TheNextReport

Health Care on the Floor It was an interesting display of political theater. If there is such a thing as American values, its best and its worst have been on stage in the monumental grappling over health carer reform. With Saturday's close vote of the Democratic caucus to bring their health bill to the Senate floor for debate a lot was revealed about how the process of our government functions. That process will now move forward to what promises to be a raucous and lengthy argument between Democrats and Republicans and between Democrats and themselves. With so-called moderate Democrats such as Ben Nelson (D-Co.,) Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) announcing that they will likely not vote to pass legislation if it includes a public option, the die may be cast. The rejection of the idea that the American public should be given the right to choose their health care from a non-profit, government administered competitor to private insurance could still prove to be the ...

Health Care: Follow the Bouncing Ball Progressives scored a key victory in the battle for health care reform last night with the announcement by leader Harry Reid that the Democratic caucus had reached agreement on the legislation's critical principles. With the Congressional Budget Office ringing up the potential costs, the verdict surprised more than a few naysayers on Capitol Hill. At $849 billion, the proposed bill would be less expensive than a similar measure passed by the House of Representatives earlier in the month; it would save $127 billion over the next ten years and reduce the deficit by $170 billion. Among concessions to opponents, the new law would allow states to opt out of the system and would weaken the proposed non-profit health plan known as the public option. The whole affair would not be implemented until 2014, giving insurance companies plenty of time to use their influence and largess to further strip the legislation of its progressive elements and consumer ...

The War Against Women As Uncle Sam prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and their religious extremist supporters, the two main political parties in America continued to wage a religious war against women in the United States. What has become known as the Stupak Amendment has added an additional threat to the passage of health care reform revealing a new level of stupidity in American political dialogue. The issue in question is a proposal by Michigan representative Bart Stupak to restrict a woman's right to pay for an abortion under a health plan that receives federal subsidies. Endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the idea was included in the health care measure passed by the House of Representatives on November 7th. After months of battlefield engagements over such mundane affairs as universal coverage, fee for service, medicare reimbursement rates, pre-existing conditions and medical loss ratios, the fate of reform in the United State...

Bart Stupak: Please Pass the Collection Plate Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak is the latest Democrat to threaten to block health care reform legislation by acting in the interests of someone other than the American people. This time the beneficiaries are the ideologues of the Catholic Church. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops had originally opposed the Democratic reform plan that had emerged from the House of Representatives because it allowed coverage of abortion expenses by private insurers that receive federal health care subsidies. By attaching a last minute amendment to the House bill that would prohibit such coverage, the Michigan legislator allowed the legislation to pass with the assent of the Church; in doing so he has opened a serious rift within the Democratic Party. Someone should tell Mr. Stupak that the number one cause of bankruptcies in the United States has been the rising cost of health care and that Michigan has the highest rate of unemployment in the country....

Fed Up with the Health Care Debate? Stand up and Be Counted or Be Counted Out So lets see what we have; last night, the House of Reps passed its version of health care reform, including meaningful controls on the rapacious insurance industry and an optional public plan that will compete with private insurers. It seemed like a dream realized for those who have fought for this critical turn on the road to social justice. The euphoria lasted about an hour or two. Today the hosannas soured as Democratic Party turncoat Joe Lieberman and Strom Thurmond protege Lindsey Graham, both declared their intent to kill the reform bill in the Senate. One has to wonder how much longer the American public will be willing to endure this manner of partisan political gamesmanship. While polls on health care reform have jockeyed back and forth through the months of debate, recent surveys indicate an overwhelming number of Americans (72%) support the idea of a public option. Polls taken by the NY Times and ...

Death by a Thousand Cuts The GOP released its health care reform plan this week in response to critics who have charged that the minority party had no hand in the critical issue beyond its complete opposition to the proposal from congressional Democrats. Did I say minority party? If recent polls are to be believed, only 20% of Americans dare identify themselves as Republicans these days. What more evidence is needed for the electorate and their representatives to label the party of Boehner, Hatch and Limbaugh what they are: irrelevant. Yet the warriors from the right came out with their vision for health reform. Under the plan, Americans wouldn't be required to carry insurance and insurers wouldn't be prevented from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or to those who are currently ill -- two key elements of the Democratic plan. Instead, the bill would allow insurance firms to sell policies across state lines, permit small businesses to pool their risks to br...

Lieberman's Hypocritical Oath First Do No Harm. That is what Joe Lieberman said on Face the Nation this weekend. Vowing to support a Republican filibuster to block passage of health care reform that contains the government administered program known as the public option, the Senator from Connecticut recited the familiar maxim. Mistakenly attributed as part of the Hippocratic oath, the remark must have been particularly galling to legions of medical professionals who have fought long and hard to create a system of health care in the United States that puts patients at the center of concern rather than insurance companies. Senator Lieberman was clearly not paying attention to the poll that indicated 68% of voters in his state back the idea of a publicly supported, non-profit competitor to private health insurance. The more important number to Joe Lieberman would appear to be 2.6 million; that's the number of dollars he has received from the insurance lobby over the last ten yea...