Senate finally does something

The Senate Democrats finally got their act together and managed to snag a couple of GOPers to overcome GOP obstruction of the small business bill. We knew since last week that retiring Sen. George Voinovich was going to break ranks to help. And he made a brave statement about it:

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments "didn't have anything to do with the bill" anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan "messaging."

"We don't have time for messaging," Voinovich said. "We don't have time anymore. This country is really hurting."

Unclear why GOP appointee George Lemieux of Florida got on board with some actual governance. Maybe he doesn't care about party loyalty since he's not running to keep the office, though he appears to be a career pol in general and this breach could hurt his future prospects. In any event, good for him for joining Voinovich in moving this tiny little bill forward. Cheers me up a bit to see the GOP's intractable obstructionism broken once in a while.

High price for small progress

The Senate finally found a couple of GOP votes for cloture and the state's aid bill is on its way to passing. Word has it Pelosi will call the House back into session to clear it through for the President's signature.

But Mark Kleiman notes the price of those Republican votes was costly.

Republicans in the Senate have agreed to avoid some teacher layoffs: in return for cutting Food Stamps in the midst of the worst prolonged employment crisis since the Great Depression. And they might – might- be willing to approve the New Start treaty (largely negotiated under Bush II and supported by everyone with basic literacy on nuclear issues): in return for wasting additional tens of billions of dollars on fancier nuclear weapons (which presumably don’t have to be “paid for” because they don’t actually help human beings).

So save some jobs but leave the destitute hungry while they pad the pockets of their crony contractors with deficit spending. Hell of a tradeoff. You would think with 1600 pages of rules in the Senate, there has to a better way for the Dems to overcome the GOP obstructionism other than slitting their own throats with inhumane and counterproductive tradeoffs.

Make them talk Harry - Part Two

The Republicans successfully blocked a vote on the small business loan bill today because they didn't get their amendment to extend the tax breaks. And here's Harry Reid playing courtier to them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would work with Republicans today to seek a compromise on amendments to the measure. The legislation was aimed at easing terms for loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, providing $12 billion in tax breaks and issuing grants to states to provide business loans.

Brilliant. Negotiate amendments to weaken the bill and then they won't vote for it anyway. That always works so well.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

RIP Planet Earth

Well it's official. The Senate Climate Bill is dead. It's been a year of record breaking heat but the GOP, climate change deniers and cowardly Democrats won't lift a finger to address the slow motion destruction of our ecosystem from carbon based energy.

The House did their job but the Senate will now only address a very narrow slate of issues related to off shore drilling and "tightening energy efficiency standards." Meanwhile the noose of global warming will continue to tighten around the throat of our planet and our progeny will be the ones choking on our politicans' failure to take responsibility for the damage we do daily to our environment.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Should have gone with single payer

Somebody remind me why they didn't just pass single payer and cut these bloodsucking middlemen out of the equation?"

WellPoint Inc. revealed Friday that it boosted its chief executive's compensation 51% last year, ...Chief Executive Angela F. Braly saw her total compensation shoot to $13.1 million, from $8.7 million a year earlier, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At least three other WellPoint executives got compensation increases of as much as 75%.

Finance chief Wayne DeVeydt took home $7.2 million, up from $4.1 million in 2008. Ken Goulet, the head of WellPoint's commercial business unit, got $4.4 million, up from $2.7 million. Dijuana Lewis, the head of its comprehensive health solutions unit, got $4.5 million, up from $2.7 million.

"WellPoint defended the pay increases, saying they reflected the company's overall positive performance in 2009. Its stock price rose 38.4% last year to $58.29, from $42.13 in 2008." Yet they had to raise individual policy rates up to 39% for "adminsitrative costs?" What the hell do these people do that is worth that much money, besides kill people with their greedy moneygrubbing I mean.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

GOP voted yes for Cornhusker deal

I just posted this at DetNews but want to archive it here for future reference since I'm sure that the GOPers are planning to use their ridiculous list of defeated amendments to the reform bill in attack ads. John McCain introduced an amendment that would remove the side deals made earlier in the process, but as you know, the reconciliation bill already did that in the fixes. So the Republicans effectively voted yes on keeping both the Cornhusker and the Louisana Purchase deals intact.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

One vote away from health insurance reform

Despite the Republicans' best efforts to delay and derail the process with the introduction of 29 amendments and a few rule challenges, the Senate passed the reconciliation bill this afternoon on a 56-43 vote. Three Democrats, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor and Ben Nelson joined the GOPers in voting no. I see primaries in their future. Addtionally, the Republicans did succeed in one parliamentary victory which will require one more vote in the House.

Meanwhile, I didn't get around to posting this picture of President Obama's 22 pen signature on the House bill that was passed on Sunday and signed on Tuesday. I saw some snarking about it, and it really doesn't look at all like his regular sig, which I saw recently somewhere, but I think it's beautiful and remarkably smooth considering how many pens he had to use in order to provide enough souveniers for all the people who were instrumental in getting this thing through. I watched him sign it live and expected it to look much worse.

But in any event, putting aside my superstitions since it looks like everyone agrees the last House vote is going to be pretty pro-forma, and although I'm sure the Republicans will take the opportunity to grandstand one last time with incendiary characterizations of the bill, I think we can say we did it. We're about to witness the single biggest advance in the social safety net in many decades. I'm already thinking fondly of my favorite moment of this whole ordeal, when Joe Biden was caught in that celebratory exclamation. Whoever made this graphic to commemorate that occassion wins the internets forever in my book. That's one of my all time favorite Schoolhouse Rock segments.

Needless to say for those who have been following the tortuous process for the last year, this is far from a perfect bill that gives away far too much to the insurance and pharmaceutical industry but it's just the beginning. This is the merely the foundation on which we can now build a truly universal health care system. It probably won't happen in time to make a difference to me. I'm likely to qualify for Medicare by the time we get that far, but I could go to my grave in peace knowing I did everything I could to ensure that future generations won't have to suffer the same anxiety as I have experienced over medical care.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

If the Republicans hold a presser and no one shows up...

...does it still make a sound? This picture really does speak the proverbial thousand words. While President Obama was signing the reform bill, the GOP held a press conference.

Blue Dog Max Baucus, who is responsible for much of the delay on this bill, didn't do much better. Mark Knoller tweets, "Senate just voted to begin 20 hours of debate on the #HCR reconciliation bill. ...Baucus is surrounded by empty seats of other Senators as the 20 hours of debate on the reconciliation bill begins."

The Republicans managed to drag themselves in to propose a string of ridiculous amendments, and they've been madly working the internets trying to keep the base dumb and angry, but one suspects their heart is no longer in it. The Senate bill is going to pass and the GOPers will end up supporting keeping the Cornhusker deal in the House bill that was signed into law today. Rather brilliant strategy on the Democratic side really.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Saying it all: Historic health reform signing

Watched the reform bill signing ceremony live. Swear I had chills and got a little teary. So many, worked so hard, for so long to make this happen. These quotes from the signing say it all.

"All of the over-heated rhetoric will finally confront the reality." ~ President Obama.

"This is a big fucking deal." ~Vice President Joe Biden, *whispering privately* to President Obama at the beginning of the health care reform signing ceremony.

Later, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted, "And yes, Mr. Vice President, you're right..."

Damn straight. Of course the tradmed is tittering over the inadvertent pickup of Biden's remark on the mic but the mood on twitter among reform proponents echoes mine - right on Mr. Vice President. As my new internet crush Ken Bazinet said, "Joe Biden is a master of the simple declarative sentence and speaks my language."

I'm betting Ken is the only one in the tradmed who isn't going to make a big deal of Biden's F-bomb. He doesn't even mention it in his co-authored piece at the NY Daily News.

Update: All teary again. This just in before I even posted. Rep. Patrick Kennedy left a note on Ted's gravesite: "Dad, the unfinished business is done."

[photos WestWingReport]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Guest post: health insurance reform

Thanks to Barbara O'Brien of Mahablog for today's guest post:

Would Health Care Reform Help You?

Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. The House and Senate bills will have to be merged, and then the House and Senate both will vote on the final bill. We don’t yet know what will be in the final bill, or if the final bill will be passed into law. Passage will be especially difficult in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to pass. It is still possible that after all this angst, just one grandstanding senator could kill the whole thing.

But just for fun, let’s look at what conventional wisdom says will be in the final bill and see if there is anything in it that will be an immediate benefit to people with peritoneal mesothelioma and other asbestos-related disease.

It is likely that the final bill will provide additional funding for state high-risk insurance pools. Currently more than 30 states run such pools, which are nonprofit, state-sponsored health insurance plans for people who can’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The biggest problem with such pools is that, often, the insurance they offer is too expensive for many who might need it. Both the Senate and House bills provide $5 billion in subsidies for state high-risk pools to make the insurance more affordable.

Under the Senate bill, beginning in 2014, private companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions, nor could they charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Until then, the state high-risk pools could provide some help.
Closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap — also called the “doughnut hole” — is another potential provision that could help some patients with asbestos-related disease. The “doughnut hole” is the gap between the coverage for yearly out-of-pocket expenses provided by Medicare Part D and Medicare’s “catastrophic coverage” threshold.

For example, in 2009 Medicare Part D paid at least 75 percent of what patients paid for prescription drugs up to $2,700. After that, patients must pay for all of their prescription medications until what they have paid exceeds $6,154. At that point, the catastrophic coverage takes over, and Medicare pays for all but 5 percent of the patient’s drug bills. The final health care reform bill probably will provide for paying at least 50 percent of out-of-pocket costs in the doughnut hole.

You may have heard the bills include budget cuts to the Medicare program, and this has been a big concern to many people. Proponents of the bill insist that savings can be found to pay for the cuts, and that people who depend on Medicare won’t face reduced services. But this is a complex issue that I want to address in a later post.

The long-term provisions probably will include many other provisions that would benefit patients with asbestos-related disease, including increased funding for medical research. Although there are many complaints about the bill coming from all parts of the political spectrum, on the whole it would be a huge benefit to many people.

The bill is indeed far from perfect and like many others, I would have much preferred to see our Congress find the courage to cut out the skimmers altogether and go straight to single payer. But to paraphase that now famous quote, you work with the Congress you have, not with the one you wish you had.

MahaBarb is right that for all its flaws, there are many attractive provisions in this bill, even beyond the ones she's detailed here and we're down to the wire on passing it. The opponents of reform are well organized and are flooding DC with complaint calls. We need to counter that immediately. I urge you to call your Senators and Congresspeople and tell them to pass the damn bill. And while you're at it, it wouldn't hurt to let them know you would prefer your Senators restore the public option through reconciliation.

The Senate in an alternate world

Forgot to post a link to Annie Lowrey's piece asking, "What if senators represented people by income or race, not by state?" She makes a good case for it. It would certainly be more reflective of the "will of the people" if we did it that way.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Arlen Specter Surprises

Have to admit, I didn't expect to hear this from Arlen Specter.

"I believe we ought to pass comprehensive health care reform and we ought to do it now and there is a way to do it," [Arlen] Specter said. "I provided the 60th vote. We passed it in the Senate. Let the House accept it, simultaneously with a bill to make certain changes through reconciliation and 50 votes. There will be no disagreement about taking away the giveaway to Nebraska and Louisiana and the other inappropriate measures but let's move ahead and let's move ahead now."

Guess the reform bill still isn't as dead as the media keeps saying it is. [Via Bob Cesca]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Paging Harry Reid

Thinking Nancy Pelosi doesn't get nearly enough credit for the work she's done on getting progressive legislation passed through her chamber. Quote of the day is her description of her health care reform strategy:

You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people.

Harry Reid, are you listening? Take a lesson.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Credit card reform

I'm not at all a "government is the problem" person. I blame the politicians, not the institution so I always get queasy when I hear the words -- reform bill. If past is prologue, this usually means the consumer gets screwed even more. Nonetheless, I have some hope that Obama's demand for a speedy credit card reform bill might help. He's got the rhetoric right:

"Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe,” Mr. Obama said. “But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties and hidden fees that have become all too common to our credit card industry."

I've been screwed by credit card tricks. Like why do they change the due date every couple of months? Once I got dinged for a late fee because I made a payment on the bill too early and it got credited to the previous cycle. A couple of times over the years I got banged for late fees for being a few hours late because I didn't notice they jumped up the due date. And the rate hikes and reduction of limits are happening all over right now. If they can fix that sort of sabotage, it would at least be a start.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

What Cindy wants, Cindy gets

The only problem with the McCain's idyllic digs in Sedona was no cell phone signal. So back in 07 Cindy requested they build her a cell phone tower or two. Both Verizon and AT&T were only too happy to wheel in a couple of portables until they could negotiate the permitting to build permanent ones. I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact that "John McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry" who "has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunications services."

Neither did the raft of industry lobbyists on the McCain team factor into the telecom's largess and I'm certain the $1.3 million in industry donations to the campaign were also just a coincidence. That's certainly the way the McCain spokespeople tell it.

"Mrs. McCain's staff went through the Website as any member of the general public would -- no string pulling, no phone calls, no involvement of Senate staff," Rogers said. "Just because she is married to a senator doesn't mean she forfeits her right to ask for cell service as any other Verizon customer can."

Exactly. I just know if I called them up and asked them to build a tower or two for my mountain hideaway in New England, at a cost of six figures, that would serve about a dozen people, they would be wheeling in the temporary portables in a New York minute.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]

Tabloid news is destroying democracy

By Libby

I have to agree with Jeffrey McCall. TV news is bad for for our republic. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The public wants a different kind of television election coverage. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 80 percent of Americans want more coverage of where candidates stand on issues and more coverage of lesser-known candidates. This is not likely to happen soon. It is easier and cheaper to cover elections with a template that tells us where a particular prominent candidate is, which celebrity appeared with the candidate, the latest poll numbers, and who feels momentum. It is more sensational to show and analyze Hillary Clinton’s teary eyes than detail her policy initiatives.

So everybody outside the Village agrees that TV news is a joke and our elite media are failing us. That's truly bipartisan, except that we think it's failing for different reasons. Whatever. What are we going to do about it? I say we pressure the FCC to break up the media conglomerates to open access to more points of view. Anybody have a better idea?

[via]

Harry Reid honors another Republican hold

By Libby

This story seems to have slipped through the cracks. Last April the House cleared a bill that would restore President Reagan's former executive order requiring most presidential records to be released 12 years after a president left office. The companion bill has been languishing ever since in the Senate, due to a hold by a Republican Senator. It looked the Senate would finally address the issue last week but it snagged again when it hit the floor.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., recently lifted his hold on legislation that would overturn President Bush’s 2001 executive order giving presidents and former presidents the authority to indefinitely halt the release of their White House records.

But just as supporters sought a floor vote, the bill was derailed for a second time by another senator placing a hold, Democratic senate aides said.

Only this time, no one is sure who has invoked the parlimentary maneuver to stall the bill.

Laughably, Joe Lieberman has vowed to smoke the secret Senator out. Why should he have to?

One can't fail to remember Harry Reid had no trouble ignoring Dodd's hold on the FISA bill. Reid has already broken the tradition of honor on these holds, so I see no reason that he couldn't have brought the bill forward anyway. Surely, Mr. Reid believes the American people have a ownership interest in the records and as taxpayers should be able to access them within a reasonable interval of time.

By Dodd, we did it

By Libby

When I got home last evening and saw what had happened on the floor with the FISA bill I so furious and disgusted, I couldn't even blog about it. I was sure that Reid was going to get away with railroading telecom immunity, a/k/a the White House Criminality Coverup Act, through. Just before I went to bed, I got the email from Dodd that announced the Christmas miracle. Thanks to an outpouring of outrage from you, my fellow citizens, Reid was forced to pull the bill.

I've already done longer posts with pertinent links at Newshoggers and The Detroit News, so I won't repeat that here. All I'll add is my own thanks to everyone who believed that their one letter or phone call could make a difference. It did. Citizen participation turned the tide.

This my friends, is what democracy looks like.

Don't let Dodd stand alone

By Libby

Thanks at least partly to the blogburst of indignation, Reid's rollout of the FISA 'fix' has been delayed until Monday. Jeralyn runs down Reid's lame excuses for virtually guaranteeing telecom immunity via procedural hanky panky. All his fine talk about respect for tradition would go down a lot easier, if he wasn't so selective about when he decides to follow it. If he truly honored it, he would respect Dodd's hold, just as he's allowed Republican Tom Coburn to kill legislation addressing unsolved murders of the civil rights era with his hold which he's been 'honoring' since last summer.

I'm going to be out most of the day doing family stuff so I'm going to send you to Digby for the talking points. Read the whole post, but here's the money graf.

Senators Clinton, Biden and Obama said they would support a filibuster. Edwards said he supported one too. If they would agree to come back to the Senate and help Dodd talk all night, it would bring much need attention to the issue and show the Democratic base that these candidates value them. Imagine if they all (including Edwards) agreed to suspend their campaigns and come back to Washington to stand with Dodd. It would be electrifying --- and it would show the country that the Democrats are prepared to fight. (It would also give them a bunch of free TV time.)

Will any of them (all of them?) do the right thing or will they blow it off?

Go to Dodd's site for a list of the committee members that can help. Click on the action button on the sidebar. But even more importantly we need to press the candidates to show some leadership on this. Contact Clinton, Obama, Biden and John Edwards and ask them if they are going to keep their word to fight for this by also suspending their campaigns and standing with Dodd in the chambers to protect our rights instead of allowing the administration and the telecoms to get away with breaking the law.

Or in the alternate, you can contact Harry Reid and tell him to just call the whole thing off until after the Christmas break. There's no reason to rush this thing through right now. The current 'fix' doesn't expire until February.

[Begging the indulgence of my partners, cross-posted from Newshoggers]

Orrin Hatch a closet DFH?

By Libby

From a piece on the upcoming SCHIP bill on insuring uninsured children, which Bush is threatening to veto, comes the quote of the day.

Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a staunch conservative, said, "You bet your sweet bippy I will."

I haven't heard that expression since Laugh In went off the air and there wasn't a bigger bunch of dirtier f'ing hippies on the TV than that crew back in the day. Hatch even contradicts his supreme commander on the particulars.

Hatch, who helped negotiate the compromise, said it is flatly untrue that the bill would cover children in households with incomes of as much as $83,000. A recent Urban Institute analysis found that 70 percent of the children who would gain or retain coverage under the Senate bill, which resembles the compromise, are in households with incomes below twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.

Forty thou doesn't go that far these days. Certainly not far enough to cover insurance premiums for a family of four and still afford to eat and put gas in the car. It would be good to see a bi-partisan standoff with his Imperial Highness on this one.