Republican party on it’s health care reform efforts.

. . .

Guantanamo Bay

Barack Obama’s self-imposed promise to close Guantanamo by January 22nd means the administration has some tough maneuvering in store for September. Obama’s attempt in May at resolving the Guantanamo problem was shot down 90-6 in a Senate vote. The current deal from Congress expires September 30th.

“They’ve got three or four weeks to come up with a plan, or they’re going to be facing some difficult votes,” said a congressional aide. “The issue is not going away. They can push the deadline and try to buy themselves some more time, but they can’t fail to put forward a plan and expect to close it on Jan. 22. Things aren’t going to work that way.”

Officials in Michigan are reportedly interested in holding some of the detainees at a prison complex that was due to close.

. . .

Iran

Obama had originally signaled that he would give the Iranians until December to sit down with the U.S. for nuclear talks. However, at Italy’s G-8 summit last month the president got other countries, such as Russia and China, to agree to take up the Iranian nuclear program when they travel to New York for the U.N. General Assembly debate on Sept. 23 and at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh the next day.

“The international community has said, ‘Here’s a door you can walk through that allows you to lessen tensions and more fully join the international community,’” Obama said in Italy. “If Iran chooses not to walk through that door, then you have on record the G-8, to begin with, but I think, potentially, a lot of other countries that are going to say we need to take further steps.”

. . .

Afghanistan

This is going to be a big area of focus in September. Afghanistan is coming off of a controversial election, the results of which aren’t going to be fully counted for a few more weeks (President Hamid Karzai is believed to be in the lead). August proved to be the deadliest month for the United States in the almost eight year campaign, a sobering milestone as our top commander General Stanley McChrystal prepares to submit a report on the progress in the country.

“Afghanistan … will require some big decisions: whether to send more U.S. troops, how to prepare the country and Congress for the likelihood of a continued difficult period, how to address the results of the presidential race,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.

A record 62,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the country, with at least 4,000 more due by the end of the year. As more troops have occupied the country though, American casualties have also grown. Subsequently public support for the war is dropping. A Washington Post-ABC News poll recently found that over 50 percent of the American respondents believe the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting.

. . .

Change or more of the same?

Obama will have a number of messy issues from the Bush administration to deal with in September. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to name veteran justice department prosecutor John Durham as Special Prosecutor to probe CIA investigators suspected of having violated anti-torture laws, a move which has already drawn harsh criticism from the right.

Holder is also expected to announce whether he will urge bar discipline against Justice Department lawyers that drafted memos defending the legality of waterboarding and other practices that are considered torture.

. . .