I watched President Obama’s speech in St. Louis yesterday. It was quite noticeable that he has seemingly dropped his previous effort of trying to cajole the Republican leadership into governing in a bipartisan way. The Republican leadership were clear in showing they’d have none of that and proceeded to earn its deserved moniker of the Party of No.

Obama talked about that during his speech. He reminded us of the Republican leaders participation (or lack thereof) during the seven-hour televised health care summit between himself, the Democrats and Republicans.

For seven hours we only heard the Republicans say, no, start over. Nothing of any constructive nature from the Republican side.

Looks like Obama has given up on trying to enlist any Republican support in working together.

He is getting equally hard on the health insurance industry, who are only interested in corporate profits.

Republicans seem to be only interested in politics and the election this fall. Not much, if any, interest in the condition of the American people.

Be that as it may, it is good to hear President Obama back on track, for us little people.

[Post inspired by The Daily Beast]

Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, said insurance industry workers “do not deserve to be vilified for political purposes. … For every dollar spent on health care in America, less than one penny goes toward health plan profits. The focus needs to be on the other 99 cents.” AHIP plans to spend more than $1 million to run television ads on cable stations nationwide beginning in the next few days to push back on the attacks on insurers.

As “President Obama makes his final push to get health care reform through Congress, he is “seizing on a report showing that market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to help their bottom line,” HuffPost’s Sam Stein reported.”

[Source: Huffington Post]

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now stated “Republican lawmakers remained staunchly opposed to using the federal government to regulate health insurance.” Republicans want the current health care bill dumped in the trash and to start all over.

Goodman interviewed Trudy Lieberman (no relationship with Joe Lieberman that I know of) a contributing editor and blogger to Columbia Journalism Review. Lieberman noted, “as a country, we are still extremely divided….We have a deep cleavage in this country about how much government should do and how much government should not do.” She referred to the issue of how much regulation of insurance companies should government engage in.

Goodman quoted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on President Obama: “…a year ago…you (Obama) said ‘The public option is one way to keep the insurance companies honest and to increase competition.’”

Quoting Pelosi further, “the public option, which would save $120 billion, keep the insurance companies honest, and increase competition.” Pelosi continued, referring to Senator’s Enzi, Snowe and Durbin proposing exchanges “because the insurance companies opposed the public option. They couldn’t take the competition.”

So Goodman asked Lieberman “Why did President Obama drop the public option?”

Lieberman didn’t know but speculated that it was because, perhaps, campaign contributors to the Obama campaign, stakeholders such as insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, the business community led by the Chamber of Commerce, didn’t want the public option.

[Read more →]

Health Care

A majority of Nevadans support using reconciliation to pass health legislation. Poll shows 55% of Nevadans do not object to reconciliation. 64% of Independent voters as well.

Maybe that calm some of the timorousness of some of those Democratic senators so they can go ahead and pass the health bill without so much fear.

Those that don’t vote to pass the bill are risking more. This vote may be a career changer for those who do not vote to pass the health legislation.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

Today on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room on CNN the Cafferty file segment asked “should the Democrats try to ram healthcare reform through with 51 votes using that process called reconciliation?”

Blitzer commented

How do you feel about the prospect of that being used to pass health care reform? A company called Crimson Hexagon tracks online comments about topics. Check this out.

Of more than 14,000 conversation on twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, it finds 39 percent support reconciliation. 30 percent are against it. 17 percent think the Republicans are hypocritical, 14 percent say that Democrats are hypocritical.

Imagine that! Only 39% support reconciliation and 30% are against it. Both the Republicans and Democrats are hypocritical.

I would have thought that the percentage of those that support reconciliation would have been higher. From my vantage point I think reconciliation is the way to go since it appears the only way to get the bill passed and into law. I’m beginning to think a two-party political system sucks. The parties seem to be looking out for themselves, not us people.

Here is a summary of FactCheck’s assessment of yesterday’s White House Healthcare Summit:

Senator Lamar Alexander said premiums will go up for “millions” under the Senate bill and president’s plan, while President Barack Obama said families buying the same coverage they have now would pay much less. Both were misleading. The Congressional Budget Office said premiums for those in the group market wouldn’t change significantly, while the average premium for those who buy their own coverage would go up.

Alexander also said “50 percent of doctors won’t see new [Medicaid] patients.” But a 2008 survey says only 28 percent refuse to take any new Medicaid patients.

Senator Harry Reid cited a poll that said 58 percent would be “angry or disappointed” if health care overhaul doesn’t pass. True, but respondents in the poll were also split 43-43 on whether they supported the legislation that is currently being proposed. [Read more →]

Whatever comes out of the White House Summit on Health Care Reform the fact that we can watch, live, on TV the discussion is a good thing.Gives us all the chance to watch the elected officials actually work.

I am finding it informative and revealing. The Republicans have raised some good points.

Be interesting how segment 2 runs. They’’ve broken for lunch right now.

While the White House Health Care Summit is taking place I want to remind readers what the Physicians for a National Health Program have to say. They advocate a single-payer national health insurance system.

Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

The expense of the current system:

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($8,160 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 46.3 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.

[Read more →]

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the president did not believe the public option had the votes to pass the Senate even through reconciliation. It was, not surprisingly, not included in the president’s final bill.

Though the White House and Democratic leadership in the House have pronounced the death of the public option, advocates for the provision are not giving up efforts to get it passed via reconciliation in the Senate.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is targeting seven Democratic senators who have yet to sign a letter urging Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to go down this route.

The target list includes Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Jim Webb (Va.), Russ Feingold (Wisc.), Herb Kohl (Wisc.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo).

The Wellpoint news may prove to be an effective catalyst to getting recalcitrant senators on board.

In 11 states where WellPoint is “active,” individual premium are expected to rise by double digits. Those states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

[Source: Huffington Post]

These guys need to be jacked up!

That is the headline of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. It was posted online sometime today and you can read it all here.

I haven’t read it all just yet. But wanted to get it up so everyone has access to it.

Keep your fingers crossed that it gets through congress.