Thursday, June 18, 2009
Iran: What’s Next? No one knows. Will the leaders back off, confront, or find a yet to be defined middle ground?
As another day of defiance, concessions and ominous threats transfixed Iran’s capital, it was increasingly apparent on Thursday that there was no clear path out of a deepening confrontation that has posed the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in its 30-year history.
The situation had all the hallmarks of a standoff. Hundreds of thousands of silent protesters flooded into the streets. They roared a welcome to their champion, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition candidate for president whose reported defeat by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday’s election touched off the crisis.
Iran’s leaders offered conciliation, while simultaneously wielding repression.
With one hand, the government offered to talk to the opposition, inviting the three losing presidential candidates to meet with the powerful Guardian Council. While that reflected a continuing retreat from the initial insistence by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the election results were accurate, many Iranians saw the offer as an effort to buy time and shield the ayatollah from public accountability. The Guardian Council is loyal to him.
Even Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has kept a defiant if low profile, made an unusual public concession. After insulting the huge crowds that poured into the street by dismissing them as “dust,” the president issued a statement on state television, according to The Associated Press:
“I only addressed those who made riot, set fires and attacked people. Every single Iranian is valuable. The government is at everyone’s service. We like everyone.”
With the other hand, the government continued to arrest prominent reformers, limit Internet access and pressure reporters to stay off the streets, and security officials signaled their waning tolerance.
It was not clear whether Iran’s government, made up of fractious power centers, was pursuing a calculated strategy or if the moves reflected internal disagreements, or even uncertainty. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
Distraction: Blaming Foreign Meddling One track the Iranian regime is following:
Iran's Intelligence Ministry said on Thursday it had uncovered a terrorist plot linked to Israel and other foreign enemies to plant bombs in mosques and other crowded places in Tehran during the country's June 12 presidential election.
State television aired a statement by what it said was one of those involved in the plot saying Americans in neighboring Iraq had given them the know-how to build explosive devices.
The website of state broadcaster IRIB quoted a ministry statement as saying several terrorist groups had been discovered, adding they were linked to Iran's foreign enemies, also including Israel. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094007.html
HEALTH CARE
Insurers: Rescission- i.e. finding something in your past so as to ‘justify’ canceling your policy when you’re about to collect on that policy. The insurance industry – the folks that have run health care while adding 20 – 30% to its cost- figure ways to drop your coverage once you require expensive medical treatment. Insurance executives admit the practice and say it’s here to stay, that they’re “stopping fraud…”
My, do we need that public option.
Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.
The hearing on the controversial action known as rescission, which has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical bills despite paying insurance premiums, began a day after President Obama outlined his proposals for revamping the nation's healthcare system.
An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.
It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.
…A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.
The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.
The committee's investigation found that WellPoint's Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.
One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.
Committee members took turns, alternating Democrats and Republicans, condemning such practices.
"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). "But when times are bad . . . some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back."
"I think a company does have a right to make sure there's no fraudulent information," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). "But if a citizen acts in good faith, we should expect the insurance company that takes their money to act in good faith also."
Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."
The answer from all three executives:
"No."
… In November 2007, The Times reported that insurer Health Net Inc. paid bonuses to employees based in part on their involvement in rescinding policies. According to internal corporate documents disclosed through litigation, Health Net saved $35 million over six years by rescinding policies. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rescind17-2009jun17,0,1446563,print.story
Blue Dog Democrats Support GOP: Health Care Needs 60 votes They are opposing use of Reconciliation, employing majority rule. That has become, in these few months, seemingly an outlier position. Instead, the supermajority of 60 is being described as routine for Senate business. That’s not what we learned- and practiced- all these years, but there’s little media push-back thus far.
A bipartisan group of House members is demanding that special budget rules allowing Democrats to pass healthcare legislation by a simple-majority vote be taken off the table.
Democratic leaders have signaled they are open to using reconciliation to force President Obama's signature domestic issue through the Senate along party lines if need be.
The House group says that is not acceptable.
"Reconciliation is not an option for health care reform," read a news release sent out Thursday morning by Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition. "By rule, any bill that passes under reconciliation cannot make the changes needed to reform the American health care system," the release read. "Working together is the only option." http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bipartisan-group-wants-reconciliation-off-table-2009-06-18.html
Daschle to Obama: Drop the Public Option. Hardly surprising. The man was spineless as the Senate leader and as he took enormous amounts from the health insurance industry, I was thrilled when he dropped out after being nominating for the Health and Human Services job; Sebelius is a markedly superior choice.
The man once slated to head Barack Obama's health care system overhaul is now coming out against one of the chief components of that effort.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on Wednesday that the Obama White House would likely have to scrap a public option for health insurance coverage if it wanted to get the votes needed to pass systematic change.
"We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreement on one single issue," the Senator and one-time HHS Secretary nominee said, according to ABC News.
The remarks came after Dashcle, along with former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Howard Baker introduced his own proposal for health care reform that. That plan actually included a pseudo-version of a government-run option. The Daschle proposal calls for (among other things) public insurance pools to be administered by state government, not the feds.
In coming out against a public plan, Daschle adds kindling to an already roaring debate on health care reform. On Thursday morning, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean repeated the mantra that you cannot have effective legislation if it does not include a public option. At the White House on Wednesday, several state legislators who had met with current HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued the same point. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/18/daschle-urges-obama-to-dr_n_217329.html
Supremes: No right to DNA testing My, do we need to shed one of those “conservatives” on the Court.
The Supreme Court said today that DNA possesses a unique ability to free the innocent and convict the guilty, but the justices nonetheless ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to demand DNA testing of evidence that remains in police files.
In a 5-4 ruling, the court's conservative bloc agreed to stand back and allow states to work out the rules for new testing of old crime samples.
Already, 47 states and the federal government have enacted laws or rules that allow prisoners under some circumstances to obtain DNA tests, the high court said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the majority saw no need for "a freestanding and far-reaching constitutional right of access to this type of evidence." Upholding such a new right "would take the development of rules and procedures in this area of out of the hands of legislatures and state courts shaping policy in a focused manner and turn it over to federal courts," he said.
While Roberts stressed the virtues of judicial restraint, the dissenters said the court was abdicating its duty to seek justice.
Alaska does not give prisoners a right to obtain DNA testing, and William Osborne, a convicted rapist, belatedly sought testing of a semen sample. He and another man were accused of abducting a prostitute near Anchorage, beating her and leaving her nearly dead in the snow. She survived and identified Osborne as her attacker.
His lawyer did not seek DNA testing during his trial, but he sued to obtain the tests after his conviction. He even offered to pay for the test. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-dna19-2009jun19,0,5346519.story
Obama Fiscal Policy: Inadequate … at best. A consensus on regulatory reform amongst those who matter. Even Republicans blanched at the notion of further empowering the Fed:
(1) Regulatory Reform: Joe Nocera:
…in terms of the scope and breadth of the Obama plan — and more important, in terms of its overall effect on Wall Street's modus operandi — it's not even close to what [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt accomplished during the Great Depression.
Rather, the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself. Without question, the latter would be more difficult, more contentious and probably more expensive. But it would also have more lasting value....
If Mr. Obama hopes to create a regulatory environment that stands for another six decades, he is going to have to do what Roosevelt did once upon a time. He is going to have make some bankers mad. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/business/18nocera.html?ref=todayspaper
(2) The Fed:
The Federal Reserve, which has been at the center of the government rescue of the financial system, is now on the hot seat, with a debate on Capitol Hill emerging over its responsibility for the crisis and its proper role in preventing such events in the future.
Lawmakers are simultaneously annoyed that the Fed did not do more to rein in the bad lending and other financial excesses that led to the financial crisis and recession, and wary of the Fed's aggressive steps over the past two years to combat them. The criticism of the Fed is increasingly loud, bipartisan and from both chambers of Congress.
The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it wants to give the central bank more power to oversee risks to the U.S. economy even as it strips the Fed of power to protect consumers and limits its authority to make emergency loans. But the expansion of its role is already proving to be the most controversial element of the president's plan to revamp financial regulation.
As Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner testified before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday about the administration's sweeping proposal for financial regulation overhaul, senators repeatedly returned the discussion to provisions involving the Fed. Geithner envisions giving the central bank the power to directly oversee any firm that is large and complex enough that its activities could endanger the U.S. economy as a whole.
Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) quoted an academic who compared the administration's proposal to "a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon."
"Mr. Secretary, the Federal Reserve system was not designed to carry out the systemic risk-oversight mission the administration proposes to give it," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061804110_pf.html
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