You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 364

PLAYS: 371

As you know from Susie's post, on Friday Howard Dean and Wendell Potter held a blogger conference call to address their concerns about the Lieberman/Nelson Senate Health care bill. Mike Lux was the moderator and a host of bloggers asked questions about the bill. What followed was a detailed discussion debating Gov. Dean's problems about the Senate bill. As much as the Villagers try to smear Dean, it's all about policy and not ideology when it comes to health care.

It's a long call that features more actual policy debate than what you would find on most political TV programs that are supposed to actually carry the same type of substance, but often fail to do. They are more interested in shouting matches than a substantive debate. You can go to DFA's website where they want you to call Harry Reid's office and say no mandates without a public option.

And as mcjoan notes while looking at the new CBO scores, the public option had a better cost saving effect for the federal government in the Health care bill than it does without it.

TPM has more:

The CBO has concluded that, on average, premiums will be the same as they would have been if the Senate had the public option, but that the public option saved the federal government more money by putting downward pressure on the premiums of low-cost private plans, which will be heavily subsidized.

The bill remains a big deficit slayer--$132 billion in the first 10 years. Over the next 10 years, CBO warns all estimates are very uncertain. But here's a key conclusion: "CBO expects that the legislation, if enacted, would reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law--with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP."

Update: Of special note from the CBO report--which Pelosi should be trumpeting:

[FN 11] The presence of the public plan had a more noticeable effect on CBO’s estimates of federal subsidies because it was expected to exert some downward pressure on the premiums of the lower-cost plans to which those subsidies would be tied.

If the deficit scolds are really so worried about the federal deficit why aren't they backing the public option to be in the bill too?

Just got off another blogger conference call, this time with Howard Dean, former CIGNA exec Wendell Potter, and Mike Lux.

Dean announced the results of a DFA poll that is "really quite stunning," he said. (You can read the results here.) The Senate cloture vote is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, he said.

Democracy for America's "No Option, No Mandate" campaign to contact Harry Reid clocked 7000 calls in four hours, too, he said.

Dr. Dean opened the call by saying "this bill has always been a giveaway to the insurance industry, but we were willing to compromise" to get the public option.

He recapped all the compromises we made: "We wanted single payer, but that was taken off the table early on. That was a mistake. We had to get to the place where we had health insurance for all Americans." But now, he said, there's no public option, and no Medicare option.

"You're forced to pay money to an insurance company or get fined $750 by your government, while 27% of your money goes to CEOs who are flying around in these private jets," he said.

He talked about the compromises made for pre-existing conditions, the most disturbing one the ability to charge you 300% more, merely for being older. "It's guaranteed issue, but if you’re making $65,000 a year for a family of four and you’re paying $20,000 for insurance, how is that reform?"

He said the real bad stuff in the Senate bill was
"hidden in the weeds, so you can’t find it."

Dr. Dean brushed aside the "Get a bill, any bill" mentality in Washington. "Any legislation passed will have a huge impact on American healthcare. If they can’t fix it, it shouldn’t pass."

Wendell Potter, former CIGNA executive and reform activist, said the insurance industry got "every single thing they wanted" in the Senate bill.

"There's no individual mandate, no public option. There's also three words, 'benefit design flexibility' in Senate bill – that means the freedom to design plans that will pass more and more of us into ranks of the underinsured - and charge up to 22% of income if someone gets sick," he said.

In Massachusetts, they have a 2 to 1 premium ratio, "and they're already having trouble finding affordable, adequate insurance. The industry wants to shift even more costs to individuals and families, having the government pay them half a trillion dollars. The Senate bill meets every one of their requirements," Potter said.

"They will continue to shift the cost burden to consumers and get around not using preexisting conditions by charging for certain factors like high cholesterol."

Dr. Dean pointed out the House bill "is the compromise, we didn’t think it was right to take the option of an employer-based system away if people liked it."

In Vermont, he said, you can't be charged more than double the lowest premium.

Dean listed some more of the insurance company wish list the Senate was so eager to fill. "Getting rid of the anti-trust provision. This contributes to the predatory effect of the insurance companies – they're essentially unregulated. We need to get the provision in, get them regulated.

Wendell Potter talked about something you often hear pushed from the Republican side: "Just let us sell across state lines and let the market decide." As he points out, insurers would go to the states with least regulation.

Paul Hogarth from Daily Kos asked them to address criticism that if the bill is killed, "there's no reform and we’re worse off, the momentum is gone."

"I don’t know that we’ll be worse off," Dr. Dean said. "We ought to strip down this bill and get rid of the mandate. It should have been done by reconciliation."

Continue reading »

The GOP has embarrassed itself once more. How can they actively promote an event like their tea party/anti health care protest in DC and watch silently as disgusting signs and insane wackos fill their ranks? Well, it's easy to do when you have Rep. Michele Bachmann telling the teabaggers to "scare" her colleagues into voting against health care reform during this "Super Bowl of Freedom." I mean, come on. First of all she should be arrested for actively promoting this type of hatred form a current member of Congress and can she at least come up with a name that's not as ridiculous as she is?

OK, that's asking too much.

In a conference call Wednesday night with bloggers and activists for the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called on protesters to “scare” members of Congress into killing the proposed health care reform bill.

If the protesters succeed in scaring lawmakers, Bachmann said that it could cripple efforts to restructure health care for a decade.

“Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans,” Bachmann said.

She said that members were frightened by the August town hall meetings, but “then they came back to Washington, and they got back in the bubble and Speaker Pelosi put the hammer down on the Democrats.”

Rep. Todd Akin is also one of those special kinds of idiots that occupy the rank and file tea party and he led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance because the word "God," just drives us all crazy. I guess he doesn't understand history very well because the original "Pledge of Allegiance" never had the word "God" in it at all, but nothing is allowed to interfere with their conservative/religious talking points.

At the Capitol Hill Tea Party just now, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) stepped up to lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance -- which he said drives the liberals crazy.

"And so as we now renew our commitment to the Red, White and Blue, let us with boldness proclaim the fact that we are one nation under God," said Akin. "It is altogether fitting that we should do this -- and it drives the liberals crazy."

The crowd laughed, and joined Akin in the Pledge, with a genuine shout given to the key words, "...one nation, UNDER GOD, with liberty..."

And no matter what Eric Cantor says, signs that use images of Holocaust victims are just sick and were not planted by anyone but his own. Has he not seen even one teabagger protest? My God, (I used the bad word) that's the norm at these astroturfed gatherings.
And our pal Dana Milbank fills us in even more.

Many of the demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their pet name for the speaker of the House. Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell.

In the front of the protest, a sign showed President Obama in white coat, his face painted to look like the Joker. The sign, visible to the lawmakers as they looked into the cameras, carried a plea to "Stop Obamunism." A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 1444

PLAYS: 442

Here's the audio form today's conference call with Speaker Pelosi about the release of the House bill.. Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather so I don't have the blow by blow, but I was able to get on the call and record it for you. She didn't know if she would allow amendments to the bill, but was against the idea. There were a few questions from bloggers that followed.

(I edited out just a few minutes because there was a technical problem when the conference service tried to connect bloggers to ask their questions.)

UPDATE I: To members of the media, please credit Crooksandliars.com if you use any portion of this audio. Thank you in advance.

UPDATE II:

mcjoan has a great write up of the conference call: Pelosi: House Bill is a "Manifestation of Rejecting Business as Usual"

Because there has been conflicting information this morning on whether amendments would be allowed for the bill, I asked Speaker Pelosi if that decision had been made. As of yet, she says she's been too busy getting the bill melded to focus on that, but that she "would have to be talked into it," but isn't closed. The fly in the ointment on amendments is Rep. Bart Stupak and threat to team up with Republicans "unless Democratic leaders allow a floor vote on an amendment that would add new restrictions on the use of federal funding for health plans that cover abortion with private dollars."

This complicates the issue of the single payer amendment that Rep. Anthony Weiner was promised he would be able to offer. When Chris Bowers asked about it, Pelosi said that she would be meeting with Weiner and Rep. Kucinich today or tomorrow. Additionally, Rep. Grijalva is continuing to push for the robust public option.

"I am not rolling over. I will insist on a Medicare-plus-five amendment on the Floor so that the full Caucus can vote on it. We are hopeful that the Rules Committee will allow this amendment, which has tremendous public support, to be voted on for the record."

Leadership, including Rules Committee chair Louise Slaughter, are going to have some interesting needle-threading to do on the rule for floor action and the amendment process on this one. The schedule has not yet been determined completely. It will be available for the next 72 hours for all members to access, then will be submitted as the manager's amendment Monday morning. Floor action could begin as soon as next Thursday. She said that it's possible to have a vote before Veterans Day, Nov. 11, but as of yet that's not decided.