Recently in Congress Category

Today will be my final post of 2009, but I'll leave you with some recommended reading on where we are now and one view of what 2010 may hold in store. First from The Huffington Post, The Cash Committee: How Wall Street Wins On The Hill. Excerpt:"In the fall of 2008, Democrats took the White House and expanded their Congressional majorities as America struggled through a financial collapse wrought by years of deregulation. The public...

Following up on last week's post about the excise tax on the so-called "Cadillac" health plans, Bob Herbert has some new information in an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times. I'm not surprised that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors involved in the supposed cost-cutting and deficit reduction figures coming from the Senate, the CBO, and the White House. Smoke and mirrors seems to be the SOP when it comes to selling this...

Imagine the Republicans in Washington took their Big Boy Pills this and decided to behave with the decorum the Senate deserved.  You might get something along the lines of Tom Coburn repeatedly defending the President and writing him letters of encouragement: "I try to write him about every week or two," Coburn said of Obama. "Write him a note, encourage him. No one has a tougher job than he does." The two last spoke when Obama...

Two items of recommended reading this morning, both pointing to underlying problems which have surfaced in the health care debate but greatly affect the passing of any legislation containing substantive changes. First, Paul Krugman in yesterday's New York Times about the filibuster rule in the Senate:"...Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the...

December 20, 2009   Representative John Culberson, 7th District514 Longworth Building Washington DC 20515-4307   10000 Memorial Drive, Suite 620 Houston, TX  77024-3490   Dear Representative Culberson:   Thank you for your response to my letter expressing my opinion on health care reform with another of your empty, partisan, form letters written by someone on your staff. I truly appreciate the time it took one of your minions to add me to the distribution...

Ben Nelson is on board as of this morning:"Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas. ...Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But...

Team Blogged by Desperado and AstrosGirlKel We've all read Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim teaches us the true meaning of Christmas. The greediest of the Republicans Greedy can't resist the poor crippled boy, who bestows upon us all - that no matter how little one has, love and redistribution of wealth generosity can overcome social status and we can all have a ham at Christmas. Ok, ok - I'm being a little tongue...

First I want to thank everybody for your comments on yesterday's post. Sorry I couldn't jump in but sometimes work gets in the way. The debate between "kill the bill" and "pass it and fix it later" is a good one with valid points to be made on both sides. That's why I like the forum we have here at the Hurricane so much. We can disagree with each other and have a substantive discussion...

As I predicted this morning the Dorgan Amendment, which would have allowed the importation of prescription drugs from Canada and elsewhere, failed today. From Associated Press:The 51-48 roll call Tuesday by which the Senate rejected a plan that would allow Americans to import low-cost prescriptions from abroad. Sixty votes were needed to pass the measure.A "yes" vote is a vote to pass the measure.Voting yes were 27 Democrats, 23 Republicans and 1 independent.Voting no were...

So what's left? No public option, no Medicare buy-in, thanks to President Lieberman. The 90% medical loss ratio? That's dead, too. The Dorgan amendment on drug importation comes up for a vote today. Look for that to disappear as well. The ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions and recission is still there so far, but then again President Lieberman isn't through making demands yet. Stay tuned. But have no fear, the individual mandate...