The massive overhaul of our broken health care insurance system started late Saturday night when the US House of Representatives passed H R 3962 by a vote of 220 to 215. While this was a historic day, the victory was bittersweet as an unneeded amendment banning paying for abortion for anyone who buys insurance from the public option or the exchange was added at the last minute. Some believe that amendment will be removed when the House and Senate meet to combine their bills but one never knows.
The “Stupak of Michigan Amendment” showed up in the last few weeks of debate on the bill and, at least to me, was being seriously considered late Friday night when the frame work of debate was agreed on by the House leadership. The fear was the overall bill would fail unless Rep Stupak had his amendment voted on.
64 Democrats, including some women, like Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio 9th District), voted to restrict paying for abortion – effectively restricting a legal right women enjoy at this time.
What is ironic is the current bill includes allowing insurance to pay for “pray healing”.
So freaky religious people who believe praying can heal were more important than women’s rights.
And funny, in a WTF? way, 26 of those Democrats who voted to restrict paying for abortion voted NO on the final bill.
Here is the list of 26 Democrats who voted “Aye” on Stupak but “Nay” on the final bill:
Altmire, Barrow, Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Chandler, Childers, Davis (AL), Davis (TN), Gordon (TN), Griffith, Holden, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Peterson, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Tanner, Taylor, Teague
There is still work to be done as the reform debate moves to the Senate. Hopefully a final bill can be introduced and voted on before the end of the year.
An article written by Findlay Courier reporter Joy Brown about Rep Jim Jordan’s (R-Urbana) concern about the economy and jobs during the current health care reform debate is typical of the out of touch Republican party. Not only does it show Jordan’s misplaced priorites but the article also lacked any balance to the untrue GOP talking points included.
During a conference call, Jordan, R-Urbana, said legislators are too fixated on “a government takeover of health care when the focus should be on growing the economy and creating jobs.
“I think the one thing that’s hurting our ability to come out of this recession is that business owners are very nervous about what may be coming next in Washington,” said Jordan. Potential legislation could “make it tougher, more costly to do business. So instead of bringing back (laid off) workers, they’re holding off with that. That’s what’s contributing to the lack of growth that we would like to see in this economy,” he said.
Also on Thursday, representatives were debating a provision in the revised bill to restrict federal funding to pay for abortions.
“Of great concern to me is the idea of federal dollars being used to take the life of unborn children,” said Jordan.
Republicans should be as concerned for the living as they are for the unborn.
I was disappointed that this article lacked any comments or information about the actual reform bill before congress now instead of the usual Republican talking points. Where was the balance?
It just amazes me that in the 21st century someone like Mr. Jordan would politicize health care and show a lack of respect for basic human dignity. I don’t seem to recall a concern for the budget or taxes when spending obscene sums on the military or bailing out the banks who made bad decisions.
How a member of Congress would say there is going to be “government run” health care when that isn’t even true and even if true we already have some programs like Medicare and Veterans health care that are, so any additional programs would NOT be a totally foreign concept. Nothing in the current plan says people have to give up their private insurance.
Why is it that we seem to be the ONLY country which hasn’t solved this issue? Why is it that with a private “for profit” system that spends the most per person and costs the most per person we don’t have the top health care system – we rank 37th – lower than Costa Rica. When will people be outraged because approximately 40,000 people die each year because they either don’t have insurance or can’t afford medical care to begin with.
Health care is one of THE biggest expenses for businesses today and true reform as noted in the current reform package is a long time in coming and will lead to those businesses finally seeing a lowering of their health care expenses for the first time ever. That would lead to more opportunities to grow their businesses which could in fact lead to more jobs.
Doing nothing to reform the health care system is a ticking time bomb that WILL be worse than a terrorist attack.
Any rational human knows that Fox News isn’t a real news network. They blur the line between opinion and news reporting to the point that it all seems the same to them. The White House was only expressing the consensus of the rational people in pointing it out in public and on the record. Like any other right wing group Fox now claims to be a victim. The facts just don’t support Fox News.
Those of us who watch mainstream news programs and the cable networks have known for years that Fox News has been the mouth piece of the Republican Party. The media watch dog site Media Matters even has a video clip showing how Fox opinion bleeds into its news reports:
Fox and other conservatives have come back and said well President Obama and the Democrats have MSNBC as their official voice. The problem with that false equivalency is that a rational person can see a distinct difference between MSNBC’s news reports and their opinion programs. The other proof against such a charge by Fox is that on some of the shows like Hardball and Countdown the hosts and guests disagree with the current administration and say so but that doesn’t get passed on in the news reports like we see time and time again with Fox News.
A more recent dust up involved a reported exclusion of Fox to interview a Treasury official. Fox was crying all day about censorship and then claiming the other networks came to its defense and refused to interview the guy unless Fox was included.
Like most everything coming out the mouths at Fox, the incident didn’t happen the way it claims.
The version Fox has pushed all day is that the network was excluded from an interview roundtable with Feinberg yesterday, and that bureau chiefs from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN came to Fox’s defense.
TPMDC dug into it, and here’s what happened.
Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).
But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.
Simple as that, we’re told, and the networks don’t want to be seen as heroes for Fox.
But this is also why a news network with only about 3 million viewers can have an effect, good or bad, on a national discussion.
The other networks live inside the same beltway bubble and so when Fox harps a story for many days the others think there is a story there and end up picking it up too – even when it is false or not what it seems.
Take the above incident with the Feinberg interview. Even though it wasn’t a case of the White House saying “No Fox” the CBS Evening News had a story about the non-story and used Fox’s view of it.
(CBS) After months of taking incoming fire from the prime-time stars of Fox News, the Obama White House is firing back, charging that FOX News is different from all other news.
“FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director.
“If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing, and if it’s operating as a news outlet, then that’s another,” Mr. Obama said.
And the White House has gone beyond words, reports CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield. Last Sept. 20, the president went on every Sunday news show – except Chris Wallace’s show on FOX. And on Thursday, the Treasury Department tried to exclude FOX News from pool coverage of interviews with a key official. It backed down after strong protests from the press.
“All the networks said, that’s it, you’ve crossed the line,” said CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid.
It also needs to be pointed out that the White House has never tried to censor Fox or prevent it from covering the White House, it just hasn’t favored it on equal footing to NBC, CBS, or ABC.
Its not like an administration has never tried to freeze out or isolate a network before. In the last administration the Bush Whit House went after MSNBC and NBC while holding meetings with only right wing talk show hosts:
Again the problem with Fox is that it is more a talk radio style program rather than a real journalistic news organization. They pass off lies, rumors, and smears as facts and it bleeds into their “news” reports. The other news programs thinking they are missing a story then report on those lies, rumors, and smears which give them a “creditability” it couldn’t gain on its own just by being “reported” by Fox.
That’s what Fox does – blow up lies, rumors, and smears into stories that don’t deserve to be stories and wouldn’t be if real journalism was being practiced in this country.
What do you do when you want to keep special interest groups from telling your state what to do? You change the state constitution. But in a bit of irony it is a special interest group that is wanting the change to prevent another special interest group from doing their job.
State issue 2 will create a 13 member board that would set regulations on the care of livestock and poultry in Ohio.
This proposed amendment would:
1. Require the state to create the Livestock Care Standards Board to prescribe standards for animal care and well-being that endeavor to maintain food safety, encourage locally grown and raised food, and protect Ohio farms and families.
2. Authorize this bipartisan board of thirteen members to consider factors that include, but are not limited to, agricultural best management practices for such care and well-being, biosecurity, disease prevention, animal morbidity and mortality data, food safety practices, and the protection of local, affordable food supplies for consumers when establishing and implementing standards.
3. Provide that the board shall be comprised of thirteen Ohio residents including representatives of Ohio family farms, farming organizations, food safety experts, veterinarians, consumers, the dean of the agriculture department at an Ohio college or university and a county humane society representative.
4. Authorize the Ohio department that regulates agriculture to administer and enforce the standards established by the board, subject to the authority of the General Assembly.
What is interesting to note is under number 2 above that the standards are tested against how much it would cost to implement them. So while the board would come up with some standards the best ones really wouldn’t be used if they cost too much.
Basically what happened was that the Ohio agribusiness concern went to the legislature and asked for the amendment. The amendment, unlike a regular law, can’t be changed easily if at all once passed. That’s why they wanted an amendment.
Ohio agri-business leaders appealed to state lawmakers earlier this year to place the issue on the ballot after the Humane Society of the United States said it planned to work in Ohio to push for more humane treatment for livestock and poultry. Similar reforms are already in place in seven states, including Michigan.
The thrust of the Humane Society’s proposal would be rules that ban treatment of animals that prohibit them from turning around, lying down, standing up and fully extending their limbs.
Issue 2 supporters blast “out-of-state interests” for wanting to make changes that would harm the Ohio economy and put a kink in the food supply chain.
Why would Ohio agribusiness “blast” the Humane Society? Don’t they both have the animal welfare in mind? As we can see this issue is all about the money and not the animals. That’s why people should vote No on State Issue 2.
*Update 10/31/2009*
The pro Issue 2 side has put out two commercials recently. One claimed that passing State Issue 2 would not prevent contaminated foreign grown food from being brought into Ohio. Obviously that is not true since the text of the amendment doesn’t say that, recent incidents of contaminated food were from US growers and producers, and existing food safety laws exist to take care of such incidents when they happen.
The 2nd commercial shows Governor Stickland and other political leaders at a rally in support of the issue. It is simply an appeal to authority. If one looks at the text of the issue and the reasons why it was put on the ballot one can see it was about money and not protecting Ohio.
John Harwood of NBC gave a quote from anonymous White House source that was disparaging toward progressive bloggers. Those bloggers have been giving the current administration heat for some of their actions and policies that were opposite of what was promised during the 2008 campaign. My response to that quote is in the title of this post.
Progressive bloggers were in an uproar Sunday night after a White House “adviser,” speaking on condition of anonymity, urged them to “take off their pajamas” and get serious about politics.
NBC White House correspondent John Harwood relayed the quote during a segment he shot for Nightly News following a massive gay rights rally in Washington.
