U.S. National News
The House Oversight & Government Reform Committee approved the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, which would offer the same benefits, including health insurance and pensions, to same-sex partners of federal workers and to opposite-sex spouses. (This news comes via the DC Agenda, the reincarnated Washington Blade.)
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [...]
Update (1:11PM): It turns out that Wyden's legislation has not been folded into the actual legislation yet -- it still must attract 60 votes to be included. However, both Reid and Baucus have endorsed it. Original post: Mike Lillis of TWI: More...
The good news on the Senate version of the public option is (beyond the fact that there is one included in the bill, making conference that much easier) that it uses the essential components of the HELP version of the public option, with a few minor changes. The core of the public option remains pretty decent, with a single national plan set up and run by the Secretary of HHS, who has the authority to negotiate reimbursement rates with providers. Not as good as Medicare +5, but could be worse. The bad news, of course, comes with the opt-out provision of the bill, which makes the public option less than national. When first proposed, the idea was that states would automatically be included, and would have to take action to opt-out sometime after implementation of the program. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out in the actual language [Sec. 1323, part (a)(3)] More...
 The House is not in session today.
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader: Convenes: 9:45am Resume debate on motion to proceed to HR3590, legislative vehicle for Health Care Reform.
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In May 2008, Chicago Public Radio teamed up with National Public Radio (NPR) to produce an episode of the show This American Life called “The Giant Pool of Money.” The episode garnered widespread praise and won several awards for explaining the subprime-mortgage crisis with clarity and concision. It was such a success that NPR created a podcast, Planet Money, featuring the same team of reporters and producers. Planet Money covered the financial collapse last fall and continues to file jargon-free reports on the economy three times a week.
A few weeks ago, that crew put together another big project, this time a two-parter of This American Life and several subsequent podcasts devoted to the subject of health care. As in “The Giant Pool of Money,” the reporting was clear and even-handed. The team’s correspondents sought out industry professionals, economists, and patients. (They ignored politicians, by and large.) They surveyed the history of the American health-care system and drew some conclusions about why it has so many problems. And, if you’re someone who expects a certain amount of leftishness from NPR, those conclusions might surprise you.
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Harry Reid offers the nation a mephitic Senate health-care bill that retains the worst features of Nancy Pelosi’s creation and adds fresh horrors of its own: It will force Americans to finance abortions and jack up some Americans’ Medicare taxes by 34 percent. On paper, the House bill costs a little more than $1 trillion, the Senate bill a little less than $1 trillion; more realistic estimates, minus the congressional accounting chicanery, put the price tag of each closer to $2 trillion over the first ten years of implementation. With trillions of dollars on the line -- along with the excellence of our health care and the energy of our economy -- Americans’ eyes must turn to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who has the opportunity to stop this bill from going to the Senate floor for advancement. If there is only scant chance of that happening, that tells us something about the real commitment of these vaunted moderates and the price at which they may be bought off.
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As the U.S. Senate weighs a 2,074-page health-care “reform” bill, supporters of a government option for medical coverage consider this the finest federal initiative since the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet today’s headlines show government severely bungling its current health-care duties. Expanding Uncle Sam’s medical portfolio is a prescription for fraud, fiscal incompetence, and rampant mismanagement on the clinical frontlines.
Fraud devours some $60 billion -- or 13.3 percent -- of Medicare’s $452 billion budget. “Rather than stealing $100,000 or $200,000,” federal prosecutor Kirk Ogrosky said on October 25’s 60 Minutes, criminals “can steal $100 million.”
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The extreme abortion language included in the House bill has been left out of the Senate bill, in favor of a provision that more closely tracks with the Capps amendment that was originally included in the House bill, only to be replaced by the Stupak Coathanger amendment, as well as used for the original Senate Finance committee language. The current Senate bill has added a provision stating that the HHS Secretary must ensure that no federal funds are used for abortion, if he/she determines that abortion should be a benefit in that plan. It continues to require that plans participating in the exchange have to include two plans, one that covers abortion services and one that does not. Here's Capps's statement on the Senate bill, via e-mail. More...
Leadership in both chambers of Congress finally had the realization dawn on them, after a great deal of haranguing from activists, that it is kind of important after spending a year working on healthcare reform that they actually deliver on some stuff before 2013. There are some key early deliverables in both bills that will start showing voters that reform is in the works. The House 2010 provisions include creation of the high risk pool, extension of COBRA benefits (which should also include some sort of subsidy program, since COBRA rates are often unaffordable, though select groups do receive assistance under the Recovery Act), upping the age that people can be covered by their parents' plans, and the increased funding for Community Health Centers are all very good starts for 2010. The most key for staunching the bleeding in our system, if you will, are the high risk pool and the Community Health Center funding. More of the uninsured will be able to get insurance through the pool and the CHCs, which are absolutely critical to providing care for the uninsured, will at least see some increased ability to do so. More...
On Tuesday, GOP Congressman Louis Gohmert of Texas suggested that Democrats wanted to see another terror attack on America, saying that the only reason to hold 9/11 trials in the U.S. was if "they're trying to create a new jobs bill by allowing terrorism back in New York." (You can watch Gohmert's comments on Daily Kos TV.) Yesterday, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Vollen fired back, saying that Gohmert's comments illustrated that the Republican Party has been taken over by right-wing extremists: More...
A challenge to New York's recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere has failed in a 4-3 ruling by the state's highest court, the Ithaca Journal reports: "The state Court of Appeals rejected a Christian legal group’s claim that the extension...
In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader: FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2009 House Meets At... 10:00 a.m.: Legislative Business
First Vote Predicted... 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE... What keeps me awake at night? The wondering. I wonder if Condi Rice still harbors resentment over having her name yanked off her supertanker. I wonder if Paul Wolfowitz still sucks on combs. Or if Dick Morris still sucks on toes. More...
The Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act, authored by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) advanced yesterday in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Washington Post reports: "After sometimes heated debate, the 23 to 12 vote in the Oversight and...
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping health care bill that would expand health insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans at an estimated cost of $849 billion over 10 years.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reveals a sweeping health care bill that would expand health insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans at an estimated cost of $849 billion over 10 years.
The “reformers” in the White House and the House of Representatives have made all too plain their vision of the federal government’s power to coerce individual Americans to make the “right” health-care choices. The highly partisan bill the House just passed includes severe penalties for individuals who do not purchase insurance approved by the federal government. By neatly tucking these penalties into the IRS code, the so-called reformers have brought them under the tax-enforcement power of the federal government.
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By proposing a health-care bill of their own, Senate Republicans can throw the extraordinary weaknesses of the Democratic bills into stark relief. In the wake of the Congressional Budget Office’s recent scoring of aspects of the House Republican bill, there is now an opening for Republicans to provide a clear contrast with the proposed Democratic overhaul.
The Democratic bills are polling badly, even though they’ve been running largely unopposed in the eyes of most Americans. But continuing to let them run without competition would be a major political error, in both the short and long term. Republicans need to show how health-care reform should be done, improving on the unsustainable status quo while reflecting the political realities of the moment.
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Great catch from the NorthDecoder on how Blue Cross/Blue Shield is trying to get its victims subscribers to do their dirty work for them. They sent out a letter [pdf] to subscribers threatening even bigger rate increases if reform passes: Your health care costs will rise even faster than they have in the recent past Health care costs have skyrocketed the last several years. With current reform proposals, you’ll see it increase even more dramatically because: More...
Word is leaking out from the Hill about the Senate's HCR bill. The bill will be posted sometime this evening online at democrats.senate.gov. In the meantime, these are the rough outlines that have appeared as various senators spoke with reporters after their caucus meeting this evening. The bill comes in at $849 billion over the next ten years, and is projected to cut the budget deficit by $127 billion over 10 years and by $650 billion in the second decade; it will extend guaranteed coverage to more than 94% of Americans -- including a 31 million person reduction in the uninsured. [Update: In a briefing now with leadership staff: the CBO numbers aren't the official score, just the initial report. The full score still isn't available.] It's not universal coverage, but it's what we're getting for now. The bill contains both an excise tax on high-value insurance plans and a 1.95% increase in the Medicare payroll tax for high-income earners. It also includes a public option with a state opt-out. More...
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