Washington City Paper Loose Lips

I sent an email to Eric Massa some time back, thanking him for voting against HR 3962, and specified that I didn't need a reply, as I'm not one of his constituents. I got a 'form letter' response anyway, and thought I would share it.

Dear [hipparchia]:

Because you have previously been in touch about health issues, I am writing to let you know why I voted "no" on the 2009 major health care reform bill (H.R. 3962). Being accountable to you for my actions, perhaps you will forgive a detailed response.

Well, folks, the Senate health plan is out. It's 2,074 pages long, and is even more crapulent than the House plan, from what I can tell.

Some of the awesome features:

1) Taxing more expensive plans that employers provide. The meme is that these are "Cadillac" plans, as if the people who are covered by these plans have any say WHATSOEVER in how much the programs cost.

2) Cutting even more from Medicare.

3) Offering an "opt-out" option for the states.

4) Forcing people to buy insurance, then penalizing them if they don't do so.

That's it!

Oh, wait. You wanted to know about that whole abortion thingy? Don't worry. The Senate has you covered!

Via Tulsa World:

This tiny town near the Oklahoma-Kansas state line north of Enid may soon own the country's only all-Christian prison, with Christian administrators, employees, counselors and programs.

"If Chicken Little doesn't come to town, we'll be open in 16 months," said Bill Robinson, the founder of Corrections Concepts Inc., a Dallas nonprofit prison ministry that is spearheading the project. ....

Robinson, himself an ex-con and prison minister, said he had been working for years on the idea of an all-Christian prison, and he had invested $1.3 million so far on construction plans and other expenses.

Crossposted at ZBlogs, Firedoglake and TPMCafe

How can we get repealing bans on first cousin marriage on the US legislative agenda?

I think it would clearly help in getting started to consider why it has not already been raised as an issue, given facts like that no other Western country prohibits it and that the genetic arguments have been shown to be hollow.

I can see at least two big reasons why it's been neglected:

ubetchaiam

For those who argued we should just pass SOMETHING, even if it was a bad bill, because they said we could fix it later, this is what you
get from a strategy of perpetual compromise, a bill that is utterly
beyond redemption. It’s time to throw HR 3962 in the medical waste
bin, and do what should have been done in the first place, build a
new national health care system on what actually DOES work, by
extending the existing economical and efficient Medicare plan to all
ages.

Kip Sullivan at Firedoglake:

Bankster-friendly ideologies have made managers stupid:

Yves here. Krugman does Germany an injustice by failing to contest US prejudices about European (particularly German) labor practices. If German labor practices are so terrible, then how was Germany an export powerhouse, able to punch above its weight versus Japan and China, while the US, with our supposedly great advantage of more flexible (and therefore cheaper) labor, has run chronic and large current account deficits? And why is Germany a hotbed of successful entrepreneurial companies, its famed Mittelstand? If Germany was such a terrible place to do business, wouldn’t they have hollowed out manufacturing just as the US has done? Might it be that there are unrecognized pluses of not being able to fire workers at will, that the company and the employees recognize that they are in the same boat, and the company has more reason to invest in its employees (ignore the US nonsense “employees are our asset,” another line from the corporate Ministry of Truth).

Pravda buries the lead:

Allies [of departing White House counsel Gregory Craig] also note that he oversaw the successful confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and praised him for trying to keep Obama in synch with some of the ideologically liberal ideas he promoted in the campaign.

McClatchy called their shot on this "Rahmian act of public humiliation" back in September.

On a separate thread where folks are discussing possible legal challenges health care bill, I said I'd look around to see if there have been any challenges to Massachusetts mandatory coverage law and how they fared. This is by no means comprehensive:

Mass.
Against the Mass. law, I could find only one challenge and that was thrown out on what seem to be procedural grounds rather than on the merits. (I can't find the slip op. online to confirm).

Tea Party Challenges

Via Baseline Scenario, where James Kwok comments that Brad DeLong is never afraid to admit error, this from DeLong:

“Back in the 1930s there was a Polish Marxist economist, Michel Kalecki, who argued that recessions were functional for the ruling class and for capitalism because they created excess supply of labor, forced workers to work harder to keep their jobs, and so produced a rise in the rate of relative surplus-value.

... but here she seems to have gotten one right:

Ana Marie Cox tweets:

Things now looking even grimmer in Maine... 76% in, @nomtweets asshats up 52/47.8 (Thanks, Obama, for all the help!)

A short while ago, she re/tweeted:

RT @twpolk If Gays lose in ME by such tight margin, the blame will falls on DNC, OFA and Obama. // Sadly, I think they all know that.

I guess it's cold comfort that a netroots cw purveyor like Ana Marie sees things the same way the real world does.

Haw.

Times:

A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation.

The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture.

John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich are correct, it isn't HR 676 and it's not as good as HR 676. It is however a very good compromise, and for all the incrementalists and political realists out there in TVland, it provides a good foundation to build on.

What it is is HR 676 with a chunk of HR 3200 added on at the end, some revenue provisions added, illegal aliens excluded, covered benefits slightly less generous, and the part about turning the hospitals and other institutions into non-profits removed.

The Lords get the vaccine while the peasants wait in line. What could be more natural or fair?

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked Health and Human Service (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to investigate why the Center for Disease Control (CDC) approved the distribution of the H1NI vaccine to Wall Street firms at a time when the vaccine is unavailable to most Americans.

Recent news reports indicate 13 companies, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Time Warner, have been cleared to receive the vaccine.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, “Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase, it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers.”

No, seriously.

On November 9, Maggie Mahar is doing a book salon at Firedoglake on her book Money-Driven Medicine. I think it probably contains many useful facts, and even decided to order it last week from Amazon. For example, it correctly points out that the largest problems in the American health care system today are unnecessary procedures and overpayment for services. However, I now know that I will need to closely scrutinize its every word before accepting it as true. Why will it be hard to take this book at face value? Because Mahar has lately engaged in a complete flight of fancy about the proposed "public option."

I'm playing the world's smallest violin. And at this time, I think it a propos to quote, once more, Michael Lewis:

Rumor No. 1: “Goldman Sachs controls the U.S. government.”

Every time we hear the phrase “the United States of Goldman Sachs” we shake our heads in wonder. Every ninth-grader knows that the U.S. government consists of three branches. Goldman owns just one of these outright; the second we simply rent, and the third we have no interest in at all. (Note there isn’t a single former Goldman employee on the Supreme Court.)

Our access bloggers are positioning him as a populist in their most recent fund-raising letter, but despite being on the financial services committee, the best his advocates can seem to come up with is the "Cash for Clunkers" program. Did Grayson do anything to nobble this abomination from Barney Frank, which crippled the Consumer Financial Protection Agency? Granted, Grayson's signed on to Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed -- along with 307 others. Does anyone know if Grayson's done anything more than throw rhetorical red meat to "progressives"?

A new poll on the Massachusetts Senate race has state Attorney General Martha Coakley dominating the field with 37 percent support from registered Democrats and unenrolled voters, who are eligible to vote in the primary. That is more than double her nearest challenger, with 14 percent backing Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca and 13 percent supporting Congressman Mike Capuano.

The forced-birthers are out in force in the blogosphere, looking for federal funding of abortions in the bill, so I thought I'd help them out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The public plan and the exchange[s]

The public plan might or might not pay for abortions that don't fall under the Hyde amendment. The Secretary of HHS cannot require private insurance plans offered through the exchange[s] to cover abortions of any kind. Fortunately Sec HHS can't prevent private insurance from paying for abortions either. Abortion cannot be listed as part of the essential benefits package.

If you want to know why people might NOT want to choose the public plan, here's one reason that some women will "choose" to stay with private insurance.

Oh well, at least it doesn't prohibit abortion coverage outright.

Susie Madrak at C&L suggests you do the math:

Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto I, verse CXVII:

And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs.

Until too late for useful conversation ;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,

I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion ;
But who, alas ! can love, and then be wise?

Not that Remorse did not oppose Temptation ;
A little still she strove, and much repented.
And whispering "I will ne'er consent " — consented.

Pravda:

After claiming for months they couldn't vote for a bill without the strongest possible government-run insurance option, liberals are putting aside their disappointment over the weaker version in the legislation for a historic chance to remake America's medical system.

"The current language is far weaker than what I would have preferred, and I think that is also true of the Progressive Caucus," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Friday. "But because I did not come up here to participate in gridlock and acrimony, I have told leadership that I am willing to compromise."

Indeed. The temptation to engage in yet another narrative of weakness is almost overwhelming. But isn't it more fair to say, "Mission accomplished?"

Via ThinkProgress, both the Baucus Bill and the plan put forward by Pelosi will enroll some more people but most will not be in the Public Option and it will not cover everyone:

CBO: Public Option To Attract Only 6 Million Enrollees & Doesn’t Offer Lower Premiums

The public option would attract about 6 million enrollees by 2019 and charge premiums that are “somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.” This is because the public option would “engage in less management of utilization” by its enrollees and “attract a less healthy pool of enrollees,” the office concludes. Moreover, since the House bill expands Medicaid up to 150% of the federal poverty line, it’s possible that the enrollees that would have enrolled in the public option went into Medicaid instead.

Below is a comparison of the relevant provisions in the House and Senate Finance Committee legislation:

	CBO Score Of House Bill	CBO Score Of Baucus Bill
Costs	Reduce deficits: $104B/10yrs Cost: $894B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $605B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $425B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $25B/10yrs	Reduce deficits: $81B/10yrs Cost: $829B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $461B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $345B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $23B/10yrs
Insured	Uninsured reduced by: 36M Uninsured in 2019: 18M In Exchanges: 30M | Public Plan: 6M In Medicaid: 15M	Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 23M In Medicaid: 14M
Revenue	Mandate penalty: $33B/10yrs Pay-Play penalty: $135B/10yrs New taxes: $572B/10yrs	Mandate penalty: $4B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $23B/10yrs New taxes: $196B/10yrs
Medicare and Medicaid	Total savings: 426B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $170B/10yrs	Total savings: 404B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $117B/10yrs

With a Single Payer solution it would be everybody in and nobody out - AND it would save a heck of a lot more money for everyone.

The difference is not just everyone being covered but HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of DOLLARS saved every year:   Read more…

Wonderful writing and spectacular photos at Detroit Blog about Helen Turner's White Grove Restaurant. Go read the whole thing. This is what she's seeing out the window and at the tables:

She’s behind the counter at White Grove Restaurant, a tiny, genuinely retro diner on Second Avenue near Charlotte, in Detroit’s skid row. Her customers are the city’s underclass — addicts, prostitutes, the homeless and the insane. They spend their days aimlessly roaming their neighborhood here like zombies, slowly killing time and themselves, waiting for the next handout or the next quick score.

“They’re so wrapped up in themselves, they don’t notice anything around them except themselves and what they want,” Martin says.

“They’re petty thieves,” Martin says. “Really, they’ll steal anything. They’ll get it out of the garbage can.” Sometimes they bring in anything shiny or metallic, figuring it must be worth something. “They come to me with this stuff, they don’t even know what it is,” he says.

Just like the banksters!

That's the kindest explanation I can think of.

Bloggeth the formerly-liberal perfesser a few days ago:

What this suggests is that the really important thing, for reformers, is to get the principle of universality established. Once that happens, there’s no going back.

Yeah, well, I guess it helps if you define universe.

In order of appearance:

---
Seminal Diary at FDL

ACTION: Senator Reid does the American thing, puts a public option in the Senate bill. Support him, by Jason Rosenbaum (aka HCAN employee, aka I’m proud to work for Health Care for America Now).

Link included to sign "thank you to Sen Reid".

----
FDL Action post

Excitement over Public Option in Senate Health Bill Leads to Premature Congratulations, by Jane Hamsher

I know it’s fun to get he pom-poms out, but what exactly is everyone celebrating?

[snip]Health Care for America Now was championing Reid for “standing up” and doing the right thing, collecting more than 20,000 signatures on a thank-you petition to the leader.