When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in church last year, media accounts described him as a lone wolf. Roeder acted alone on the day of the assassination, but he was part of a community of career anti-choice terrorists, as Amanda Robb reports in Ms. Magazine.
This week's health care news was full of mind-bending paradoxes: Prostate health is girly, abstinence-only education works through failure, "principled" libertarian Rand Paul would protect all-white lunch counters but ban private abortion clinics, and more.
As you gobble that fine food, be it steak, a frankfurter, roasted chicken, or an omelet, please, sit back relax. Put your feet up and stay a while. I will furnish the entertainment in the form of a film. Meatrix is fun, fascinating, and far from folly. This presentation is playful; the message profound.
You may recall the fairy tales you loved as a child. The plots varied, although all had elements of mystery. Adventures were abundant. Tots were often so engrossed in the tales, they barely noticed that the themes taught a life lesson. Meatrix is as the fables you once anxiously awaited and even asked others to read aloud to you.
According to a 2007 poll, Americans define human rights as the rights to equal opportunity, freedom from discrimination, a fair criminal justice system, and freedom from torture or abuse by law enforcement. Despite the current political wrangling over how to reform it, a majority of Americans even believe that access to health care is a human right.
There was a time when America’s leaders echoed those sentiments. President Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced them when he told Congress, “Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.” And in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act, forming the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Commission was intended to conduct critical reviews of social needs and public policy – in essence, to be the conscience of the nation. Regardless of circumstances or leadership, the body was to operate as an independent voice for the broad range of civil rights issues facing the country.
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. And I can hear the sounds of outrage and betrayal from the ones out there who have more hope than sense. And I'm sure that there will be renewed calls to kill the bill etc. Well you know what? It's time to look to a new source for inspiration about how Progressives should proceed.
One of the few Republican ideas brought up at Thursday's Health Care Reform summit that seemed to be really popular with both parties was suggested by Senator Tom Coburn. The idea basically is to have people go and visit doctors, and try to get them to break Medicare rules. I presume that if they created such a program for Medicare they would try to see to it that it was applied to Medicaid as well. It has been compared to the practice that many fast food restaurants and retail clothing stores have been employing for a while now, commonly known as "Mystery Shopping". This is a horrible idea for several reasons, and the comparison to the Mystery Shopper, is frankly weak and ultimately inaccurate. More importantly I have a suggestion that contains none of the yuck factor of Under Cover Patients, and could potentially play a significant role in changing the way that doctors and patients relate to one another.
The upcoming November elections draw near, both Democrats and Republicans are in an election state of mind. Both parties are focusing on trying to appease their voter base, while Obama and his administration push forward to make due on some promises such as health care reform and the repeal of the ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ military policy.
According to recent surveys 32% of Americans affiliate with the Democratic Party and 26% self-identify as Republican, while 39% identify as independents. Regarding the upcoming fall election, 34% of Americans say that they will definitely vote Democratic, while 37% say that they definitely will not.A majority of the public view both Democrats and Republicans unfavorably. 51% of the public view the Democratic Party negatively, and 57% for Republicans. Three- quarters of the American public disapproves of Congress, which is their highest disapproval rating since 1977. Additionally, half of the public would like to see the filibuster rule changed, in order limit back and forth politics of Congress, and ensure sure legislation actually can be passed.
Well it looks like it's mid afternoon in Health Care Reform land. You remember Health Care Reform don't you? That thing that some of the talking heads were carrying on was a dead thing? Yeah well about that, not so much. People might not completely agree on details, but the one thing that pretty much everyone who's not a politician or a CEO Can agree on is that we are sick and tired of having to go through our days living in terror of getting sick. The system is broken and we want something done about it. NOW!
The conservative videographer who donned a pimp suit to embarrass the anti-poverty group ACORN was arrested in New Orleans, LA for allegedly conspiring to bug the office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.
It's not clear why Landrieu was targeted, but many suspect that she was singled out because she played a pivotal role in advancing health care reform.
Filmmaker James O'Keefe and three other men have been charged with been charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, according to Justin Elliott of TPM Muckraker. At RH Reality Check, Rachel Larris notes that, if convicted, the four could face up to 10 years in prison.
Like chum in the conservative shark tank
Landrieu, a conservative Democrat, negotiated an extra $100 million in Medicaid funds for Louisiana in exchange for allowing the health care bill to come to the senate floor. Accepting health care for the poor in the interest of health reform was like chum in the conservative shark tank.
Rush Limbaugh called her the most expensive prostitute of all time. "She may be easy, but she's not cheap," crowed Glenn Beck. It got so bad that Democrats call on Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) was called upon to denounce the chorus of conservatives attacking his fellow Louisiana senator as a prostitute. (Correction: Vitter did not call Landrieu a prostitute.)
O'Keefe must have realized that an exposé of Mary Landrieu would be a hot commodity.
"This is Watergate meets YouTube," said Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief
Health care reform in limbo
The arrests could not have come at a better time for the Democrats. Health care reform is in limbo as congressional leaders plan their next move after losing their filibuster-proof majority. The bugging scandal is deflecting attention from tense internal negotiations.
Brian Beutler of TPMDC reports that the House Democrats are converging on a strategy to get reform done: The House will pass the Senate bill and the Senate will fix it through budget reconciliation.
The Republican counter-strategy
While the Democrats agonize over what to do next, that senate Republicans are honing strategies to thwart any Democratic attempt to pass health care reform through budget reconciliation, as Dave Weigel reports in the Washington Independent. The reconciliation process allows both sides to vote on unlimited number of amendments. GOP leadership is hinting that if Dems take the reconciliation route, they will be forced to vote on every politically embarrassing amendment the opposition can dream up.
The stakes are high. In the American Prospect, Paul Starr reminds progressives that there's till a lot worth fighting for, even without a public option. For all its faults, the Senate bill would still cover 30 million uninsured Americans, expand Medicaid, end discrimination based on preexisting conditions, and set up exchanges designed to keep rising insurance premiums in check.
A memo for reform
Finally, our sources tell us that Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly is making quite a stir on Capitol Hill with his memo advising the House Democratic caucus on the need to forge ahead with health care reform. In 1994, conservative commentator William Kristol wrote a health care memo to Republicans that became the backbone of their anti-reform strategy, even up to the present day. Benen hopes his memo will be a useful counterweight for Democrats. Benen warns the Democrats that it's far riskier to fail than to pass reform that doesn't please everyone.
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.
The late Dr. George Tiller, on why he performed abortions:
It's the anniversary of Roe V. Wade today and Scott Roeder's trial for the murder of Dr. Tiller has begun. I'd write more, but this week in politics has left my hamster wheel a little damaged, so I'm going to go have a Friday night and leave you with what they said ...
- A Blog for Choice Day roundup on money, class, humanity and why it's important to trust women.
- Take comfort. The Washington State prison system only shackles 30 percent of pregnant inmates during childbirth.
- Someday, women will be real people, like some believe that Citigroup, ExxonMobil and fertilized eggs are.
- Apparently stalking abortion patients can get a lawyer disbarred. Who knew?
- The Nelson amendment in the Senate is as bad as the Stupak amendment in the House, it will just act more slowly to stop all insurance coverage of abortion. Screwing your friends is how people (and parties) get abandoned, you know.
What Will Coakley's Defeat Mean for Health Care Reform?
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger
Last night, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill Teddy Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts. Coakley's loss puts health care reform in jeopardy.
With Coakley's defeat, the Democrats lose their filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. However, as Paul Waldman explains in The American Prospect, Coakley's loss is not the end for health care reform.
Remember, the Senate already passed its health care reform bill in December. Now, the House has to pass its version of the bill. The original plan was for House and Senate leaders to blend the two bills together in conference to create a final piece of legislation (AKA a conference report) that both houses would vote on. Once the Democrats are down to 59 votes, the Republicans can filibuster the conference report and kill health care reform.
But if the House passes the same bill the Senate just passed, there's no need to reconcile the two bills. This so-called "ping pong" approach may be the best way to salvage health care reform. Some of the flaws in the Senate bill could still be fixed later through budget reconciliation. It would be an uphill battle, but nothing compared to starting health care reform from scratch.
The second option would be to get the bill done before Scott Brown is sworn in. According to Waldman, there could be a vote within 10 days. The House and Senate have already drafted some compromise legislation, which Waldman thinks is superior to the straight Senate bill. If that language were sent to the Congressional Budget Office immediately, the Senate could vote before Brown is sworn in.
Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement last night that Brown won't be sworn in until the election results are certified, a process that could take two weeks. Historically, the winners of special Senate elections have taken over from their interim predecessors within a couple of days. If the Republicans were in this position, they'd use every procedural means at their disposal to drag out the process. The question is whether the Democrats have the fortitude to make the system work for them.
Remember how the Republicans did everything in their power to hold up the Senate health care vote, including forcing the clerk to read the 767-page bill aloud? They were trying to delay the vote until after the Massachusetts special election. If it's okay for the GOP to stall, the Democrats should be allowed to drag their feet on swearing in Brown.
Also, remember how the Republicans fought to keep Al Franken from being seated after he defeated Norm Coleman? For his part, Franken says he's determined to pass health care reform one way or another, according to Rachel Slajda of Talking Points Memo.
Incongruously, some Democrats are arguing that rushing to a vote would be a violation of some vague democratic principle. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) wasted no time in proclaiming that there should be no vote before Brown was sworn in. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), of all people, averred last night that the Democrats should respect the democratic process and start acting like they have 59 votes while they still have 60.
All this talk of "respecting the process" is hand waving disguised as civics. According to the process, Scott Brown isn't the senator from Massachusetts yet. According to the process, you have the votes until you don't.
Talk about moving the goalposts. It's bad enough that we need 60 votes to pass a bill on any given day. Now, they'd have us believe that we also need 60 votes next week. Webb and Frank are arguing that Brown's victory obliges Democrats to behave as if Brown were already the Senator from Massachusetts. Of course, if Webb won't play ball, it's a moot point. The whole fast-track strategy is predicated on 60 votes. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly thinks that Webb effectively took the fast-track option off the table with his strongly worded statement.
Katrina vanden Huevel of The Nation argues that this historic upset should be a wake up call to President Barack Obama to embrace populism with renewed fervor. I would add that Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change. There is no better way to fulfill a promise of change than to reshape the nation's health care system and provide insurance for millions of Americans.
Ping pong, anyone?
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.
The man who admitted to gunning down Dr. George Tiller in church last May went on trial in Kansas on Friday. Tiller was one of a small number of doctors performing late term abortions in the U.S.
Scott Roeder admitted to shooting the Tiller, but he is pleading not guilty to murder, as Robin Marty reports in RH Reality Check. Yesterday, Judge Warren Wilbert shocked observers by allowing Roeder's lawyers to argue that their client is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not premeditated murder.
Kansas law allows the accused to plead "imperfect self-defense" if he had an "honest but unreasonable belief" that deadly force was necessary to protect innocent third parties. Roeder says he killed to protect the unborn. Pro-choice activists are alarmed that the judge allowed Roeder to use this defense. If he beats the murder rap, Roder could face just five years in prison. In the unlikely event that his legal gambit is successful, the precedent could be tantamount to declaring open season on abortion providers.
No doubt Nidal Hussein sincerely believed that he was protecting innocent lives when he murdered 12 soldiers at Fort Hood last November. Somehow, I doubt the Army will be as deferential to Hasan's crazy religious ideas as Judge Warren Wilbert has been to Roeder's.
In other health care news, Robert Reich of TAPPED asks whether the rich or the middle class will pay for health reform:
There's only one big remaining issue on health care reform: How to pay for it. The House wants a 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning at least $1 million in annual income. The Senate wants a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided "Cadillac plans." The Senate will win on this unless the public discovers that a large portion of the so-called Cadillacs are really middle-class Chevys-expensive not because they deliver more benefits but because they have higher costs.
Reich cites a shocking statistic: Less than 4% of the variation in the cost of insurance coverage is based on differences in benefits provided. Most of the difference in price is based on the perceived riskiness of the beneficiaries. So, if you're in a high risk pool comprised of, say, retired autoworkers, you're going to pay a lot more for the same benefits than someone in a younger, healthier risk pool. When you look at it that way, it seems unfair to pay for reform on the backs of people who are already paying more for the same thing due to circumstances beyond their control.
President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are meeting with top labor leaders on the "Cadillac tax," as Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo reports. Obama and Sebelius are trying to hash out a compromise that would be acceptable to the unions, who so far, have been implacably opposed to taxing expensive health care plans. The unions are reluctant to give any ground on this issue because so many of their members have accepted expanded health care benefits in lieu of wage increases over the years. Taxing those benefits now would effectively erase some hard-won gains by workers. Obama and the unions are reportedly discussing some kind of grandfather clause proposal that would exempt existing plans and only tax new plans.
Elsewhere in our high-deductible democracy, it turns out that health insurers secretly steered more than $20 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to oppose health reform while publicly professing to support the effort, according to Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones. The bagman was America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). While AHIP was soliciting donations to run attack ads, AHIP's top lobbyist, Karen Ignagni penned an op/ed in the Washington Post assuring the public that AHIP supported reform.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly hopes that the scandal will give ammunition to Democrats in the last big push to pass health care reform: "Policymakers struggling to resolve differences on the final reform bill may want to keep a simple adage in mind: Don't let AHIP's duplicitous campaign win."
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.
A few Saturdays ago, on November 7th, we were at the annual SisterSong meeting, a gathering of about 300 reproductive justice advocates. What was exhilarating and unusual about this meeting was that the vast majority of people attending were women of color who are focused on gender and sexuality issues. This was a fantastic event that showcased and harnessed the power of women of color, a group often portrayed as politically and socially marginalized.
At the same time, the House was considering and voting on the now-infamous Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the health care reform bill. Stupak-Pitts bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, whether through a public option, or through federal subsidies to private insurance plans offered through an insurance exchange. While that, in and of itself, is extremely limiting and dangerous, the amendment goes even further—it bars the use of federal funds to “cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion.” Essentially, the amendment bars any insurance plan operating in the health care exchange from offering abortion services.
Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee finally passed its health care bill. John Nichols of the Nation reacts:
If every kid in class finishes their homework except for one, guess which kid will get the most attention. That's right, the slacker.
And, when the slacker finally does turn in the assignment, it is invariably a slapdash job that fails to meet minimum standards.
So it is in the U.S. Senate, where the Finance Committee finally got around to finishing its health care reform assignment.
The bill passed by a vote of 14-9. All the Democrats, plus Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted in favor. As we know, it doesn't include a public option.
Robert Scheer, also of the Nation, sums up the bill as written:
The main thrust of the proposal is to forcibly submit even more customers to the tender mercies of the insurance industry while doing nothing significant to cut costs. Insurers will now pretend that the burdens on them are onerous and will demand concessions to make this an even bigger boondoggle for the medical profiteers than George W. Bush's prescription drug coverage initiative.
Sheer sees the Finance Committee bill as a sop to the health insurers. If it were to pass in its present form, it would deliver millions of new customers to private insurers by requiring everyone to carry insurance. The free market keeps costs down when companies compete to give the best value for the lowest price. But most health insurers operate as monopolies on their home turf. If insurers had to compete for customers, they'd have an incentive to lower their prices. That's why progressives want to introduce competition in the form of a public option.
An all-private insurance system gives power to an industry that it is indifferent to the needs of the people it claims to serve.
Before we go any further, our warmest congratulations to Robin Marty, who is expecting her second child. In a piece for RH Reality check, Marty details how the private insurance industry toys with people's lives in pursuit of profit. For Marty and her husband, joy is mixed with apprehension because their maximum out-of-pocket insurance cost just doubled. By the time the baby arrives, Marty's husband expects to pay 10% of his pre-tax income just to keep his family insured. And they'd better hope that bundle of joy is of an actuarially-approved size. An insurance company in Colorado refused to cover a 4-month-old baby because he was "too fat," according to the boy's father. The company relented after media pressure, but there's no indication that they plan to drop their general rule that babies whose weight is above the 95th percentile don't get covered.
Earlier this week, the insurance industry broadsided the Obama administration by releasing a "report" warning that health care reform would cause premiums to skyrocket.
As economist Robert Reich explains in TAPPED, the industry was upset that the Senate Finance Committee was considering more lenient punishments for young healthy people who don't buy health insurance. (They would still be fined, just not as much.) The industry report claimed that if the government spares the rod, only old sick people will sign up, and premiums will be higher for everyone. Reich argues that the report inadvertently makes the case for the public option:
But the bomb went off under the insurers. The only reason these costs can be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums is because there's not enough competition among private insurers to force them to absorb the costs by becoming more efficient. Get it? Health insurers have just made the best argument yet about why a public insurance option is necessary.
Steve Benen of the Washington Independent notes that former Democrat Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) went on Don Imus's syndicated shock jock radio show to echo the insurance industry's talking points. "I'm afraid that in the end, the Baucus bill is actually going to raise the price of insurance for most of the people in the country," Lieberman said.
With all this hypothesizing and posturing, it's easy to forget that neither Lieberman-nor anyone else-is going to vote on the Baucus bill as written. The Finance Committee bill is just one of several proposals to have passed their respective committees. In the Senate, the more liberal Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) passed a bill with a public option this summer. All the House health reform bills also include a public option.
As Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent explains, the tone of the debate is expected to shift dramatically: Now that the various bills have cleared their bipartisan committees, power shifts to the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate who are in charge of shaping the final legislation.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on economic issues, 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.
This week's biggest health care story shouldn't even be making headlines: Democratic leaders in the Senate are finally pressuring the entire caucus to help bring a health care bill to the floor by sticking with the party on procedural motions. Astute readers will ask: "But aren't Senators supposed to stick with their party on procedural motions?" Yes, of course they are.
Health care reform is the Democrats' biggest political battle in two generations and the crown jewel of the president's domestic agenda. It's hardly unreasonable to demand that Senate Democrats side with their party to defeat a filibuster.
Democrats knew Republicans would filibuster a health care bill no matter what. So the central political question was how to thwart them. The options were: Pick off enough Republican votes to defeat a filibuster, pass the bill with a simple majority through budget reconciliation, or demand that all 60 Democratic senators vote as a bloc to defeat a filibuster. (These senators could still vote against the bill, if they so chose, but without a filibuster the bill would pass by majority vote.) The first strategy failed spectacularly, and the second was controversial and difficult to execute. The last option is the simplest and most obvious. It's scandalous that it took Senate leadership all summer to lay down the law.
At TAPPED, Mori Dinauer argues that "'moderates' who are holding out are uninterested in how their intransigence looks to the rest of the Democratic party, but knowing the pressure's on makes it all the more likely reform passes a floor vote." They don't care how it looks, but they certainly care if the party leadership is prepared to cut off their fund raising dollars to make a point.
A bill is beginning to seem like a fait accompli to some Democrats, but the opponents of health reform aren't giving up without a fight, reports Christina Bellantoni in Talking Points Memo. The GOP-allied Tea Party Express is undertaking a massive fund raising drive for "The Countdown to Judgment Day," which is one year to the day before the 2010 elections. The Tea Party Express is a major force behind the disruptive town hall health care protests.
In Salon, Mike Madden argues that the prospects for passing a bill with a public option are looking up as Democrats begin the horsetrading that will combine the various health bills passed by Congress into a single piece of legislation:
Congressional aides and outside activists say the White House is still pushing for the public option in private talks. A growing number of Democrats in the Senate say they think the bill will include some form of public option, including Majority Leader Harry Reid and health committee chairman Tom Harkin. "President Obama has said all along that the public health insurance option is his first choice" for making health insurance affordable, said Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for Health Care for America Now, a union-backed coalition that supports reform. "We want to make sure he gets his first choice."
Switzerland and the Netherlands are frequently cited as examples of countries that contain costs and cover everyone without a public option. However, as The Nation's Eyal Press explains, these countries have only managed to do so by eliminating for-profit health insurance, which in the American context, would be a far more radial solution than a public option.
In Mother Jones, James Ridgeway takes the New York Times to task for a story about the conflicts within the AARP over health reform. Members in their fifties have a different perspective on private vs. public health insurance than those over 65 who already qualify for Medicare. As Ridgeway explains, it's the status quo that's pitting Americans of different ages against each other. If Medicare covered everyone, age would cease to be a third rail in future health policy discussions.
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 economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment 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.
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