The House plan, naturally, is looking a hell of a lot closer to reality as we live it than the proposals spawned by the Millionaires Club they call the Senate:

House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama’s call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system by putting forward a 852-page draft bill that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance, force employers to provide benefits or help pay for them, and create a new public insurance program to compete with private insurers — a move that Republicans will bitterly oppose.

The bill was unveiled by a trio of committee chairman, George Miller of Education and Labor, Henry Waxman of Energy and Commerce, and Charles B. Rangel of Ways and Means, who have worked jointly for months to develop a seamless proposal. But the chairmen said they still did not know how much the plan would cost, even as they pledged to pay for it by cutting Medicare spending and imposing new, unspecified taxes.

Hey, I have an idea! We can invade an oil-rich country, take over their oil to get cheap gas and... oh. Never mind.

The three chairmen described their bill as a starting point in a weeks-long legislative endeavor that they said would dominate Congress for the summer and ultimately involve the full panorama of stakeholders in the health care industry, which accounts for about one-sixth of the nation’s economy. They described their efforts as the historic culmination of a half-century of failed attempts across the tenure of a dozen presidents.

Mr. Miller, a Democrat of California, said that completing a bill would require extraordinary cooperation among lawmakers. “In order to change American’s health care system,” he declared, “Congress itself must change.”

House Republicans, who have had no involvement in the development of the health legislation so far, quickly denounced the Democrats’ proposal as a thinly disguised plan for an eventual government takeover of the health care system.

Here's hoping for that government takeover, guys!

“Families and small businesses who are already footing the bill for Washington’s reckless spending binge will not support it,” the Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement. “Raising taxes, rationing care, and empowering government bureaucrats — not patients and doctors — to make key medical decisions is not reform.”

I'd like this amoral buffoon to say this to my face without laughing.

For once, I am firmly in Nancy Pelosi's corner. Of course an economic stimulus program should include family planning funds.

And God, how I hate these cynical Republicans - and the spineless Democrats who roll over for them. Only someone who's never been poor is breathtakingly stupid enough to believe that birth control doesn't have an immediate effect on the economic health of a family - or someone who's cynical enough to draw a line in the sand over something he doesn't believe anyway - like John Boehner.

What, an additional wage earner has no economic impact on a family? Or have we suddenly awakened in a world where free daycare, diapers and formula abound?

What makes me so furious is, we don't need the Republicans to pass this package, anyway. Why, oh why are we knuckling under to the people who have already demonstrated their utter indifference to the poor - and their economic incompetence? We voted for Democrats because we didn't want to see important legislative decisions based on right-wing memes:

Call Waxman's office and give him an earful:
DC: 202-225-3976
CA offices:
323-651-1040
818-878-7400
310-652-3095

And contact President Obama by email here, or call:

Comments:
202-456-1111
Switchboard:
202-456-1414

WASHINGTON – House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.

Several officials said a final decision was expected on Tuesday, coinciding with Obama's scheduled visit to the Capitol for separate meetings with House and Senate Republicans.

The provision has emerged as a point of contention among Republicans, who criticize it as an example of wasteful spending that would neither create jobs nor otherwise improve the economy.

Under the provision, states no longer would be required to obtain federal permission to offer family planning services — including contraceptives — under Medicaid, the health program for the low-income.

Democrats considered the politically-potent change as congressional budget experts estimated it would take slightly longer for the overall legislation to achieve an impact on the economy than the administration projects.

Oh look, now Obama is throwing mortgage modifications under the same bus!

It's official:

California Rep. Henry A. Waxman on Thursday officially dethroned longtime Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, upending a seniority system that has governed Democratic politics in the House for decades.

In a secret ballot vote in the Cannon Caucus Room, House Democrats ratified an earlier decision by the Steering and Policy Committee to replace the 82-year-old Dingell with his 69-year-old rival. The vote was 137-122 in favor of Waxman.

The ascension of Waxman, a wily environmentalist, recasts a committee that Dingell has chaired since 1981 with an eye toward protecting the domestic auto industry in his native Michigan. The Energy and Commerce Committee has principal jurisdiction over many of President-elect Barack Obama's top legislative priorities, including energy, the environment and health care.

As John says, this is truly welcome news. We may finally get some oversight from this committee. Matt Stoller has more.

I wrote earlier that I was supporting Waxman for the Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. This is good news.

Congress Daily:

By a three-vote margin, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee today recommended that Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman be given the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

UPDATE: Matt adds...

If it's true that the freshmen are breaking heavily for Waxman, and older baron committee chairs are going for Dingell, this adds a lot of firepower to Waxman's case. Dingell is a vindictive guy, so his case rests on the notion that if you don't vote for him you're going to have problems with the person who will naturally be the Chair of Energy and Commerce. Cracking the image of inevitability is key to letting members know it's safe to go against Dingell.

Here's a very important story. How great has Waxman been since '06? I think he needs our backing in this fight for the Chairmanship. I'm here for you Henry.

Matt Stoller explains: Automakers and Dingell vs. Waxman

I'm surprised, given the amount of attention foisted on the US auto industry at the moment, how few people are actually watching the Dingell versus Waxman dogfight over the Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. E&C is the policy-making committee that will probably have jurisdiction over a good amount of the rule-making around whatever bailout happens, since it handles CAFE standards, industrial regulation, etc. So whether it goes to the super-green but sensible Henry Waxman or the more traditional John Dingell matters quite a bit.

It's very hard to tell what's going on with the conflict. Since it's secret ballot, certain members are probably promising their vote to both, and others are lying about who they will vote for. What makes it even more difficult to suss out is that Dingell is waging his campaign through the media, and Waxman is not.

..read on

OK, I didn't want Holy Joe in either, but Obama made his decision and the Senate obeyed his wishes. This is a big one we should get involved in. Especially where we are today.

Digby has more.

Waxman is an effective, green progressive and he knows how to get things done. Dingel is an elder who is discredited by his relationship with the auto industry and the NRA. If pragmatic change rather than milquetoast status quo bipartisanship is what people voted for, this is where the action is.

{snip}

Waxman is the right guy to be in charge of these things as we deal with this economic/energy crisis. Whatever threats there may or may not be to the seniority system by putting Waxman in charge pale in comparison to the necessity to have the House working properly on these issues.

I couldn't agree with Matt and Digby more. Let's go Waxman.

I didn't have a chance to get to this the other day. Mukasey is headed for trouble as outlined by Chairman Waxman in this video. He warns the Attorney General of a Scheduled Contempt Vote over Cheney:

Download | play Download | play (rough transcript)

Waxman; ...I have tried to investigate what really happened and the White House has resisted oversight every step of the way.

The committee's inquired has tried to penetrate the cloud surrounding VP Cheney's conduct. But today the President has asserted executive privilege and is withholding from the committee and the American people key evidence about the VP Cheney's actions. During our investigation we have learned that Mr. Libby told the FBI that it was possible that the Vice President instructed him to leak Miss Wilson's identity. That would be an extraordinary breach of trust. There is a key document that could explain what the VP knew and what he did. The report of the VP's interview with officials working from the FBI working for Mr. Fitzgerald. If there is one document that could pierce the cloud hanging over the VP, that is it.

Mr Mukasey decided that a different rule should apply to Republican Presidents than to Democratic Presidents.

The claim of executive privilege is ludicrous.

The President's actions have darkened the cloud over the VP and left important questions unanswered. As the committee considers its next steps, I hope the President and Vice President will also consider theirs. Congress and the American public are entitled to know what role the President and Vice President in the despicable outing of Miss. Wilson

AG Janet Reno provided this committee---the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and VP Gore a decade ago so what's the deal? Waxman is trying to find out what Cheney said to the FBI and is not too happy that Mukasey is blocking access to it. It sure looked like Scooter Libby was getting ready to hang Cheney out to dry unless Bush stepped in and gave him a get of jail card for free. Murray Waas wrote this great article about it a while ago:

Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says

Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report...read on

The Gavel: "Chairman Waxman writes Attorney General Mukasey that the Oversight Committee will vote to hold him in contempt unless the Attorney General produces a copy of the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney in the investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent."

Here's the pdf of the letter he wrote Mukasey.

Mr. Fitzgerald removed any doubt about this important point last week. He wrote the Committee that "there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews."

This should get real interesting soon.

At an EPA hearing today on Capitol Hill about ozone standards, Henry Waxman got into a heated exchange with Administrator Stephen Johnson over his evasive non-answers to simple, straightforward questions about whether or not he had certain discussions with the White House about key environmental issues. It got so tense at one point that a frantically gavel-slamming Waxman threatened to have Rep Darrell Issa "physically removed" from the hearing if he continued to obstruct Waxman's line of inquiry. Classic.

It seems to me you're being awfully evasive and I don't know why you can't tell this committee whether you, in fact, had a discussion about this rule or that rule...either you did or you didn't and I don't know why you can't tell us that information.

"I will have you physically removed if you don't stop."

Why is it that conservatives consistently appoint people to head agencies who have nothing but contempt for the issues those agencies are supposed to oversee? Well, I guess they can't later claim that their self-fulfilling prophecy of "government is the problem" is true. The problem lies not with government, but rather with the stooges who run the government and appoint their incompetent cronies to fix problems they have no intention of fixing.