ANOTHER weekly do-or-die
primary battle, another round of wildly predicted “game changers” that collapsed
in the locker room.
Hillary Clinton’s attempt to
impersonate a Nascar-lovin’, gun-totin’, economist-bashin’ populist went bust:
Asked which candidate most “shares your values,” voters in both North Carolina
and Indiana exit polls opted instead for the elite and condescending arugula-eater.
Bill Clinton’s small-town barnstorming tour, hailed as a revival of old-time
Bubba bonhomie, proved to be yet another sabotage of his wife, whipping up false
expectations for her disastrous showing in North Carolina. Barack Obama’s final,
undercaffeinated debate performance, not to mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s
attempted character assassination, failed to slow his inexorable path to the
Democratic nomination.
Read more...
The
All-White Elephant in the Room By
FRANK RICH, May 4, 2008
Bored by those endless replays
of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John
Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.
What you’ll find is a white
televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama.
Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized
breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr.
Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s
because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has
thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the
Holocaust.
Read more...
Shoddy! Tawdry! A Televised Train Wreck! By
FRANK RICH, April 20, 2008
“THE crowd is turning on me,”
said Charles Gibson, the ABC anchor, when the audience
jeered him in the final moments of Wednesday night’s face-off between
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
I can’t remember a debate in
which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then
again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag,
earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a
civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center.
Read more.
Partying Like It’s 1929 By
PAUL KRUGMAN, March 21, 2008, NY Times
If Ben Bernanke manages to
save the financial system from collapse, he will — rightly — be praised for his
heroic efforts.
But what we should be asking
is: How did we get here? Why does the financial system need salvation? Why do
mild-mannered economists have to become superheroes?
The answer, at a fundamental
level, is that we’re paying the price for willful amnesia. We chose to forget
what happened in the 1930s — and having refused to learn from history, we’re
repeating it.
Read more...
ED
RENDELL’S HEALTHCARE HOAX (AND THE SINGLE-PAYER SOLUTION)
by
Jerry Policoff Sun Mar 16, 2008,
Op-Ed News
With Pennsylvania Governor Ed
Rendell's Prescription For Pennsylvania all but dead in its original form, his
political allies in the State Legislature, led by Todd Eachus, a member of the
Democratic Leadership in the House, seem intent upon salvaging what they can via
an amended bill they hope will pass the Pennsylvania House this Monday, March
17th. Gone is "Cover All Pennsylvanians," a title that was never even remotely
appropriate. In its place comes "Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care" (PABC), an
even weaker program that is being baselessly hailed by its proponents as a
"huge" step forward toward insuring all Pennsylvanians.
Before examining the new
Rendell/Eachus legislative initiative and the accompanying full court press to
pass it – with an assist from predominantly favorable, even sycophantic media
coverage -- some background regarding the original Rendell plan might prove
helpful and enlightening. Read more...
The
Face-Slap Theory By
PAUL KRUGMAN,
New York Times, March 10, 2008
Friday’s employment report —
which was so weak that it had many economists declaring that we’re already in a
recession — was bad news. But it was actually less disturbing than what’s going
on in the financial markets.
The scariest thing I’ve read
recently is a speech given last week by Tim Geithner, the president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Geithner came as close as a Fed official
can to saying that we’re in the midst of a financial meltdown.
To understand the gravity of
the situation, you have to know what the Fed did last summer, and again last
fall.
Read more...
Deliverance or Diversion?
By PAUL KRUGMAN, New
York Times, March 3, 2008
After their victory in the
2006 Congressional elections, it seemed a given that Democrats would try to make
this year’s presidential campaign another referendum on Republican policies.
After all, the public appears fed up not just with President Bush, but with his
party. For example, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center shows Democrats are
preferred on every issue except terrorism. They even have a 10-point advantage
on “morality.”
Add to this the fact that
perceptions about the economy are worsening week by week, and one might have
expected the central theme of the Democratic campaign to be “throw the bums
out.”
McCain
Channels His Inner Hillary By FRANK
RICH, New
York Times, March 2, 2008
Before they were
sidetracked into a new war against The New York Times, the Rush
Limbaugh posse had it right about John McCain. He is a double agent.
Some Democrats do admire and like him. So does Jon Stewart, and so do
many liberal editorial boards and card-carrying hacks in the
mainstream American press. So, in fact, do many at The Times,
including myself. As long as I don’t look too hard at the fine print.
You’ve got to love a
guy who said a few years ago that he regretted likening Mr. Limbaugh
to “a circus clown” because of all the complaints from circus clowns
insulted by the comparison. “I would like to extend my apologies to
Bozo, Chuckles and Krusty,” Senator McCain told a rather startled Neil
Cavuto of Fox News.
What’s more, Ann
Coulter and Tom DeLay aren’t entirely wrong when they bluster that a
vote for Mr. McCain amounts to a vote for Hillary Clinton (or, for
that matter, Barack Obama). The Arizona senator’s otherwise
conservative record is closer to the Democrats on immigration,
campaign-finance reform, stem-cell research, global warming, oil
drilling in Alaska, waterboarding, Gitmo and, until a recent
flip-flop, the Bush tax cuts. In The New Republic, Jonathan Chait
concluded that Mr. McCain’s Senate votes made him “the most effective
advocate of the Democratic agenda in Washington” during the first Bush
term.
Read more...
A
Crisis of Faith By PAUL KRUGMAN, New
York Times, February 15, 2008
A decade ago, during the last
global financial crisis, the word on everyone’s lips was “contagion.” Troubles
that began in a far-away country of which most people knew nothing (Thailand)
eventually spread to much bigger countries with no obvious connection to
Southeast Asia, like Russia and Brazil.
Today, we’re witnessing
another kind of contagion, not so much across countries as across markets.
Troubles that began a little over a year ago in an obscure corner of the
financial system, BBB-minus subprime-mortgage-backed securities, have spread to
corporate bonds, auto loans, credit cards and now — the latest casualty —
student loans.
Read more...
Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War
By FRANK RICH, 02/10/2008
WHAT if a presidential
candidate held what she billed as “the largest, most interactive town hall in
political history” on national television, and no one noticed?
The untold story in the run-up
to Super Tuesday was Hillary Clinton’s elaborate live prime-time special the
night before the vote. Presiding from a studio in New York, the candidate took
questions from audiences in 21 other cities. She had plugged the event four days
earlier in the last gasp of her debate with Barack Obama and paid a small
fortune for it: an hour of time on the Hallmark Channel plus satellite TV
hookups for the assemblies of supporters stretching from coast to coast.
Read more...
A
Long Story By
PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, February 8, 2008
The economic news has been
fairly dire this week. The credit crunch is getting worse, and a widely watched
indicator of trends in the service sector — which is most of the economy — has
fallen off a cliff. It’s still not a certainty that we’re headed into recession,
but the odds are growing greater.
And if past experience is any
guide, the troubles will persist for a long time — say, into the middle of 2010.
The problems now facing the
U.S. economy look a lot like the problems that caused the last two recessions —
but this time in combination.
Read more...
Stimulus Gone Bad By
PAUL KRUGMAN, 01/24/2008
House Democrats and the White
House have reached an agreement on an economic stimulus plan. Unfortunately, the
plan — which essentially consists of nothing but tax cuts and gives most of
those tax cuts to people in fairly good financial shape — looks like a lemon.
Specifically, the Democrats
appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological
rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in
need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made
the stimulus plan effective.
Read more...
Single-payer Plan Deserves Second Look By
JEFF HAWKES, Staff, Intelligencer Journal, 01/15/2008
Unfairly derided as socialized
medicine, a single-payer system would take health-care finance away from
insurance companies and put it in the government's hands. But the government
wouldn't run hospitals or make doctors public employees. Rather, it would pay
for health care, just as Medicare today pays for the care of the elderly.
Expanding the role of
government is rarely popular, which explains why even the front-running
Democratic presidential candidates are not calling for a single-payer,
Canadian-style health system.
They Didn’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
By FRANK RICH, 01/06/2008
After so many years of fear
and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel good about our
country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an
old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of memory, suddenly as clear as
light.
They said this day would never
come,” said Barack Obama, and yet here, right before us, was indisputable
evidence that it had.
What felt good was not merely
the improbable and historic political triumph of an African-American candidate
carrying a state with a black population of under 3 percent. It was the palpable
sense that our history was turning a page whether or not Mr. Obama or his
doppelgänger in improbability, Mike Huckabee, end up in the White House. We
could allow ourselves a big what-if: What if we could have an election that was
not a referendum on either the Clinton or Bush presidencies? For the first time,
we found ourselves on that long-awaited bridge to the 21st century, the one that
was blown up in the ninth month of the new millennium’s maiden year.
Read more...
Edwards Reconsidered
By Norman Solomon, 01/03/08
There have
been good reasons not to support John Edwards for president. For years, his
foreign-policy outlook has been a hodgepodge of insights and dangerous
conventional wisdom; his health-care prescriptions have not taken the leap to
single payer; and all told, from a progressive standpoint, his positions have
been inferior to those of Dennis Kucinich.
But Edwards was the most
improved presidential candidate of 2007. He sharpened his attacks on corporate
power and honed his calls for economic justice. He laid down a clear position
against nuclear power. He explicitly challenged the power of the insurance
industry and the pharmaceutical giants.
Read
more...
Progressives, To Arms!
Forget about Bush—and the middle ground By Paul Krugman,
12/26/07
Here's a thought for
progressives: Bush isn't the problem. And the next president should not try to
be the anti-Bush.
No, I haven't lost my mind.
I'm not saying that we should look kindly on the Worst President Ever; we'll all
breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves office 405 days, 2 hours, and 46 minutes
from now. (Yes, a friend gave me one of those Bush countdown clocks.) Nor am I
suggesting that we should forgive and forget; I very much hope that the next
president will open the records and let the full story of the Bush era's
outrages be told.
But Bush will soon be gone.
What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement
that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush
bashing—what we need is partisanship.
Read more...
The Chester County
Democracy Caucus and Chester County Peace Movement are presenting
“A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash,” an award-winning film about oil
consumption, petroleum politics, and the impending end of the era of
cheap energy.
The film will be shown
Thursday, January 10, at 7PM at the West Chester Borough Hall, 401
East Gay St., in West Chester. Entry is free. Questions and discussion
will be moderated by Don Kennedy.
For a preview of the film,
click here. Questions
about the screening should be directed to MARATHONPT@aol.com.
A bill has already been introduced
in The House by Congressman John Conyers that effectively addresses the issue.
H.R. 676 expands Medicare to cover all citizens.
The scope of the healthcare crisis
in America is huge. It has very serious economic and moral implications. It is
crippling our nation in terms of protecting American manufacturing, competing in
the global economy and undermines our national security. It reflects badly on us
as a just and moral society. It is literally killing Americans in huge numbers.
Read
more...
IllinoisTeachers
Unions Endorse HR 676
Rejecting a “band-aid approach” to
healthcare, the University Professionals of Illinois, AFT Local 4100, endorsed
HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John
Conyers (D-Mich).
“Beyond the fact that 46 or 47
million uninsured Americans are forced to play Texas Hold ‘Em with their health
care, nearly a third of our health care dollars supports private insurance
bureaucracy and paperwork. That’s not health care. That’s waste,” said Sue
Kaufman, UPI Local 4100 president.
HR 676 would institute a single
payer health care system in the U.S. by expanding a greatly improved Medicare
system to every resident.
HR 676 would cover every person in
the U. S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital,
surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services,
dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including
for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care. HR 676
ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save billions annually by
eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance
industry and HMOs.
HR 676 currently has 87 co-sponsors
in addition to Conyers. Co-sponsors and bill text are
here...
HR 676 has been endorsed by 345
union organizations in 48 states including 94 Central Labor Councils and Area
Labor Federations and 29 state AFL-CIOs.
Read more about HR 676...
Latter-Day
Republicans vs. the Church of Oprah By
FRANK RICH, 12/16/2007
This
campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard
Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take
it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an
excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment while appearing on one of
the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.”
Pushed over the edge by his
peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s
sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst”
of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion,
shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist
faith.”
Read more...
After the
Money’s Gone By
PAUL KRUGMAN, 12/14/2007
On Wednesday, the Federal
Reserve announced plans to lend $40 billion to banks. By my count, it’s the
fourth high-profile attempt to rescue the financial system since things started
falling apart about five months ago. Maybe this one will do the trick, but I
wouldn’t count on it.
In past financial crises — the stock
market crash of 1987, the aftermath of Russia’s default in 1998 — the Fed has
been able to wave its magic wand and make market turmoil disappear. But this
time the magic isn’t working.
Read more...
New Health
Care Ad: If Dick Cheney Didn’t Have Government Care, ‘He’d Probably Be Dead Now’
In Iowa this week, 10
newspapers are running
a full
page ad advocating for a single-payer health-care bill, highlighting the
fact Vice President Dick Cheney has benefited from his government-provided
coverage. “If he were anyone else, he’d probably be dead by now,” the ad claims.
Cheney, as the ad notes, has a long history of health problems.
Read more...
Winter of
Our Discontent By
PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, November 26, 2007
“Americans’ Economic Pessimism
Reaches Record High.” That’s the headline on a recent Gallup report, which shows
a nation deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. Right now, “27% of
Americans rate current economic conditions as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’
while 44% say they are ‘only fair’ and 28% say they are poor.” Moreover, “an
extraordinary 78% of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, while a
scant 13% say it is getting better.”
What’s really remarkable about
this dismal outlook is that the economy isn’t (yet?) in recession, and consumers
haven’t yet felt the full effects of $98 oil (wait until they see this winter’s
heating bills) or the plunging dollar, which will raise the prices of imported
goods.
Health Care
Excuses By
PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, November 9, 2007
The United States spends far
more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life
expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced
country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a
large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.
Read more...
A
Catastrophe Foretold By PAUL
KRUGMAN, New York Times
“Increased subprime lending
has been associated with higher levels of delinquency, foreclosure and, in some
cases, abusive lending practices.” So declared Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal
Reserve official.
These days a lot of people are
saying things like that about subprime loans — mortgages issued to buyers who
don’t meet the normal financial criteria for a home loan. But here’s the thing:
Mr. Gramlich said those words in May 2004.
Read more...
"Why Not
Single Payer?" A Response to Paul Krugman and the Leading Democratic
Presidential Contenders.
Faster than you can say
the word "Sicko" and turn around 3 times, the Democrats' promise of health
care for all has gone from "Universal Medicare For All" to "Individual
Insurance Mandate". In Monday's New York Times, Paul Krugman defends that
reversal in an article entitled "Why Not Single Payer?"
Email Print Comment The
possibility, after the 2008 elections, of a Democratic-controlled Congress which
could pass Medicare For All (a/k/a Universal Single Payer Health Insurance) and
a Democratic President who would sign it, could bring about the best chance to
enact Medicare For All since Harry Truman first proposed it in 1948.
Yet without firing a shot and
with no debate, the leading Democratic Presidential Contenders--Hillary Clinton,
John Edwards and Barack Obama--as well as a good part of the Washington
progressive infrastructure of think tanks and lobbying groups--have given up the
fight for Medicare For All. Instead they propose variations of an Individual
Mandate plan developed over the past 15 years by the "moderate" corporate wing
of the Republican Party, a version of which Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts
and which Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing in California as an alternative to
the single payer.
Read more...
Call to
Action to Demonstrate Against Visit by President Bush
This coming Tuesday, October
2nd, concerned citizens are asked to meet at Penn Square at 7 pm to demonstrate.
This event will mark a massive opposition to Bush's continued failed policies,
both domestic and international.
Bush is expected to arrive in
the county Wednesday October 3rd in the morning or early afternoon. This
demonstration will also be used as to announce actions for the following day.
Time and time again throughout
his tenure, this president has ignored the will of Americans, both minority and
majority opinions. Because this president oversteps checks and balances afforded
in our constitution, we need to come together in mass to deliver a message that
George W. Bush, his record, and his presence are not welcome in our town!
The demonstration will be
hosted by the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice, and will be a peaceful,
community event. They encourage peace groups, religious organizations, student
groups, our elders, children, and everyone who rejects this President's agenda
to join us in this protest.
Participants should bring
their own signs, banners, and any other form of non-violent communication to
make their voices heard.
We Have Seen the Enemy -- And
Surrendered By Barbara
Ehrenreich, The Huffington Post
Bow your heads and raise the
white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R.,
Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares
not confront — the American private health insurance industry.
Read
more...
A Surge, and Then
a Stab By
Paul Krugman,
The
New York Times
To understand what's really
happening in Iraq, follow the oil money, which already knows that the surge has
failed.
Back in January, announcing
his plan to send more troops to Iraq, President Bush declared that "America will
hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."
Near the top of his list was
the promise that "to give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy,
Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis."
Read more...
Universal PA
Health Care Kay
Garrity-Roth Lititz, letter to the editor of the New Era
Hardly anyone I talk with is
aware of what's happening in our own Pennsylvania Legislature regarding health
care.
For example, we have two
extraordinary bills, HB 1660 and SB 300, called "Family & Business Health Care
Security Act."
If passed, these bills would:
Offer universal health care
coverage for all Pennsylvanians.
Be an efficient single-payer
system, eliminating "for profit" insurance companies.
Drastically reduce
administration costs.
Provide comprehensive
coverage, including (but not limited to):
Impeach the
Administration by
Lucy Mannix, Lancaster, PA A
Letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
Each day that passes we
hear of another shameless act by this current administration.
Obviously, the November elections mean nothing to them. The only way
to stop them -- to stop a war with Iran, to stop their holding and
torturing citizens without the accused knowing the charges, or to
seize a citizen’s entire assets -- is to start impeachment
proceedings. This is not a choice, it is mandated by the Constitution
that congress impeach an executive that refuses to uphold the
Constitution.
The fact that you may not
have enough votes to impeach does not absolve you of your
responsibility.
The fact that the
Democrats might suffer in the next election does not absolve you of
your responsibility.
The fact that it seems
that you have too many other things to worry about does not absolve
you of your responsibility.
You have not been able to
stop the surge. You have not been able to stop the funding of the war
in Iraq. You have not been able to stand up to Bush’s outrageous
requests to suspend the constitution. The only victory was the
expansion of the health care program for children and Bush is
finagling his way out of that one, even though you were supposed to
have enough votes to override a veto. This is very worrisome that the
people gave you the power in November and you squander it. We know
the Republicans don’t care ab out the constitution (save the 2nd
amendment), and now it seems the Democrats don’t either. I have yet
to contribute any money to the DCCC or the DSCC, because I have not
seen them earn my contribution.
You have achieved the
highest elected position in the land of any woman. Will your legacy
be that you condoned criminal behavior in the White House? Please, do
your job! Impeach Cheney, now! Impeach Bush, now! Impeach Gonzalez,
now!
The Progressive
Majority:
Why a Conservative America is a Myth by
Mark Halperin of ABC News
Democrats may win an
election here or there, but at its most fundamental level,
conventional political wisdom assumes America is a conservative
country: hostile to government, in favor of unregulated markets, at
peace with inequality, desirous of a foreign policy based on the
projection of military power, and traditional in its social values.
Read more...
The
Surge is Working??? by
Jerry Policoff
In her address to the VFW convention this past Monday, Hillary Clinton said,
"we've begun to change tactics in Iraq," and those changed tactics are
"working." She singled out Anbar Province as an example of how the surge is
“working.”
According to icasualties.org web site
we can see just how well the “surge” is “working.”
U.S. dead in Iraq year-to-date: 718 (up 65% versus same date in 2006)
Confirmed Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian deaths January thru July 2007:
14,629 (+ 109% versus same period in 2006).
U.S. wounded Jan – July 2007: 4,430 (+48% versus same period in 2006)
U.S. wounded first 2 weeks of August 2007: 305 (+ 46% versus same period in
2006).
Coalition casualties are down by 38% year-to-date in Anbar Province,
projecting to 222 dead by year’s end versus 356 killed there in 2006. 142
dead so far this year. Those numbers may be down, but one could hardly call
it a “pacified” zone. The rest of Iraq is not faring quite so well…
324 dead coalition soldiers year-to-date in Baghdad where the “surge” is
centered. That compares to 260 dead in Baghdad in all of 2006. Coalition
casualties are pacing 95% ahead of 2006 in Baghdad. This will be the first
year when we suffer more casualties in Baghdad than in Anbar.
Coalition dead are pacing ahead of last year in 8 of the remaining 13 Iraqi
provinces (Salahad Din, Babil, Diyalah, Basrah, Karbala, Qadisiyah, Maysan,
and Arbil) with 554 projected deaths in 2007 in those provinces versus 178 in
2006 (+211%). We have already suffered 245 dead in those provinces in 2007
versus 178 in all of 2006. Diyalah Province stands out with 95 coalition dead
so far in 2007 versus only 20 in all of 2006.
Finally, if we pull Anbar fatalities out of the mix we have suffered 522
coalition fatalities in Iraq so far in 2007 versus 515 in all of 2006. Those
numbers project to a 108% increase in coalition dead in Iraq minus Anbar
Province in 2007 versus 2006.
Can you Imagine if the surge wasn’t working?
Economy is Thriving... by
Jerry Policoff
George Bush tells us that the economy is thriving, and it is for him and his
wealthy friends, but the New York Times helps us put the numbers into context:
Adjusted for inflation, the average income for Americans was 1% lower in 2005
than it was in 2000.
Conversely, taxpayers earning more than $1 million per year increased in
numbers by 26% over the same period, going from 239,685 in 2000 to 303,817 in
2005.
Those earning $1 million or more per year represent just one-quarter of one
percent of all tax payers, but they reaped 47% of all income gains from 2000
to 2005.
Those million dollar or more earners also reaped 62% of the savings from the
Bush tax cuts.
11,433 Americans who earned $10 million or more per year reaped just under
$1.9 million each in tax savings. That group represents .000009 percent of
the population.
The nearly 90% of us earning under $100,000 per year saved $318 on average in
taxes, while paying considerably more for health care, food and gasoline.
Patriots Who Love the Troops
to Death By
Frank Rich, New York Times...
Gerald Ford spoke the truth when he called Watergate
"our long national nightmare," but even a nightmare can have its interludes
of rib-splitting farce.
None were zanier than the antics of Baruch Korff, a small-town New England
rabbi who became a full-time Richard Nixon sycophant as the walls closed in.
Korff was ubiquitous in the press and on television, where he would lambaste
Democrats and the media "lynch mob" for vilifying "the greatest president of the
century." Despite Nixon's reflexive anti-Semitism, he returned the favor by
granting the rabbi audiences and an interview that allowed the embattled
president to soliloquize about how his own faith and serenity reinforced his
conviction "deep inside" that everything he did was right.
Read more....
Impeach George Bush to Stop
War Lies, Deaths
JIMMY BRESLIN, Newsday.com, July 22, 2007
I am walking in Rosedale on this day early in the week while I wait for the
funeral of Army soldier Le Ron Wilson, who died at age 18 in Iraq. He was 17 1/2
when he had his mother sign his enlistment papers at the Jamaica recruiting
office. If she didn't, he told her, he would just wait for the months to his
18th birthday and go in anyway. He graduated from Thomas Edison High School at
noon one day in May. He left right away for basic training. He came home in a
box last weekend. He had a fast war.
Read more...
House Bill 1660 Introduced in PA House
House Bill 1660 was formally introduced in the PA House of Representatives on
Thursday, June 28th. Along with SB300 in the Senate, The Family And Business
Healthcare Security Act can finally advance towards becoming law. Our thanks
especially go to Representative Kathy Manderino of District 194 and the bill's
30 sponsors. She and her colleagues had the courage and common sense to see that
it is past time for reforming our broken health care system, and that the two
other proposals before them would, if anything, make our current situation
worse.
Read more...
Why Ignore Single-payer Option? by Jerry Policoff, (Letter to the Editor, Intelligencer Journal, June
19, 2007)
I was distressed to read the
article "Pa. GOP eyes health care fix" (Intell, June 13). Nowhere in
the article does it even mention that there is a third option on the table,
Senate Bill 300, which is the only bill offering single-payer, universal,
comprehensive health care and the only bill that will truly cover all
Pennsylvanians.
I know this omission was not the
result of ignorance because the same reporter covered a recent health care
forum at Franklin & Marshall College at which the relative merits of Gov.
Rendell's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" and the single-payer option
offered by SB 300 were debated. The story ran on page one the next day.
A single-payer health plan is
strongly opposed by the health insurance industry because they are the only
ones who stand to lose if it passes.
It pains me to think that
perhaps the media chooses to ignore SB 300 because the industry that opposes it
represents a major source of ad revenue.
Jerry Policoff, Lancaster
Intell Editor's note: The
governor has said that while he personally favors a single-payer plan, it
stands no chance of passage. Hence, the attention to the Rendell and GOP plans.
AMERICA’S HEALTH CARE CRISIS: THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
President Bush's Proposed 2008
budget cuts Medicare and Medicaid by more than $300 billion; slasheshealth professions training by 66%, slashes
scholarship for Disadvantaged Students; cuts the Healthy Start Infant
Mortality initiative, and cuts the Office of Minority Health.
Read
more...
Why Cuba Is Exporting Health Care
to the U.S. By Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine
06/05/2007
Cubans say they offer health
care to the world's poor because they have big hearts. But what do they get in
return?
They live longer than almost anyone in Latin America. Far
fewer babies die. Almost everyone has been vaccinated, and such scourges of the
poor as parasites, TB, malaria, even HIV/AIDS are rare or non-existent. Anyone
can see a doctor, at low cost, right in the neighborhood. Read more...
National Health Insurance -
Socialized Medicine? by Danny Schechter,
NewsDissector Blog
The relentless rejoinder by
the GOP “debate” participants to questions about health insurance and health
care are grave warnings about the evils of “socialized medicine”, and the evils
of government sponsored health insurance.
I doubt that I’m that much
smarter than anyone in the pantheon of journalism, so why is it that once
again, NOBODY….I mean NOBODY….rises, however meekly to suggest that we already
HAVE government health insurance….and that it works fine !
About 75 million Americans get
their health insurance/health care from MEDICARE AND/OR THE VETERANS’
ADMINISTRATION !
Is it possible that I’m the only
one in America who knows this?
If a candidate dared to bray at
me about “socialized medicine” when confronted with a question about health
care and health insurance, I would ask him if he felt that Medicare was
“socialized medicine” and if he therefore was assuring his fellow citizens
that, if elected, he would save them all from the execrable and dangerous damage
to their freedom that Medicare represents, by eliminating Medicare.
In the News
Policoff Questions
PABC and The Governor's Numbers
By Jerry Policoff, May 7, 2008
Last week the
Governor Rendell's office released numbers for PA Access to Basic Care
(PABC) in an effort to persuade the Pennsylvania Legislature to pass
his latest healthcare “reform” initiative. The media continues to
repeat the Governor’s bogus estimate of 767,000 uninsured Pennsylvania
adults (based on an incredibly flawed survey commissioned by the
Insurance Bureau).
The media does not question
why the Governor is still touting numbers based on a study that is now four
years old. In fact, the Governor has recently taken to rounding his own
numbers down to 700,000 in his public appearances. The media reports his
numbers as if they were factual even though they are contradicted by virtually
every other source including the much more statistically valid Census
estimates which are substantially higher than the Governor’s.
My own analysis of PABC is
that it is far worse than “Cover All Pennsylvanians” because it threatens to
actually deprive the poorest among us of insurance they currently enjoy under
Adult Basic. I also can’t see how they can possibly add 230,000 Pennsylvanians
to the insurance rolls within the budget they have proposed. Even if they do,
as Chuck Pennacchio points out, more Pennsylvanians will likely lose their
insurance than will gain it.
If one extrapolates national
trends to Pennsylvania, 4,000 Pennsylvanians per month can be expected to lose
their insurance. Since we have an older population, and hence a higher
Medicare enrollment let’s only assume 3,000 Pennsylvanians per month will lose
their insurance. That would translates to 360,000 currently insured
Pennsylvanians losing coverage within the next ten years, so even if PABC
meets its enrollment goals we would experience a net decline of 130,000
insured Pennsylvanians.
Perhaps what the Governor
and his surrogates mean when they advocate an “incremental” approach to health
care reform is that it will take many more years for the rest of us to lose
our insurance. Read more...
States Look to Rein In Private Medicare Plans State
officials say they are still receiving complaints of high-pressure
sales tactics that have led some beneficiaries to sign up for
unsuitable policies.
Missing: Single-Payer in Pennsylvania By
Trudy Lieberman, April 30, 2008
The Pennsylvania primary may
be over, but one of the campaign’s hottest and most fiercely contested
issues—whether the state on its own can reform health care and cover some
portion of the uninsured— is not. Right before the primary, David Brancaccio
on his weekly public affairs show NOW recognized that this reform debate is
very much alive in Pennsylvania. Called “Health Care Meltdown: Looking for
Solutions,” the NOW segment began by citing an all-important and alarming
stat—health-care costs in the state are running 11 percent higher than the
national average, and they’re rising twice as fast as the average wage. To
personalize the numbers, Brancaccio offered up Philadelphia coffee bar owner
Joe Cesa, who said he could not afford to cover his baristas, though he does
help them pay small doctor bills. To personalize the numbers even more, NOW
presented a couple in the insurance business, Diane and Sean Doherty, who pay
$1,000 a month for coverage and still face higher deductibles, larger
co-payments, and more out-of-pocket expenses. Many Americans feel similar
pain.
Read more...
Cleavage yes, Playboy no. by
Jerry Policoff, April 28, 2008
The National Defense
Authorization Act of 1997 bans the sale of “sexually explicit material” on any
property under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, but until now
the Defense has limited the ban to “an audio recording, a film or video
recording, or a print publication with visual depictions, produced in any
medium, the principal theme of which depicts or describes nudity or sexual or
excretory activities in a lascivious way.”
P4P has released a
new fact sheet promoting HB 1660 and SB 300, The Family and
Business Healthcare Security Act, for business. The fact sheet will
also be distributed through the
healthcare4ALLPA.org web site.
The Pennsylvania state House
has sent to the senate legislation that would supposedly help hundreds of
thousands of Pennsylvania's working adults gain access to affordable
health-care coverage while helping small-business employers with their
insurance costs.
The state House plan, called
Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care, also maintains the pledge to help
doctors pay their medical malpractice insurance premiums.
However, Jerry
Policoff disagrees and accused the Governor of "being deliberately deceptive
when he says his new legislation will help hundreds of thousands of
Pennsylvanians achieve 'access' to affordable health care coverage."
Gaining “access” and
actually attaining coverage are two very different things. In effect, “ABC
Basic” would replace “Adult Basic,” the plan originally created by Governor
Tom Ridge to use the Tobacco Settlement to help provide health insurance to
Pennsylvanians earning less than 200% of the federal poverty line. The new
plan currently covers roughly 50,000 Pennsylvanians with about 100,000 more on
the waiting list. ABC Basic, which is largely unfunded, but would cost over
$1 billion dollars by year five, would strive to add about 220,000
Pennsylvanians below 200% of
the poverty line to the roles of the insured, but not without a price to the
poor who might benefit from it. The cost of insurance for those currently
enrolled and for those who enter the program would go up by $9 to $10 per
month the first year with no guarantee that the amount would not jump further
thereafter. To a family living at or close to the poverty line that is a
hefty increase that not all will be able to pay. A newly unemployed person
falling within this category could apply for Adult Basic after 90 days, but
under ABC Basic the waiting period will be doubled to 180 days. Individuals
earning more than 200% of the federal poverty line will receive no benefits
from ABC Basic. Indeed many falling below 200% of the poverty line will not
gain access either because enrollment will be cut off when the money runs out.
Meanwhile Pennsylvania
doctors are being held hostage by the Governor, who has allowed the
MCare fund that subsidized malpractice insurance to expire, adding
thousands of dollars to the operating costs of Pennsylvania physicians. Our
already stressed caregiver community now faces the very real prospect of an
exodus from the state of hundreds or even thousands of doctors unwilling to
bear the additional cost the Governor’s action has imposed upon them. MCare
will not be re-instated unless and until ABC Basic becomes law, and then only
for those doctors who agree to fully participate in the program.
When the Governor claims
that he is working to “help hundreds of thousands of our working adults gain
access to affordable health-care coverage” he is engaging in a cynical hoax.
If he really cared about the health of Pennsylvanians he would throw his
support behind HB 1660 and SB 300, the single-payer legislation that would
extend comprehensive healthcare to every Pennsylvanian while paying its own
way and reducing out of pocket healthcare costs for the vast majority of
Pennsylvania families and businesses. Instead he publicly proclaims that he
will sign this legislation if it reaches his desk while working feverishly
behind the scenes to kill it.
Pitts
Votes to Cut Medicaid Benefits to the Poor
The House of
Representatives voted yesterday to block the Bush Administration from
cutting federal spending on Medicaid benefits for the poor by $13
billion over the next 5 years. Two-thirds of House Republicans joined
the Democrats in voting for the bill which had 220 co-sponsors from
both sides of the aisle.
The proposed Bush
White House cuts were opposed by all 50 State Governors. The final
vote was 369 to 62. Congressman Joe Pitts ever the champion of less
government spending unless it goes into the pockets of wealthy
corporations, joined the 62 members of Congress who voted to preserve
the cuts. The
Democratic candidate running for Joe Pitts' seat is Bruce Slater.
Go to Bruce Slater's
campaign website...
Americans
Concerned about Health Care
The new CBS/New York Times
poll out yesterday has several questions about health case that reveal that
costs connected with it are becoming an ever-greater concern of Americans.
86% are concerned about
the future cost of healthcare; 59% very concerned.
71% are concerned about the current cost of
healthcare; 42% very concerned.
Among parents with children under 18, 86% are
concerned about the future cost of healthcare; 62% very concerned.
Among parents with children under 18, 73% are
concerned about the current cost of healthcare; 47% very concerned.
24% list paying for healthcare as their biggest
personal economic concern right now.
71% are concerned about not having enough money
to pay for their current health care costs; 42% are very concerned.
86% are concerned about
the health care costs they and their family might face in the coming years;
59% very concerned.
On Wednesday, March 19th, the Pennsylvania
House Health and Human Services Committee, Chaired by Representatives Frank
Oliver (Democrat) and George Kenney (Republican) held a hearing on House Bill
1660, The Family and Business Healthcare Security Act, which covers all
Pennsylvanians at lower cost to business.
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
President Bill George testified early in the day, saying "It is a pleasure for
me to testify in strong support of House Bill 1660, known as the Family and
Business Healthcare Security Act, on behalf of the Pennsylvania 900,000
affiliate union members in the Commonwealth."
The bill was also endorsed
by the League of Women Voters, represented by Janice Horn, who spoke to a
packed room of over 150 people in the Capitol this morning. The bill would
replace the current healthcare payment system, which has become unsustainably
costly, according to Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare For
All Pennsylvanians (Healthcare4allPA.org).
Read more...
P4P has Yard Signs
for the single-payer health care initiative sponsored by P4P and
Healthcare4AllPA.
They are high-quality signs
with support rods that fit into corrugated openings in the bottom of the signs
and then insert firmly into the ground.
P4P
is not charging for the signs, but contributions are welcome and appreciated
(make checks payable to Health Care for ALLPA.org. Cash is also accepted).
1.4 million Pennsylvanians have no
health insurance. Millions more are underinsured. Untold thousands more think
they have good coverage until corporate-run insurance companies reject their
claim based on technicalities, "pre-existing" conditions—or denies life-saving
procedures arbitrarily defined as "experimental."
The Health and Human Services
Committee the the PA state legislature will be holding a hearing on the
“Family and Business Healthcare Security Act” (HB
1660).
This hearing is a critical step
towards eventual passage of single payer legislation in Pennsylvania. P4P
(Progressives4Pennsylvania is organizing a group to attend the hearing.
The hearing will commence at 10:00
AM on Wednesday, March 19 at the Majority Caucus Room #140 in the State
Capitol Building Harrisburg, PA 17120.
HEALTH CARE, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
Cabrini College
will host a one-day conference focusing on the Heath Care climate in
the State of Pennsylvania through the eyes of our Legislators;
Clinical Social Workers; Social Work Professors and Scholars; Local,
National, Global Economic
Human Rights Grassroots
Organizers; and members of Health Care 4 All PA. The Conference will
be held on February 29, 2008 from 8:30 am – 4:00 pm at Cabrini
College, Grace Hall, in Radnor, PA. View
flyer an registration form...
Disturbing News
about Hart Intercivic from Colorado
Another voting system has
been proven to be inaccurate and deeply flawed. Colorado’s Secretary
of State has posted a report from his “Voting Systems Testing Board”
on the Hart Intercivic eScan voting system. This is the same system
that is used in Lancaster County. The test panel found that stray
marks on a ballot may cause the optical-scan machines to count
inaccurately.
A stray mark can be read as an
overvote by the machines, ignored by the machines, or read as a vote while the
real vote is ignored. This is yet another voting system that was tested by an
Independent Test Laboratory and accepted by members of the National
Association of State Election Directors Technical Panel even though it clearly
does not meet the Voting Systems Guidelines for accuracy.
Read more...
Philadelphia is a Case for Single-Payer Health Care by Jerry Policoff. 01/25/2008
The city of Philadelphia is facing
a financial crisis because of the cost of its health care insurance.
An analysis of the numbers
makes a startling case for why single-payer makes so much sense.
The City of Philadelphia
employs 28,701 people and in 2008 will pay $13,030 per employee for health
insurance. The city payroll is $1,461,387,249, and the city will spend 26% of
that total ($374 million) on health insurance in 2008. Worse yet, the per
capita cost of health insurance is projected to increase by 23% from 2008 to
2012.
The current (2008) cost to
the City of Philadelphia for employee health insurance is $374 million (26% of
payroll).
A single-payer solution
would lower the current cost to $146 million or 10% of payroll. In reality single-payer plan
would save substantially more than $228 million per year since the cost of
health insurance is projected to increase by an average rate of nearly 5% per
year over the next five years.
Philadelphia also pays out
an average of $9,150 per year for health insurance for each of its 5,396
retirees. Retirees get health benefits for only 5 years after retirement. A
single-payer plan would obviously be a big boon to them because they could be
covered until the age of 65.
These are hard, cold
numbers. Can you make a better case for a single-payer system? What an
economic stimulus this would be to the city of Philadelphia.
Convention Message: 'Citizens Must Lead on
Single-Payer' by Chuck
Pennacchio, Ph.D,
Executive Director, Health Care for All Pennsylvania
In a blunt and
forthright message to more than 200-plus Pennsylvania single-payer healthcare
leaders gathered in Lancaster on Saturday, January 12. Representative Kathy
Manderino called for a "massive citizens movement" to educate, organize, and
mobilize support behind the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act," a
bill for which she is the primary sponsor in the State House (HB 1660) and for
which Senator Jim Ferlo is the lead sponsor in the State Senate. Echoing and
anticipating what members of a Business Panel, a Healthcare Providers Panel, and
colleagues on a Legislators Panel said during the three hour meeting, Manderino
added that single-payer legislation is "not going to pass overnight."
Kicking off the day of
discussion about the economic, moral, and democratic successes of
publicly-funded, privately-funded universal healthcare, keynoter Doctor Walter
Tsou presented the 87-nation case for "single-payer guaranteed universal
healthcare," and the
10-state case against "industry-centered 'universal' healthcare." Explaining in
detail the administrative waste, fraud, and abuse of the current for-profit
multi-payer system that creates "medical apartheid" in America among and between
the rich and non-rich, on the one hand, and the sick and healthy, on the other,
Dr. Tsou returned, time and again, to the cheaper, higher quality, universal
healthcare systems of all other advanced, industrialized nations.
Capping off the day of
presentations and questions-and-answers were a series of breakout sessions that
involved panelists and audience members brainstorming ideas for action items --
based initially on Business-, Healthcare Professional-, and Legislator-centered
interests --including educating, communicating, lobbying, organizing,
coalition-building, and fund raising.
The next steps for Healthcare
for All Pennsylvanians will include follow up to the above action items,
targeted lobbying, a visibility campaign, and draft language for a Citizen
Declaration of Guaranteed Healthcare (working name).
Uninsured Pennsylvania
(adults) according to Governor Ed Rendell: 767,000 (based on 2004 telephone
survey by the Pennsylvania Insurance Bureau that also concluded there were
an additional 133,000 uninsured non-adults (8% of the over-all population)
Uninsured Pennsylvanians
according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1,255,000/10% of the over-all
population. (not including people who are uninsured part of the year. If
included, those people would swell the total to approximately 1.5 million)
The Census Bureau includes non-telephone households in its sample, and bases
its projections on a statistically significant 3-year rolling average
Uninsured Pennsylvanians
according The Center for Disease Control: 10% of the population (2007 study
using methodology similar to the Census Bureau and arriving at similar
results)
Number of insured
Pennsylvanians in households spending more than 10% of pre-tax income on
healthcare: 1.6 million; more than 25%: almost a half million (Families
USA). These households are in serious danger of going into debt because of
healthcare bills even though they are insured.
Approximate number of
Pennsylvanians who are uninsured or insured but in danger of going into
debt because of healthcare bills. Over 3 million.
Number of uninsured
Pennsylvanians Governor Rendell anticipates providing with health insurance in
the first year if his healthcare bill passes: “at least 100,000” “and more
thereafter.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Doctors Give Massachusetts Health Reform a Failing Grade
01/14/2008
Over 250 Massachusetts
doctors have signed an open letter to the country warning that the health
reform model enacted by Massachusetts is failing and that a single payer
program is the only alternative.
“It is urgent that the rest
of the country know that Massachusetts is a living laboratory for the health
care reforms being pushed in California and by the Obama/Clinton/Edwards
campaigns. Right now the Gov. Romney/Massachusetts’ plan gets a failing grade
on the ground,” said Dr.Rachel Nardin, Assistant Professor of neurology at
Harvard Medical School.
Read more....
Don't Blame
the Pollsters by
Jerry Policoff, 01/08/2008
It looks like, when the dust
settles, Hillary Clinton will have won the New Hampshire primary by 3 to 4
points over Barack Obama. The turnout, as predicted, was exceptionally high.
So how did the pollsters do?
Polls released on January 7th:
ARG: Obama by 9
CBS: Obama by 7
Suffolk University: Obama by 1
Fox: Obama by 4
Rasmussen: Obama by 10
Marist: Obama by 8
Zogby: Obama by 10
Most of the polls had Obama
widening the lead during the last three days, and Zogby reported that late
deciders were going virtually 100% for Obama and Edwards, but MSNBC reports that
the exit polls show Obama and Clinton splitting the late deciders 38%/38%.
The big problem in my opinion
is that the pollsters continue to insist that they can predict who the “likely
voters” are, and it is that smaller sub-sample that they project from, even
though virtually every pollster has a totally different formula for determining
just who those likely voters are. Gallup, which is supposed to have one of the
most “sophisticated” and complex formulas (one that tends to exclude first-time
voters) got it more wrong than almost anybody.
The pollsters got Iowa all
wrong, and they got it even more wrong in New Hampshire. Frankly I even called
it for Obama this afternoon despite my oft-stated disdain for the pollsters
because I figured they couldn’t all be off by that big a margin. It just goes
to show you that you can never under-estimate the cluelessness of that venerable
institution.
It is time they stopped trying
to predict who is going to vote and who isn’t and just started projecting
registered voters. They’ll still get it wrong, but perhaps they’ll get just a
bit closer.
Any bets as to whether that
happens, and does any one doubt that the mainstream media will continue to
report the polls with a straight face as if they’ve gotten it right all along
and should be accepted as gospel? From now on if we pay any attention to these
polls we have no one but ourselves to blame.
And, as
I write this MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough is saying “don’t blame the pollsters.” I
rest my case.
Al Gore -
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
Oslo, Norway, 12/10/07
"...Seven years ago tomorrow, I
read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and
mistaken — if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a
precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve
my purpose.
"Unexpectedly, that quest has
brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray
what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those
who hear me will say, “We must act...” Read more...
Al Gore in
Bali
Congressman Launches Online Push for Cheney
Impeachment Hearings
Following
the release of an online op-ed advocating for Cheney impeachment hearings by
Representatives Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin
(D-WI), all Members of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Wexler has
launched an ambitious online effort to mobilize support for immediate
impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wexler, a senior member of the
House Judiciary Committee, has launched
www.WexlerWantsHearings.com
to mobilize grass roots and netroots support from across the nation in order
to increase pressure on Congress to hold hearings.
Read more...
Petition for Legislative Support of
"The Family and Business Health Care Security Act”
The Family and Business Health
Care Security Act (House Bill 1660) proposes universal single payer health
care coverage for all Pennsylvanians.
If enacted, this plan would ensure
guaranteed access to fair and effective health care regardless of prior
conditions or income status. HB 1660 and its Senate equivalent, SB 300,
address Pennsylvania’s skyrocketing health care costs and would reduce the
waste and inefficiency inherent in our current system. With over one million
uninsured Pennsylvanians and still more with inadequate coverage, the time for
comprehensive health care reform is now.
Health
Insurer Tied Bonuses to Dropping Sick Policyholders By
Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer,
November 9, 2007
One of the state's largest
health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many
individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.
Woodland Hills-based Health
Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about
1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior
analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part
on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents
disclosed Thursday showed.
The revelation that the
health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of
controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding
coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized.
Read more...
Pitts
Votes Against Student Loans Again
On Friday, Sept. 7th,
the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2669 making it easier for poor
students to obtain Pell Grants. The bill also phases in cuts in the interest
rates charged undergraduate student borrowers. The bill passed overwhelmingly
with 215 Democrats and 77 Republicans voting for it; no Democrats and 97
Republicans voting against it. Congressman Joe Pitts voted “Nay,” the only
member of the Pennsylvania delegation to vote against the bill.
HR
2669 was strongly opposed by the lending industry which may lose government
lending subsidies if President Bush signs the bill (and apparently he will).
Mr. Pitt'
There have
been good reasons not to support John Edwards for president. For years, his
foreign-policy outlook has been a hodgepodge of insights and dangerous
conventional wisdom; his health-care prescriptions have not taken the leap to
single payer; and all told, from a progressive standpoint, his positions have
been inferior to those of Dennis Kucinich. 
The
However, Jerry
Policoff disagrees and accused the Governor of "being deliberately deceptive
when he says his new legislation will help hundreds of thousands of
Pennsylvanians achieve 'access' to affordable health care coverage."
The House of
Representatives voted yesterday to block the Bush Administration from
cutting federal spending on Medicaid benefits for the poor by $13
billion over the next 5 years. Two-thirds of House Republicans joined
the Democrats in voting for the bill which had 220 co-sponsors from
both sides of the aisle. 
P4P has Yard Signs
for the single-payer health care initiative sponsored by P4P and
Healthcare4AllPA. 
In a blunt and
forthright message to more than 200-plus Pennsylvania single-payer healthcare
leaders gathered in Lancaster on Saturday, January 12. Representative Kathy
Manderino called for a "massive citizens movement" to educate, organize, and
mobilize support behind the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act," a
bill for which she is the primary sponsor in the State House (HB 1660) and for
which Senator Jim Ferlo is the lead sponsor in the State Senate. Echoing and
anticipating what members of a Business Panel, a Healthcare Providers Panel, and
colleagues on a Legislators Panel said during the three hour meeting, Manderino
added that single-payer legislation is "not going to pass overnight." 
Following
the release of an online op-ed advocating for Cheney impeachment hearings by
Representatives Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin
(D-WI), all Members of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Wexler has
launched an ambitious online effort to mobilize support for immediate
impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney.