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Franken: Dems Unified Behind 'Historic' Health Reform Legislation

2009-12-19T20:46:01Z

The Senate Democratic caucus is unified following a Saturday meeting and poised to pass a much-weakened health care reform proposal before Christmas day.

"The mood was great," said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) of the party gathering earlier Saturday. "It was a very, very good mood, even [among] those of us who have disappointments about what is and isn't in."

Though it's far from what progressives and, according to surveys, most voters wanted in a final bill, Franken, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said that it's "an enormous step forward."

"I'm convinced this will pass. I believe we have the 60 votes," he said. Franken was encouraged that he and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) were able to insert into the final bill a provision that would require insurers, for individual and small group plans, to spend 80 percent of the money they take in on health care. Large plans would be required to spend 85 percent.

"This is something that a lot of states have tried unsuccessfully to put on medical loss rations and insurance companies fight them and they fight this for a reason. So I'm very, very happy with this. I think it's a big, big way to keep them in check," said Franken. "I think it's one of the biggest tools."

Insurers refer to spending on health care as a "medical loss." The medical loss ratio currently averages 70 percent across the nation. Minnesota law sets it at 91 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office, however, determined that the 90 percent requirement that Franken and Rockefeller had pushed for amounted to nationalization of the industry. The CBO didn't explain how it came to the seemingly arbitrary figure of 90 percent. Franken said he and Rockefeller met with the CBO chief Doug Elmendorf about his determination and came away uncertain of the reasoning. Elmendorf, who is not an elected official, deemed that 80 percent for small groups and 85 for large didn't amount to nationalization. In the American system of government, what Elmendorf says, goes, so regardless of the rationale, the bill includes the figures he dictated.

Beyond Elmendorf's weakening of the provision, it also includes a potentially gaping loophole.

The Health and Human Services Secretary, according to the bill's language, "may adjust the rates...if the Secretary determines appropriate on account of the volatility of the individual market due to the establishment of State Exchanges."

Franken said that the language was intended to created stability in the market so that if there are major fluctuations, insurers would have flexibility. An HHS secretary sympathetic to the industry, however, would have unilateral authority to effectively repeal the provision.

Overall, Franken said, his colleagues are happy with the bill. "All of us believe that we need to make basic reforms and that this does that," he said of the product. "It's an enormous step forward. It's something we can build on. Social Security passage was just widows and orphans." Social Security gradually expanded over time.

"I think it's a really important, really historic bill, but I'm just worried that we don't over-promise but at the same time we do tell them all the great things the bill has," said Franken.

The bill, as expected, does not include a public health insurance option or allow people aged 55-64 to buy into Medicare.

In order to win the vote of Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, the bill includes extreme restrictions on which private health insurance plans can cover abortion. It also picks up Nebraska's tab for expanded Medicaid coverage forever.

After moving in a more conservative direction for several days, the bill reverses course, ever so slightly, in some areas.

Reid's original bill had allowed for a cap, in some cases, in annual coverage by insurers. The new bill removes that allowance, meaning that insurers can not place limits on the amount of coverage they provide, either over the course of one year or over a person's lifetime.

The bill raises revenue by taxing indoor tanning salons, which are associated with health risks. It also increases the Medicare payroll tax by 0.9 points for individuals making more than $200,000 per year and married couples earning above $250,000.

A mandate that all Americans without coverage purchase health insurance remained in the bill and the fine for those who don't do so was increased. There is an exemption for folks who can prove they can't afford to buy insurance. As a candidate, Obama attacked his rival Hillary Clinton for proposing such a mandate.

Obama also attacked his general election opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for proposing a tax on high-cost insurance plans. The Senate bill includes just such a tax, with Obama's endorsement.

According to the CBO, the new version will provide coverage to 94 percent of Americans - though many of them will have it "provided" to them by force of a mandate. It'll also reduce the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years and 1.3 trillion over 20 years.

In place of a public option, people will have access to two national private plans, one of them nonprofit, overseen by the Office of Personnel Management, which is in charge of federal employee plans.

The bill includes strong insurance reforms that prevent companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions or from dropping people simply because they get sick - a practice known as rescission. But serious questions remain as to how enforceable those provisions will be.

California recently dropped an attempt to enforce its anti-rescission law against a major insurer, saying that it was financially outgunned by the insurer's legal team.

The rescission law, according to the legislation, "shall not apply to a covered individual who has performed an act or practice that constitutes fraud or makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage."

Insurers today routinely claim that patients engaged in "fraud" or "intentional misrepresentation" when dropping them from coverage. Much depends on who defines the terms in the bill.

It won't be the federal government. There will be no federal agency tasked with overseeing the enforcement of the bill's rules. Rather, a Senate leadership aide told reporters in a briefing Saturday, individual states will police the new system.

That's a task the California Department of Managed Health Care was unable to perform when battling Anthem Blue Cross, which has rescinded 1,770 policies since 2004.

"In each and every one of those rescissions, [Blue Cross has] the right to contest each, and that could tie us up in court forever," the department's director, Cindy Ehnes, told The Associated Press. A million-dollar fine was announced in March 2007, but has not been enforced.

Obama Speaks On Senate Health Reform Deal: WATCH LIVE

2009-12-19T16:15:36Z

Senator Harry Reid and other Democratic Senators are discussing the health care agreement reached among the caucus. Watch it live below.

WATCH:

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Ben Nelson Press Conference: Senator Announces Support For Health Reform Bill (VIDEO)

2009-12-19T16:08:11Z

Senator Ben Nelson has announced that he will support the health care reform bill in the Senate, effectively providing Democrats with the 60th vote needed to pass the bill and send it to conference with the House.

In a press conference explaining his decision, Nelson noted that he had successfully fought off efforts to include a public option as well as the inclusion of language limiting the availability of abortions. Nelson also warned that if in conference with the House the bill is 'materially changed' from what he agreed to he reserves the right to withdraw his support and vote against cloture the next time around.

Read more details here. Watch Nelson's press conference below.

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What's In Health Care Proposals For 5 Americans

2009-12-19T15:10:12Z

As Congress gets closer to a final health care bill, many Americans want to know: What's in it for me?

The answer is: It depends.

On your age and household income. Whether you own a business and whether it's big or small. Whether you're insured now and who provides that insurance. In the end, it will depend on how House and Senate negotiators will merge the proposals, and how their vision gets translated into regulations.

Five Americans shared their stories with The Associated Press. Here's an educated guess on how the health care package taking shape in Congress might affect them.

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Name: Holly Brown

Home: Round Lake, Ill.

Age: 28

Employment: Student, working part time, receiving unemployment benefits.

Household income: about $15,000.

Coverage: Insured, but struggling to afford it.

Brown was laid off last year from a job she'd held for four years. She's stayed insured because of the government COBRA program, which allows workers to remain on a health plan for 18 months after they leave their jobs, if they pay the premiums.

Brown works part time and studies medical imaging at College of Lake County. She has a chronic lung condition and was in the emergency room in November with flu and pneumonia. She's paid about $1,000 in medical bills this year that her insurance didn't cover.

She doesn't know how she'll pay her $500 premium this month because a government subsidy that helped her afford the premium has expired.

"It's scary to think about what's going to happen if I can't make the payment by the end of the month," Brown said.

The health care overhaul taking shape in Congress would require her to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. She could pick a plan offered through new state-based insurance exchanges and she would qualify for a subsidy to help pay her premiums because she makes less than 400 percent of the poverty level ($43,320 for an individual in 2009). But all those benefits wouldn't kick in until 2013 in the House bill (2014 in the Senate legislation). Because of her medical problem, she may be able to qualify for coverage during the transition period by going through high-risk insurance pools called for in the legislation.

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Name: Glenn Nishimura

Home: Little Rock, Ark.

Age: 60

Employment: Consultant to nonprofit groups.

Household income: $55,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Uninsured since COBRA expired in May.

Nishimura left a full-time job with benefits in October 2007 thinking he'd be able to find another good position.

Then the recession hit.

He's now a self-employed consultant. Since May, he's been without health insurance. For 18 months, he bought insurance through the COBRA program. When that ran out, he tried to find other coverage. He's been turned down by five insurance companies because he has high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels, even though he's otherwise healthy, has never been hospitalized and controls his conditions through diet and exercise.

"I could get H1N1 or get into an accident and I would be potentially bankrupt," Nishimura said. "It's an untenable situation."

The Medicare buy-in proposal considered in the Senate could have helped Nishimura get insurance, as would portions of both the House and Senate bills that would ban denials for pre-existing conditions. But opposition from moderates and a few liberals is forcing Senate Democratic leaders to scrap the idea of a buy-in to get a bill completed.

Nishimura said he e-mailed President Barack Obama suggesting that lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 or 60 would create jobs. "I know a lot of people who would like to retire early, but can't because of health care," he said.

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Name: David W. Brown

Home: Philadelphia

Age: 47

Employment: Owner of BrownPartners, an advertising and marketing agency. Seven employees. $336,000 in annual wages paid.

Household income: $150,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Provides health, dental and vision coverage to employees.

An ad agency owner, Brown has been able to offer health insurance to his seven employees, but has had to cut benefits because of rising costs. Like other business owners, Brown is trying to figure out what will emerge from Congress and how it will affect him.

"We haven't been able to be as generous as we have in the past," Brown said of the insurance plan he offers his workers. "The good thing is, not a lot of folks are leaving because somebody else has a better plan."

Health care overhaul might help Brown and his wife with coverage for their daughters, now age 17 and 20. The proposals would allow young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans as dependents into their mid-20s.

Brown would be able to shop for insurance for his workers through a health insurance exchange. Neither of the bills would require him to provide coverage. Both bills provide tax credits to help small companies with average wages of less than $40,000 provide health insurance. But pay levels in Brown's agency are above that cutoff.

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Name: Robert Hansen

Home: Seattle homeless shelter

Age: 58

Employment: vendor, Real Change street newspaper.

Household income: $12,000, including tips.

Coverage: Uninsured.

Hansen used to work selling beer and peanuts at Seattle's now-demolished Kingdome. "Age caught up to me, running up and down the stairs, the physical labor," said the 58-year-old Seattle native.

Hansen has been homeless since 1994. A top-selling vendor of a weekly newspaper called Real Change, he makes about $1,000 a month. He eats his evening meal and finds a bed at a Catholic Community Services shelter.

The tingling in his feet and the occasional purplish color of his hands worry him. It's been so long since he's had a thorough physical exam that he's not sure if his symptoms could mean a serious health problem such as diabetes. He's uninsured and finds care in community clinics and emergency rooms.

Hansen and most other poor adults without young children don't qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program that helps low-income families with health care. The proposals in Congress would expand Medicaid coverage to people such as Hansen.

In the leading Senate proposal, people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,404 for an individual in 2009) could enroll in Medicaid. The House bill makes the cutoff 150 percent of the poverty level ($16,245 for an individual in 2009).

___

Name: Carol McKenna

Home: Pembroke Pines, Fla.

Age: 68

Employment: Retired payroll coordinator

Household income: About $39,000 from Social Security and some earnings by husband as mattress salesman.

Coverage: Medicare Advantage policy administered by AvMed Health Plans.

If McKenna believes the claims of the insurance industry and many Republicans, she and her husband are among the most at risk to be hurt by Congress' health proposals. If Democrats are telling the truth, they will be among those with the most to gain.

The 68-year-old retiree refrains from any worry, or any premature celebration. She simply believes, "It'll work out."

McKenna and her husband, Morty, who turns 78 on Sunday, are in private Medicare Advantage plans, which many Democrats have called wasteful and which have been made a prime target for major cuts. But Morty McKenna also falls in the coverage gap in Medicare's prescription drug program – the "doughnut hole" – that the health bills have promised to close. More than 3 million Medicare beneficiaries a year hit this gap and start paying the full cost of their drugs until they qualify for catastrophic coverage.

She said the government must "get rid of the abuses" and that pharmaceutical companies "need to step up and be accountable." For now, though, she's just waiting to see what actually happens.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky in Miami, Jesse Washington in Philadelphia and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama hails 60th Senate vote for health care

2009-12-19T14:11:36Z

WASHINGTON — Jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote for historic health care legislation Saturday, putting President Barack Obama's signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage.

At the White House, Obama swiftly welcomed the breakthrough, saying, "After a nearly century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America."

In the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid smiled broadly when asked if Nelson's decision gave him the 60-vote majority necessary to overcome solid Republican opposition. "Seems that way," he said. The Nevada Democrat agreed to a series of concessions on abortion and other issues demanded by Nelson in daylong talks on Friday, then informed Obama of the agreement in a late night phone call as the president flew home from climate talks in Copenhagen.

The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that "arbitrarily jack up prices" in advance of the legislation taking effect.

CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.

The developments unfolded on a day of improbables – a snowstorm enveloped the Capitol, creating whiteout conditions outside; while inside senators staged dueling news conferences as if their presence on the Saturday before Christmas was the rule rather than the rarest of exceptions.

At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complied with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with federal subsidies available to help defray the cost for lower and middle income individuals and families.

In a concession to Nelson and other moderates, the bill lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats inserted into theirs. In a final defeat for liberals, a proposed Medicare expansion was also jettisoned in the past several days as Reid and the White House maneuvered for 60 votes.

Outnumbered Republicans unleashed a new series of attacks against the legislation and vowed to delay its passage as long as possible. The next – and most critical – test vote was set for about 1 a.m. Monday.

To secure passage, Democrats will need to show 60 votes on two additional occasions, and in the meantime, Reid made sure Republicans would have no additional chances to seek changes to the measure.

"This bill is a legislative train wreck of historic proportions," the party's leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said at a news conference. He pointed to cuts to Medicare that CBO said totaled more than $470 billion over a decade, with reductions in planned payments to home health care agencies and hospices. He also said the bill includes "massive tax increases" at a time of double-digit unemployment.

Republicans also noted that CBO concluded that under the bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care."

True to their word, Republicans objected when Reid sought permission for Nelson to announce his decision in a speech on the Senate floor, then insisted clerks read aloud 383 pages of last-minute changes the majority leader unveiled.

Many of Reid's revisions were designed to secure the 60 votes needed to steer the bill past the GOP filibuster.

Those drafted at Nelson's behest drew the most attention, and included further restrictions on abortion coverage in policies sold inside the exchanges.

States would be permitted to ban insurance coverage of abortions in policies sold in the exchange, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. In states where such coverage is permitted, consumers must notify their insurance company they want it, and pay for it separately.

The Nebraskan also won increased federal funds to cover his state's cost of covering an expanded Medicaid population at a cost that one Democratic official put at $45 million over a decade, and took credit for easing the bill's impact as well as other, smaller changes.

When he finally announced his decision, Nelson did so at a news conference in a Capitol corridor, rather than from his Senate desk as Democrats had preferred. Noting the bruising negotiations over abortion, he said, "I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree. But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions."

Senators who support abortion rights accepted the changes reluctantly, but conservative Republicans and the National Right to Life Committee criticized them as a step backward from the equivalent part of the House bill.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who pushed through the restrictions in the House-passed bill, also rejected Nelson's deal. He called it "not acceptable" because it "would allow the federal government to subsidize insurance policies with abortion coverage." He said he intends to keep working to find a solution that would allow him to ultimately vote for the health care bill.

Nelson, Nebraska's former state insurance commissioner, wasn't the only squeaky senatorial wheel within the 60-member Democratic caucus.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., claimed credit for a last-minute, $10 billion increase in funding for community health centers nationwide, which he said would create new or expanded facilities in 10,000 areas and provide primary care for 25 million more Americans.

Sanders made an impassioned speech on the Senate floor earlier in the week on behalf of a doomed proposal for government-run health care. In an interview, he said he only agreed to vote for the legislation on Friday, when Reid told him additional billions for the health centers would be included.

Another provision in Reid's changes provides additional federal funding for hospitals in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming and the Dakotas, although no cost estimate was available.

The House passed its version of the bill in November, and final compromise talks are expected to begin after a brief break for the holidays. Numerous issues must be resolved – including the role of government in the new insurance market and abortion restrictions. But Democrats have made a point all year of compromising on difficult issues in the name of the most far-reaching changes in the nation's health care system in generations, and hope to have a bill for Obama to sign before next month's State of the Union address to Congress.

In place of a government-run insurance option, the estimated 30 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the same office that manages health coverage for federal employees and members of Congress. Those plans would be privately owned, but operated on a nonprofit basis, as many Blue Cross Blue Shield plans are now.

Insurance companies would be barred immediately from denying coverage to children because of a pre-existing health condition. The prohibition on denial of coverage for adults would not take effect in the Senate bill until 2014, a disappointment for consumer advocates.

Among the changes Reid incorporated was dropping a proposed tax on cosmetic surgical procedures, including Botox injections. Instead, Senate Democrats are proposing a 10 percent sales tax on tanning salons, to be paid by the person soaking up the rays. The Food and Drug Administration says ultraviolet radiation from tanning can increase the risk of skin cancer.

The revised bill also calls for a .9 percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Reid's earlier bill had a smaller hike, .5 percent.

The bill also taxes high-cost insurance plans as part of a plan to put downward pressure on health care use.

______

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Andrew Taylor, Donna Cassata and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

Estate Tax Laws Uncertain With Old Tax Set To Expire

2009-12-19T08:27:39Z

The possible expiration of the federal-estate tax has sent the normally staid world of estate planning into a frenzy of activity, as taxpayers try to cope with uncertainty.

Without the old estate tax in place, some new rules will come into play, potentially forcing families to dig up decades-old records or face big tax penalties.

Victoria Reggie Kennedy's Op-Ed: What Ted Kennedy Would Say About Health Care Bill

2009-12-19T03:39:20Z

My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars -- and competing interests -- were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation's working families and of our economy as a whole.

COBRA Help For Laid-Off Workers May Come By Christmas

2009-12-19T01:45:01Z

WASHINGTON -- Laid-off workers may soon get a reprieve from one of their worries: health insurance.

A proposal to extend the health insurance subsidies for Americans who have lost jobs in the recession is one step closer to gaining congressional approval.

John Kerry Breaks Out Oppo, Takes On Howard Dean For 'Kill The Bill' Comments

2009-12-19T00:25:35Z

The pushback against Howard Dean for his call to "kill" the Senate health care bill, continued on Friday night, with a prominent Senate Democrat picking out an old quote from the former DNC chair's past to paint him as hypocritical in the debate.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) who squared off against Dean during the 2004 Democratic primary, issued the following statement on the Senate floor as the week-long debate over health care hit a closing crescendo:

I can promise you, if we follow that kind of advice and give up now, just because the bill is not all we want it to be, we surrender the very reforms that people have spent their lives working for, reforms that the Democratic Party has been proposing for decades, reforms that many of us in the Senate today ran on and promised we would work together to achieve.
What we are trying to do here is not easy. It wasn't easy for Franklin Roosevelt when he tried, it wasn't easy for Harry Truman when he tried, it wasn't easy for Bill Clinton when he tried. But you don't sound the retreat, especially when you are so close to achieving many of your objectives.

Some of our liberal friends have suggested we should kill the health care reform bill because it doesn't have a public option.

This week, for example, Howard Dean wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that real health care reform needed a public option that would '...give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage.' I was surprised to read that because back in 1993, then-Governor Howard Dean called Medicare '...one of the worst federal programs ever and a living advertisement for why the federal government should never administer a national health care program.'

Well, I am a strong supporter of the public option and I've fought to see it included. But if it cannot be included, I'm not willing to walk away.

The remarks, which were offered under a press release titled "Kerry Rebuts Republicans on Health Care, Urges Democrats to See Bigger Picture," is yet another example of the growing divide between Democrats inside and out of office. The progressive community itself is torn on the politics and policy implications of health care reform. But what stands out is the willingness for Kerry, the White House and other Senators on the Hill to turn their guns on Dean even as they bite their tongues when it comes to conservative Democratic critiques of the legislation.

As one plugged in Democrat in the heat of the negotiations put it succinctly: "[Sen. Joseph] Lieberman (I-Conn.) has a vote in this process. Dean doesn't."

Report: Housing Prices Could Tumble Again If More Foreclosures Aren't Prevented

2009-12-18T23:16:34Z

Foreclosure prevention efforts need to become vastly more effective or housing prices will resume their tumble, according to a new report by Credit Suisse analysts.

The report concludes that some 4.2 million homes are currently estimated to be heading into foreclosure next year, and that of those, three out of four -- or 3.2 million foreclosures in all -- need to be prevented to stabilize the housing market.

So far, government and private success rates have been nowhere close to that.

About 31,000 homeowners have received permanent relief under the Obama administration's mortgage modification program. Part of the administration's $75 billion effort, the plan aims to help troubled homeowners modify their mortgages into sustainable monthly payments relative to income. About 700,000 homeowners are enrolled in three-month trials.

The administration said the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) would help three to four million homeowners. A government watchdog has publicly questioned numerous times whether that's achievable, given the performance to date and the plan's design. For example, the plan requires that homeowners have an income. With 10 percent unemployment, many experts have questioned whether the program can help the unemployed stay in their homes.

"Current performance statistics on HAMP are quite disappointing in the above context," the Credit Suisse report notes. "However, multiple rounds of government attempts to achieve foreclosure prevention for those who fall through trial mods are likely to keep volume of foreclosure sales under check."

The analysts argue that there are early signs of recovery. Thanks to a decline in foreclosure sales from their winter highs, the homebuyers tax credit, and "record high affordability levels," housing prices have begun to stabilize.

But for a recovery to take hold next year, foreclosure sales will have to decrease even more. The analysts note that if foreclosure sales represent some 25-30 percent of all home sales next year, a decline from current levels, then home prices could see an uptick.

The analysts expect the Obama administration to step up its efforts to make that goal a reality.

"We anticipate multiple rounds of government attempts to achieve foreclosure prevention for those who fall through trial mods by lowering the bar or directing them towards alternative foreclosure prevention programs," they wrote.

Underscoring the importance of preventing foreclosures, the Credit Suisse report notes: "Home price stabilization has primarily resulted from decline in share of foreclosure sales."

If those start to creep up, this year's gains in stabilizing the housing market could evaporate.

Read the report below:

Credit Suisse Report -

Limbaugh Calls For "Massive Bombing Raids," War With Iran (AUDIO)

2009-12-18T22:52:19Z

On his show Friday, Rush Limbaugh warned his listeners that "if we don't pound Iran into submission at some point they are going to get the bomb."

Unhappy with Obama's "appeasement mentality," Limbaugh insisted that the only choice was to go to war:

Let's be blunt here: the only way to stop them is to destroy the Iranian regime, the mullahs, and that can only be accomplished through war. And by war I don't mean ground troops; I mean massive bombing raids intended to destroy every one of the key targets.

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Taibbi, Kuttner Debate Health Care Bill On "Bill Moyers Journal" (VIDEO)

2009-12-18T22:41:55Z

Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone agree that the health care bill taking shape in the Senate is a bad one. But Kuttner believes progressives should vote for the bill, while Taibbi thinks it should be killed.

Both writers offer their analysis of the health care bill on a wide-ranging Bill Moyers Journal on PBS on Friday. Here's the full transcript; here's the full video.

Kuttner argues that progressives risk big election losses in 2010 and 2012 if President Obama's efforts to reform health care are rejected. Obama, Kuttner says, has staked his presidency on the passage of this bill, and if it fails in Congress, "it will make Obama even more gun-shy about promoting more reform, it will create even more political paralysis, it will embolden the Republicans to block what this president is trying to do -- some of which is good -- at every turn. So I would hold my nose and vote for it." Kuttner says that concessions made by the White House in its deal with Big Pharma are responsible for the dilemma.

Taibbi argues that the bill "doesn't address the two biggest problems with the health care crisis... and additionally is a big give-away to the insurance companies." He says there will be better chances for reform in the future, "I think it's much better for the Democrats to lose on this issue and then have to regroup maybe eight years later, six years later, and try again and do a better job the next time then to have it go through."

WATCH:

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Congressional Ethics Office Closes Inquiry Into Murtha, Dicks and Moran

2009-12-18T22:11:53Z

The Office of Congressional Ethics has closed its investigation into Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) and their relationships to the lobbying firm PMA Group, and the OCE advised against a formal House ethics investigation, the lawmakers' offices said Friday.

George Behan, Dicks' chief of staff, said the OCE, which reviews potential rules violations and refers investigations to the House ethics committee, informed the Washington lawmaker on Dec. 2 that it had recommended the inquiry be dismissed.

Rahm Emanuel: Don't Worry About the Left

2009-12-18T21:47:07Z

Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care, says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

"There are no liberals left to get" in the Senate, Emanuel said in an interview, shrugging off some noise from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that a few liberals might bolt over the compromises made with conservative Democrats.

Obama Administration Denies Lesbian Spousal Benefits Despite Judge's Finding

2009-12-18T20:50:17Z

The Office of Personnel Management has concluded that it does not have the legal authority to provide benefits to the spouse of Karen Golinski, a staff attorney who works at the U.S. court of appeals for the ninth circuit in San Francisco.

An OPM official briefed The Advocate on the decision, and the agency's full statement is available at the end of this article.