Posts Tagged ‘HCR’

PPP National poll: Obama improves, health care reform gains, voters blame Bush

Aug 11th, 10 / 2 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
August 11, 2010

 

PPP National poll: Obama improves,
health care reform gains, voters blame Bush

 

PPP National poll: Obama improves, health care reform gains, voters blame Bush, Daily Kos, August 11, 2010, by DemFromCT, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

If you are looking for some good news for Democrats, this national poll (not commissioned by Daily Kos, MoE +/- 4) has a whiff of not-so-bad to go with the “if only…”

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After an unusually bad July in PPP’s national poll, President Barack Obama has seen a lot of improvement on several fronts. His national approval rating has rebounded, moving from 48-47 in June, to 45-52 last month, back to 47-48 now. For five of the last eight months, Obama has been one point above or below breaking even; in others, he was two points below and four points above.

PPP has asked voters’ approval of Obama’s health care plan for 12 months now, and with 46% approving and 48% disapproving, that is the highest level of approval and the second best approval margin since the first month, September 2009, when it was 45-46. This marks a huge shift since July (40-53). In another improvement for Obama, 50% still say they prefer having Obama as president, compared to 43% who would rather have George W. Bush back. In April, Obama won only 48-46. While independents this year generally favor Republican candidates and disapprove of Obama, they prefer Obama against Bush, 53-36, versus April’s 49-37.

When asked who they think is more responsible for the state of the economy, 49% picked Bush, to 40% choosing Obama. Independents say Bush, 52-38. Fewer Republicans, 75%, pick Obama than Democrats pick Bush, 81%.

While this is still a rough time for Democrats, the reports of Obama’s political death are greatly exaggerated.

Note also, the health care improvement is not isolated to this poll. See Kaiser poll: Health care reform support reaches new high.

Now, here’s a drum I’ve been beating:

“July could’ve been a blip on the radar. Obama’s more overt use of Bush in his stump speech of late could resonate with voters, particularly with independents who don’t want to return to past economic policies,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.

There’s still time for D-leaning indies to come home, but they won’t unless we go out and give them a reason to. Reminding them of what Republicans under Bush did to us is good policy as well as good politics.

Still, keep in mind Obama’s on a 2012 cycle while House and Senate Democrats are looking at 2010.

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DemFromCT is a longtime member of the Daily Kos community with interests ranging from polling to Iraq to bird flu, and has graciously agreed to allow us here at Evans Liberal Politics to publish his articles on an ongoing basis. He is a founding editor of Flu Wiki (www.fluwikie.com) and its sister site, the Flu Wiki Forum (www.newfluwiki2.com). Since its inception in June 2005, Flu Wiki has grown into an international clearinghouse of pandemic influenza information and links.

You can view his diaries at Daily Kos, here. DemFromCT is a featured writer at Daily Kos, and you can read more about him here. You are invited to email DemFromCT.

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Howard Dean: Individual mandate will disappear

Aug 7th, 10 / 7 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
August 7, 2010

 

Howard Dean: Individual mandate will disappear

 

Howard Dean: Individual mandate will disappear, The Raw Story, August 6, 2010, by Daniel Tencer, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

The individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance will disappear before health care reform is fully implemented in 2014, Howard Dean said Friday.

Sierra Club

The former Democratic Party chairman and vocal champion of health care reform told MSNBC that “by the time this thing goes into effect in 2014, I think the mandate will be gone either through the courts or because it’s unpopular.”

But Dean said he didn’t see this as a problem, pointing to his own state’s health care reforms in the 1990s, which did not include an individual mandate.

“The mandate’s not essential to the plan anyway,” Dean said. “It never was essential to the plan. They did it in Massachusetts and had a mandate, but we have universal health care for kids in my state [Vermont] without a mandate.”

Host Savannah Guthrie pointed out that the White House has been arguing the mandate is necessary because, without it, people would only purchase health insurance when they get sick, but Dean rejected the notion.

“There will be two or three percent of the people who cheat,” he said. “That is not enough to bring the system to a halt and people don’t like to be told what to do.”

Dean’s comments come in the wake of a Virginia judge’s decision earlier this week to allow a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate to go ahead. Legislators in at least 38 states have proposed measures to curb the federal health reform law, with many of the proposals focusing on the individual mandate.

But Dean’s argument that the mandate is unnecessary was challenged by Ian Millhiser, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. Responding to Dean’s comments, Millhiser said Dean was wrong that the lack of an individual mandate wouldn’t affect insurance premiums.

Quoting MIT economist and CAP contributor Jonathan Gruber, Millhiser argued that not having an individual mandate would mean people who aren’t sick would see buying health care as a “bad deal” and would wait until they got sick. That, in turn would result in fewer people carrying coverage and higher premiums for those who do. Millhiser wrote:

Seven states attempted to ban preexisting conditions discrimination without also requiring everyone to carry a minimum level of coverage, and all of them saw their premiums skyrocket. According to a scholarly study of Vermont’s health plan, Vermont’s premiums shot up after it enacted a ban on preexisting conditions discrimination but no mandate in 1993. Between 1994 and 1996, most of the country only experienced single-digit increases in its insurance costs. In Vermont, however, average premiums increased by 16 percent during this same two year period.

In Massachusetts, the one state to enact a minimum coverage provision along with its ban on discrimination, the numbers are very different. There, individual premiums fell a massive 40 percent in the years after Massachusetts’ minimum coverage law went into effect, while the rest of the nation experienced a 14 percent increase.

Millhiser also argues that the courts may not strike down the individual mandate. If the courts see the issue as being a case of eliminating discrimination against the sick (by forcing insurers to cover them), they could give the government broad leeway to apply the policy in an effective way — including an individual mandate, Millhiser writes.

Howard Dean Criticizes the Individual Mandate:


photo thumbnail of Howard Dean criticizing the individual mandate in US health insurance and noting that in Massachusetts the universal coverage does fine without any mandate "Howard Dean criticizes the individual mandate," noting that Massachusetts does fine in offering universal coverage without any individual mandate. – from MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown — 2:16

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Health Care – “Rationing by Inconvenience”

Aug 7th, 10 / 17 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
August 7, 2010

 

Health Care – “Rationing by Inconvenience”

 

Originally Published As:
Immigrants’ Experience with Publicly Funded
Private Health Insurance

 

Immigrants’ Experience with Publicly Funded Private Health Insurance, New England Journal of Medicine, August 5, 2010, by Ruth Hertzman-Miller M.D., M.P.H., Malgorzata Dawiskiba M.D., Cassie Frank M.D., and Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA, quoted verbatim in the public interest:

On October 31, 2009, Massachusetts involuntarily transferred about 30,000 legal immigrants (mostly “green card” holders) from Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program, to a new private insurance plan. CeltiCare, a subsidiary of the out-of-state, for-profit insurer Centene, agreed to take over their care for only $1,300 per person, one third of the state’s previous cost and well below the average cost of adequate care nationally. CeltiCare excluded several hospitals (and their affiliated community health centers) that have traditionally provided safety-net care for immigrants, including Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), where we work.

an empty wheelchair sitting at the base of a flight of stairs with a white light shining at the top of the stairs is a topical picture in this story in support of public health care for all

We used internal hospital data to determine the characteristics of patients who were transferred to CeltiCare and who had formerly received their primary care at CHA. A total of 1325 patients who had visited a primary care provider at CHA during the past year were moved to CeltiCare. Of these patients, 73% speak a primary language other than English, including Portuguese (24%), Spanish (20%), and Haitian Creole (9%); 19% have hypertension, and 10% have diabetes mellitus. A psychiatric disorder has been diagnosed in at least 9%.

We then evaluated the adequacy of the provider network for these patients. During the second and third months after the switch to CeltiCare, we searched CeltiCare’s Web site for primary care providers within 5 miles of CHA’s ZIP Code. The search returned 326 providers, of whom 217 were nonduplicate adult generalists. Of these providers, 25% could not be reached at the telephone number provided. Of those available by telephone, only 37% were actually accepting new CeltiCare patients, and the average wait for an appointment was 33 days. In all, only 60 providers were accepting new CeltiCare patients, and only 38 could provide service for even one of the three major linguistic minorities.

Given these findings, we believe that patients who were switched from Commonwealth Care to CeltiCare had inadequate access to primary care 3 months into this new program. We fear that such “rationing by inconvenience” shuts patients out of care to the detriment of their health but to the benefit of CeltiCare’s bottom line. Policymakers, in Massachusetts and nationally, should reassess the role of profit-driven insurers in the provision of safety-net care.

Email author Ruth Hertzman-Miller.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: So the state saves two-thirds on its costs, and IF the patients can now get care, they wait an average of 33 days for an appointment. Ain’t private enterprise great! Doesn’t it make a WHOLE lot of sense to go ahead and privatize everything now? Of COURSE CeltiCare is still making a profit. How? Their patients just don’t get seen. Zero expenses, right? It can be a cruel world if you are on Medicaid, but the people really suffering are the grandmothers who must now come up with the extra $50 or $75 a month to purchase some kind of private insurance even if it has a huge deductable. Or else pay 2 percent of their income in fines. Single Payer Now!

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On Medicare anniversary, lawmakers tout inevitability of single payer

Aug 1st, 10 / 5 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
August 1, 2010

 

On Medicare anniversary, lawmakers
tout inevitability of single payer

 

On Medicare anniversary, lawmakers tout inevitability of single payer, The Raw Story, July 31, 2010, by Sahil Kapur, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

A trio of progressives in Congress invoked the 45th birthday of Medicare Friday to call for a national single payer health insurance system, predicting it’s “inevitable” if Americans want lower costs.

protest sign saying 'We want single payer universal care'

“It has never been more important to have a strong movement behind Medicare for All,” wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and John Conyers (D-MI) in a letter addressed to “friends of health care for all.”

The trio, all of whom have sponsored single payer bills, argued that cost controls are insufficient in the health reform law enacted March and claimed the growing need to save money would galvanize support for such a system.

“As we honor Medicare’s 45th birthday today, I am proud to say that the movement for Medicare for All remains strong and vibrant,” Kucinich said.

While various lawmakers have endorsed single payer proposals, it remains far out of the reach of Congress due to the prevalence of anti-government public sentiments and the political influence of the private insurance industry, which would be torn down.

The Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act, enacted by President Barack Obama in March, is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to cover nearly all Americans and reduce the deficit. It has no new public insurance programs.

Although Sanders, Kucinich and Conyers all voted for the new law, they said in the letter that it “does not adequately contain costs” for Americans.

“In my view, the single-payer approach is the only way we will ever have a cost-effective, comprehensive health care system in this country,” said Sanders.

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A Commonwealth Fund report last month found that Americans spend roughly twice as much on medical costs than residents of other industrialized nations yet the US system lags in areas of quality, efficiency and equity.

Sanders and Kucinich have led on pushing for national or state-based single payer programs in the Senate and House respectively, but have failed to garner the necessary support.

According to reports, Medicare, a single payer system for the elderly in America, has lower overhead costs and higher satisfaction rates than private insurance on average.

The White House and Democratic National Committee on Friday proclaimed their commitment to sustaining and strengthening Medicare.

“We believe Medicare for All is inevitable in the United States,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is up to all of us to determine when the inevitable becomes reality.”

Plea for Help from a Liberal Politics Website Owner


small photo of Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans in early 2009

Note by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: I am disabled myself, and though I want to get a job and reenter the work force, I cannot because if I did drop my disability, they would sell my father’s home out from under me to pay my father’s nursing home bills. It is a REAL SHAME in this country, that after everything is said and done in our lives, as elderly people, when we need assistance from a nursing facility, that private enterprise is going to rip you off for everything you have to pay for that. Nursing care in our declining years should be absolutely free, provided by the government.

A kind friend wrote me a note I want to share with you. She said: I understand exactly where you are coming from about the need to be on and stay on disability. There are easily hundreds, if not thousands, of folks in the United States who fit the scenario you describe. This does not make you or anyone else a government leach, as some would say. Nor does it make them inferior people. We have so many idiots out there who take the proposition of being a country which takes care of it’s own as some kind of threat to the dignity and quality of our country. Yet, looking at countries like Denmark, etc, who take care of their own — they have no homeless. Not any. America calls itself a “Christian” nation. Yet the way people who receive any help from our government are run down in churches in the communities around me — you’d never guess there was anything “Christian” around us.

The way they worship the Bush administrations, without prejudice — is so non-Christian! The way they worship the Reagans, Reagan philosophy, etc. is with a worship that is almost evil. No two administrations in the history of the United States can compare in the way these two took aim directly at those who cannot help themselves. None. It is like living and working in “Stepford Land.” They believe things beyond reason and don’t even try to “balance the account” purse’ with any common sense.

At the end of Christ’s ministry in the New Testament, He said, “I give you a new commandment . . . love your brother.” “Love your brother” is never mentioned, while people who receive any help from the government are lazy, sponges of some kind. The same bible they preach from said God told Adam that upon leaving the Garden of Eden he “mankind” would earn their living by the sweat of their brow. When you see how depressed, defeated, and shamed a person who cannot work is — it almost appears that mankind is born with a strong inborn desire to be productive and provide for themselves. No human being I ever met who was unable to provide for themselves has ever sat and said they don’t want to work. Not one. When people cannot work, whether for reasons you describe, either medically, or because of situations like you have with your father, and having to lose everything he ever owned and worked all their life for — or choose to take the steps you have to take to keep property and/or savings they spent their whole life to secure — doing things as you and your family are doing is the best choice you have, if not the only choice.

Paul Evans: How true. How unchristian of us as a nation that we do not really take care of our own. At the end of his life here on earth, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Three times Jesus, said, after hearing Peter protest his love, “Feed my sheep.” It’s in the first three Gospels. Isn’t that what “loving your neighbor as yourself” is supposed to be all about?

I am in fact looking to supplement my government minimum disability by working from home. Please visit the Hire Paul Evans! page if you might be interested in hiring me. I type 75 wpm, can program in 3 languages well, and am familiar in using other programming languages, I am familiar with the Office programs and I have edited 12 books. If your computer is acting up I can do a very creditable job at Computer Repair anywhere in Northeast Ohio, at prices less than what is usually charged. I need somebody to step up to the plate so that I can make my way in this world. I also have a nice (if aging) car and would be interested in any reasonable job in the Akron – Canton – Mansfield – Medina area. Please feel encouraged to email me if you are interested. ~ Paul Evans

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This and That: Sunday New and Opinion Update

Jul 25th, 10 / 17 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
July 25, 2010

 

This and That:
Sunday News and Opinion Update

 

Evans Liberal Politics, Sunday, July 25, 2010, by Paul Evans

 

Tony Hayward to Quit BP

 

Tony Hayward to Quite BP, Guardian.co.uk, July 25, 2010, by Terry Macalister, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Beleaguered oil firm chief executive to be replaced by Gulf of Mexico clean-up chief Bob Dudley

BP is planning to announce the departure of chief executive Tony Hayward alongside its half-year financial results on Tuesday.

The BP boss will be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is currently overseeing the oil spill operation in the Gulf of Mexico.

The exit of Hayward, who has been vilified by American politicians since the 20 April blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig, is the second dramatic change of leadership at BP in less than four years. Lord Browne, Hayward’s predecessor, left the oil group after a spat with the then chairman, Peter Sutherland, and a sinking of the share price after the Texas City refinery fire.

Hayward, 52, is today locked in meetings with the rest of the BP board about the final details of his financial leaving package, but he is expected to go under basic contractual terms. That means a one year’s £1m pay package but a giant pension pot of over £10m, capable of paying out more than half a million pounds a year from the formal retirement age of 60.

Get with the New Public Option!

 

Schakowsky: Want to cut the deficit? Get with our new public option:

The Raw Story, July 25, 2010, by Sahil Kapur:

LAS VEGAS – Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said Saturday that serious deficit hawks ought to get behind a new “robust” public option bill that she and more than a hundred other members introduced days ago.

In an interview with Raw Story at the Netroots Nation conference, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) predicted that a new “focus on deficit reduction” and rising public distrust of the insurance industry would generate stronger support for it among members of Congress.

“We’ve seen the cost [savings], and we’ve seen the behavior of the insurance companies,” she said. “I think that really puts a new atmosphere on the prospects for a new public option.”

Unveiled last Thursday by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Schakowsky, and more than 120 co-sponsors, the measure would give consumers a choice between private and public health insurance plans in the new law’s exchanges. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that it would cut the deficit by $68 billion between 2014 an 2020.

See Grijalva: Deficit hawks against public option are ‘hypocrites,’ ‘phonies’, The Raw Story, July 25, 2010, by Sahil Kapur, excerpt quoted verbatim:

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LAS VEGAS – Progressive caucus co-chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) on Saturday issued an ultimatum to opponents of a public option who invoke deficit concerns: get behind this program, or you’re hypocrites.

In an exclusive interview with Raw Story at Netroots Nation, a large conference for progressive activists and media, Grijalva lamented how “one of the most important mechanisms [to cut the deficit] was left out of the [health reform] bill.”

Fear of Freedom, N.Y. Times Editorial, July 25, 2010, by N.Y. Times:

The Obama administration should not deliver Guantánamo prisoners to governments that have a record of torture and lawlessness, like Algeria.

“Rubicon”: Eerie portrait of “Top Secret America”, Salon, July 24, 2010, by Heather Havrilesky: AMC’s stylish drama about a powerful intelligence contractor isn’t pure fantasy, according to the Washington Post.

Please Give: Help Charities Working in the Gulf, American Express and Takepart.

How Charlie Rangel Can Survive, Salon, July 23, 2010, by Steve Kornacki.

We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It, Newsweek, July 18, 2010, by Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, excerpt quoted verbatim:

GOP chairman Michael Steele was blasted by fellow Republicans recently for describing Afghanistan as “a war of Obama’s choosing,” and suggesting that the United States would fail there as had many other outside powers. Some critics berated Steele for his pessimism, others for getting his facts wrong, given that President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan soon after 9/11. But Steele’s critics are the ones who are wrong: the RNC chair was more correct than not on the substance of his statement, if not the politics.

The war being waged by the United States in Afghanistan today is fundamentally different and more ambitious than anything carried out by the Bush administration. Afghanistan is very much Barack Obama’s war of choice, a point that the president underscored recently by picking Gen. David Petraeus to lead an intensified counterinsurgency effort there. After nearly nine years of war, however, continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.

Thrown to the Wolves, The New York Times, Editorial, July 23, 2010, by Bob Herbert, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The Shirley Sherrod story tells us so much about ourselves, and none of it is pretty. The most obvious and shameful fact is that the Obama administration, which runs from race issues the way thoroughbreds bolt from the starting gate, did not offer this woman anything resembling fair or respectful treatment before firing and publicly humiliating her.

Moving with the swiftness of fanatics on a hanging jury, big shots in the administration and Bill O’Reilly of Fox News came to exactly the same conclusion: Shirley Sherrod had to go — immediately! No time for facts. No time for justice.

Comment: I have see other editorials to the effect that, given that Ms. Sherrod ultimately got some kind of justice in the affair and was reinstated to a position in the Agriculture Dept., that overall the whole drama represents a victory in the battle for fair race relation. Admittedly the initial response was, as Herbert suggests, all wrong. ~ Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans.

Watch CNN Anchors Call For Crackdown on Bloggers, CNN YouTube video — 5:51 All about anonymous bloggers and the case of Shirley Sherrod’s smear.

Addicted to Bush, The New York Times, Editorial, July 22, 2010, by Paul Krugman, excerpt quoted verbatim:

For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we’re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy.

The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.

Also see the latest Krugman column: Chocolate and Copper, The New York Times, July 25, 2010, by Paul Krugman.

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Shameful: Pentagon workers tied to child porn, Boston.com, July 23, 2010, by Brian Bender, with video, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.

The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.

Also see First year stands out for Sotomayor on Supreme Court, Boston.com, July 25, 2010, by Robert Barnes, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — Several partygoers were on their way into the Supreme Court one Saturday evening in May to toast retiring Justice John Paul Stevens when they ran into Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She was not heading to the festivities, but coming from her chambers, where she had put in a weekend shift.

She looked neither tired nor overwhelmed by her new responsibilities, one of the partygoers noticed. “She was beaming.’’

In some ways, Sotomayor’s just-finished first term on the court was like those of many who have come before her: She worked constantly, turned down interview requests and most speaking engagements, wrote unglamorous and largely noncontroversial opinions, and was ideologically true to the president who appointed her. She voted with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg more than any other colleague on the court.

In the news: Three Spaniards file charges over Israel flotilla raid, BBC News, July 23, 2010, by BBC, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Two Spanish activists and a journalist arrested in a raid by Israel on a Gaza-bound flotilla are filing charges against Israel’s prime minister.

The three accuse Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, six cabinet ministers and the navy commander of illegal detention, torture and deportation.

The UN has meanwhile named a team of experts to investigate the raid.

image of floods in China with a reporter highlights this world news update from AlJazeera news Listen to the Latest: World News Update from AlJazeera English. All the latest news from around the world.

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President Obama Announces Vote 2010 – Video

Apr 27th, 10 / 0 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
April 24, 2010

 

President Obama Announces Vote 2010 – Video

 

Fight to Keep the House Democratic!


Visit OFA’s Vote 2010 blog

Watch the OFA video: Delivering Change

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News Update – April 2010: Obama News page


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Obama’s Armageddon Joke Getting Funnier

Apr 1st, 10 / 1 Comment

Evans Liberal Politics
April 1, 2010

 

Obama’s Armageddon Joke
Getting Funnier

 

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Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care

Mar 15th, 10 / 0 Comments

Evans Liberal Politics
March 15, 2010

 

Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care

 

Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care, © The New York Times, March 15, 2010, by Jeff Zeleny, excerpt quoted verbatim, with commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans:

WASHINGTON — The yearlong legislative fight over health care is drawing to a frenzied close as a multimillion-dollar wave of advertising that rivals the ferocity of a presidential campaign takes aim at about 40 House Democrats whose votes will help determine the fate of President Obama’s top domestic priority.

stirring image of the letters spelling out the word Democracy in red with a blue Statue of Liberty in the foreground

The coalition of groups opposing the legislation, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, is singling out 27 Democrats who supported the health care bill last year and 13 who opposed it. The organizations have already spent $11 million this month focusing on these lawmakers, with more spending to come before an expected vote next weekend.

An alliance of groups supporting the health care plan, which works closely with the White House and Democratic leaders, had been spending far less and focusing on fewer districts. But after pharmaceutical companies made a $12 million investment for a final advertising push, spending by both sides for the first time is now nearly the same.

Not only are these swing Democrats being pummeled in the new spate of advertising — which could total $30 million before week’s end — but extensive efforts are under way in Congressional districts, where groups on both sides of the issue are using tactics similar to get-out-the-vote drives to urge constituents to contact their lawmakers. Mr. Obama is calling lawmakers, too, and on Monday is traveling to Ohio to open a weeklong campaign to close this act of the health care debate.

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC that he had yet to lock down enough votes to pass the bill. But he added: “We’ll be working it going into the week. I am also very confident that we’ll get this done.”

Several on-the-fence Democrats said they were scrambling to sort out their constituents’ views as the outside noise grows deafening.

Read the full article, here.

time for Nancy Pelosi to deliver on the public option, still

Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: Hell, they aren’t voting on the BILL at all. They’re voting on whether they can vote for the bill and get elected next time or not. If they were voting ON THE BILL, the bill would be single payer or at least have a public option, BUT for religious (abortion law) reasons or because of Democrats from conservative districts’ constituencies, we sure won’t see those provisions, will we? Those reasons plus a few hundred million dollars worth of “influence”. And then the Supreme Court goes (the five Republicans, at least in this vote) and makes corporations fully “people” with the right to unlimited campaign contributions. Right, that’s going to fix the system, isn’t it?

People are mad. Ninety percent of the people I talk to are mad. The investment banks and the credit card companies are taking away what little money we have left. Half of the people want to reform the existing parties and a little fewer, perhaps, want the Tea Party method of washing our hands of the existing parties and the regulations which govern us and starting from scratch. But believe me, people are mad.

The answer is so simple people: to FIX WASHINGTON, one thing, and only one thing is desperately needed. Make elections publicly funded. Simple as that. Now if you do THAT and THEN take away the lobbyists, Washington is totally fixed, believe me, it’s that simple, and that difficult. But if the people don’t listen, and don’t take corporate money out of the equation, you could elect a slate of candidates from the Greater Warziristan People’s Party, and nothing would change in the long run. People, it’s your country. Take it back. Get “influence” out of Washington. It’s Your Country. Or do you want to be serfs….

My friend, Dan, who is a savvy guy, has an interesting idea to fix Washington. He thinks it’s so corrupt, riddled with lobbyists, and so big etc., that one of the ways one could “fix” it is to turn major financial responsibilities over to the states. O.K., I said, “you have to have Defense/Intelligence at the federal level, and most of the Entitlements are necessary, but you really could perhaps do most of the ‘discretionary spending’ at the state level more effectively.” What do you think, readers? Is this unrealistic?

See, How Tea Partiers are Getting Tricked by the Rich, AlterNet, March 15, 2010, by Matt Taibbi.

See HCR: What does Speaker Pelosi know that I don’t?, Daily Kos, March 15, 2010, by Brainwarp, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Yes, it’s a rhetorical, and very tongue-in-cheek question. Obviously she knows a hell of a lot more about what’s really going on with the upcoming HCR vote than I, you, or most other people do.

At least, I sure as hell hope she does.

I say this because, between Robert Gibbs declaring, flat-out, on FOX of all places, that the bill will “be the law of the land” by next week, and our own Cedwyn stating unequivocally that “by this time next week, HCR will be behind us”, it sure sounds like overconfidence to me, and that makes me very, very nervous. (The article is counting the votes; read the comments — hell, I say, if they don’t vote for this, expel them from the Party. ~ Paul Evans)

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