It's not a new "third way out" but a reconciliation bill. It goes after the Ben Nelson bribery FMAP provision by eliminating it and expanding Medicare coverage to all states --trying to make up for one of the biggest mistakes during the Health Care Reform negotiations. Yet, by making no mention of the anti-abortion provision or the public option, it leaves the first one intact and the second one out of this bill.
The only interesting addition is the hot-button government oversight and regulation proposal for a Health Insurance Rate Authority. By calling upon the need for more transparency and fiscal responsibility, it kind of smacks every obstructionist that has invoked those two arguments in their efforts to stop health care reform.
Yet am with Ezra and Nathan : Will this bill really make a difference? My gut instinct hasn't been screaming no since last night. It's been completely revolted since the day universal health care & insurance was not declared as a mission and a right during these negotiations. And as Stupak is still in, immigrants are still discriminated from coverage and the public option is out, there's still no reason to cheer.
The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).
"The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us," NOW President Terry O'Neill said in a statement.
It takes a certain kind of moxie for an advocacy organization to basically go on the record as praising a group of machistas for taking away the rights from one group to allegedly favor another one. That's exactly what Janet Murguía and her platitude spewing machine just published on their website. Am particularly flabbergasted by the two following paragraphs:
The leadership of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) deserves special recognition for successfully fending off the efforts of some lawmakers to add onerous, costly, and unnecessary immigrant restrictions to health care that would have harmed U.S. citizen children. In addition, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the CHC, as well as Rep. Henry Waxman, deserve considerable praise for their efforts to secure and protect meaningful access to health care for Latino families, children, and all families of color.
Despite serious gains, however, the House bill is still too tough on legal immigrants and their access to public health care. For example, the bill would continue the mandatory five-year bar for legal immigrants to access public health services. To promote an equitable system for all, restrictions on legal immigrants’ access to federal aid such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) must be removed. Furthermore, roadblocks to insurance must be eliminated by removing excessive verification requirements that raise costs, increase barriers to health care, and have been proven to harm many U.S. citizens.
SHAME ON YOU JANET MURGUÍA! SHAME ON YOU FOR KISSING UP TO DESPICABLE WOMEN-HATING HISPANICS! SHAME ON YOU FOR SELLING OUT THE INTEREST OF ALL WOMEN, INCLUDING LATINAS, IN THE ALLEGED NAME OF IMMIGRANTS!
What am I missing with this political coat-hanger remedy to health care reform?
Here are the Democrats who voted to eliminate all insurance coverage for abortion procedures. Here are the Democrats who voted against health care reform. The following are the names that overlap:
Altmire
Barrow
Boccieri
Boren
Bright
Chandler
Childers
Davis (TN)
Gordon (TN)
Griffith
Kissell
Marshall
McIntyre
Melancon
Peterson
Ross
Shuler
Skelton
Tanner
Taylor
Teague
If denying women health care coverage for abortions was necessary to pass the bill, how come 22 of those 65 Democrats who voted against the Stupak-Pitts bill still voted against PelosiCare? I am missing the logic behind the need to throw women under the bus. After all, only 1 Republican voted with the Democrats.
Another roll call for tonight's vote on "PelosiCare" or the HR3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act. 39 Democrats voted against the measure. Many of these same people voted for the Stupak amedment; which blocks insurance companies from offering coverage for any abortion medical procedures.
I've bolded the names of the double negative voters for your convenience:
Adler Altmire
Baird Barrow Boccieri Boren
Boucher
Boyd Bright Chandler Childers
Davis (AL) Davis (TN)
Edwards (TX) Gordon (TN) Griffith
Holden Kissell
Kosmas
Kratovil
Kucinich
Markey (CO) Marshall
Massa
Matheson McIntyre
McMahon Melancon
Minnick
Murphy (NY)
Nye Peterson Ross Shuler Skelton Tanner Taylor Teague
Hot off the Congressional record, here are the names of the 65 democrats who thought it made sense to throw women under the proverbial Health Care Reform bus for the sake of getting the bill into conference.
Prohibit individuals who receive the affordability tax credits from purchasing a private insurance plan that covers abortion, despite the fact that a majority of health insurance plans currently cover abortion.
Result in a de facto ban on private insurance companies providing abortion coverage in the health insurance exchange, since the vast majority of participants would receive affordability tax credits.
Prohibit the public option from providing abortion care, despite the fact that it would be funded through private premium dollars.
The names of these champions of women's rights are found after the jump: more this way»
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These new-found tensions which are present at all stages in the real nature of colonialism have their repercussions on the cultural plane. In literature, for example, there is relative over-production. From being a reply on a minor scale to the dominating power, the literature produced by natives becomes differentiated and makes itself into a will to particularism. The intelligentsia, which during the period of repression was essentially a consuming public, now themselves become producers. This literature at first chooses to confine itself to the tragic and poetic style; but later on novels, short stories and essays are attempted. It is as if a kind of internal organisation or law of expression existed which wills that poetic expression become less frequent in proportion as the objectives and the methods of the struggle for liberation become more precise. Themes are completely altered; in fact, we find less and less of bitter, hopeless recrimination and less also of that violent, resounding, florid writing which on the whole serves to reassure the occupying power. The colonialists have in former times encouraged these modes of expression and made their existence possible. Stinging denunciations, the exposing of distressing conditions and passions which find their outlet in expression are in fact assimilated by the occupying power in a cathartic process. To aid such processes is in a certain sense to avoid their dramatisation and to clear the atmosphere. But such a situation can only be transitory. In fact, the progress of national consciousness among the people modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of the native intellectual. The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go farther than his cry of protest. The lament first makes the indictment; then it makes an appeal. In the period that follows, the words of command are heard. The crystallisation of the national consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes, and also create a completely new public. While at the beginning the native intellectual used to produce his work to be read exclusively by the oppressor, whether with the intention of charming him or of denouncing him through ethnical or subjectivist means, now the native writer progressively takes on the habit of addressing his own people.
