Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Health Care: Dems Considering Public Option “Trigger” This would be bad news: allowing the plan to go forward without the public option, claiming that ‘certain’ conditions would trigger it becoming a choice. The better news is that Obama has sent a new letter to Senate Democrats openly championing the public option, something he wouldn’t do as recently as a fw weeks ago.
The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are debating a health care reform outline that will insist upon a public option for insurance but leave open the possibility for it to be kicked in via triggers.
Multiple Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post that the White House and key members of the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committees are in the process of hammering out key principles on health care reform -- with a meeting scheduled at the West Wing this afternoon. One of the components will be music to progressive ears: that any bill includes an option publicly run health insurance coverage. But it also comes with a caveat that could engender opposition from that very same constituency.
A trigger would pave the way for public option to come into place only after certain market conditions are met -- mainly if private insurance companies are unable to achieve various metrics for coverage within a certain time frame. The proposal would placate many of the private health care actors who consider a public plan the first step towards a single-payer system. Progressives, however, view it as reform in name and not substance.
"This is really, obviously, a mechanism to kill the public plan," said one progressive health care reform advocate. "We will see what comes out, but the fact that they are debating this is problematic."
An official at the White House said he could not immediately confirm the report.
The proposal for a public plan with triggers has been welcomed among some moderate Democrats who want to forge a compromise on what is shaping up as the major fault line on health care reform. Sen. Max Baucus, one of the major players in the debate, has offered his support for this approach. As have Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).
That said, opposition to the proposal is fierce. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/obama-senate-dems-conside_n_210390.html?view=print
Union Trashing: NY Times fella the culprit; pathetic
The Morning Joe crew was bashing on unions this morning, when the NYT's Andrew Ross Sorkin, a guest, declared:
"Name a successful unionized company. Think. You're going to go to [commercial] break before you come up with one. And that's the problem." http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2658246
Mika Brzezinski, [Z’s daughter], Jim Cramer and Joe Scarborough, former GOP rep, unsurprisingly joined in, with Scarborough noting, “Unions cripple the system that makes a company work.” Sorkin apologized Wednesday night. One tentative list that emerged:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/06/successful_unionized_companies.php
Cuba: A Step Toward Acceptance
The Organization of American States on Wednesday revoked a 1962 decision suspending Cuba from the multinational group.
Patricia Rodas, the minister of foreign relations for Honduras, made the announcement at the conclusion of the two-day meeting of the 35 member nations.
The United States, which led the push to suspend Cuba at the height of the Cold War, was represented at the meeting by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
U.S. officials had no immediate comment. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/03/cuba.oas/index.html
Now There Are Six:
The New Hampshire House has approved a bill to strengthen legal protections for religious organizations related to same-sex marriage, and the governor says he will sign same-sex marriage into law.The House approved the measure on a vote of 198-176. Supporters of same-sex marriage erupted in cheers and applause as the total was announced. http://www.wmur.com/politics/19644417/detail.html
Stephen Colbert, Newsweek Editor I'm a fan- apart from brilliant writers, he's obviously well-informed and impressively quick. Jon Meacham, Newsweek editor was equally impressed:
…Newsweek's Jon Meacham announced that Stephen Colbert will be the magazine's guest editor for the issue hitting newsstands on June 8.
Colbert's guest stint will mark the first time that Newsweek, which recently underwent it's second major design reconstruction in three years, has ever used a guest editor in its 76-year history. Meacham told The Observer how the idea came about.
Mr. Meacham said the idea was born from a lunch he had with Mr. Colbert at Gabriel's near Columbus Circle.
"I was just very impressed with the range of his knowledge and he had an almost encyclopedic feel for anything that came up," said Mr. Meacham. "As we think about ways to both inform and surprise readers of the magazine, the notion of having him as a guest editor seemed like a good one." http://gawker.com/5276724/stephen-colbert-to-guest-edit-newsweek
The Worst President Ever: Bush? Or, Reagan? Robert Parry makes the case for the latter.
With his superficially sunny disposition – and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments – Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.
In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
When it came to cutting back on America’s energy use, Reagan’s message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.
The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn’t invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.
Reagan pushed for deregulation of industries, including banking; he slashed income taxes for the wealthiest Americans in an experiment known as “supply side” economics, which held falsely that cutting rates for the rich would increase revenues and eliminate the federal deficit.
Over the years, “supply side” would evolve into a secular religion for many on the Right, but Reagan’s budget director David Stockman once blurted out the truth, that it would lead to red ink “as far as the eye could see.” http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/060309.html
Education and Gender:
It's college graduation season, and according to data available from the U.S. Department of Education, an estimated 3,092,800 degrees will be granted this academic year (2008-2009) for Associate's degrees (714,000), Bachelor's degrees (1,585,000), Master's degrees (647,000), Professional degrees for MD, DDS and JD (91,000) and Doctor's degrees for Ph.D and Ed.D (55,800).
Of the more than 3 million college degrees for the Class of 2009, women will earn close to 60% of those degrees (1,849,200), or almost 149 degrees for every 100 degrees earned by men.
And it's now official: Women dominate men at every level of higher education, in terms of degrees conferred. Here's the breakdown for graduates of the class of 2009:
Associate's Degrees: 167 for women for every 100 for men.
Bachelor's Degrees: 142 for women for every 100 for men.
Master's Degrees: 159 for women for every 100 for men.
Professional Degrees: 104 for women for every 100 for men.
Doctoral Degrees: 107 for women for every 100 for men.
In fact, the last time men had more degrees than women at any level was the Class of 2006, which had slightly more men than women for both Professional and Doctoral degrees. For the other levels, it hasn't been even close for decades. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/06/women-dominate-higher-education-at.html
-R
