The Daily Pulse: Deep Six the Gang of Six

By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire Blogger

Ed. note: The Weekly Pulse is becoming the Daily Pulse for September. Every weekday, we'll bring you highlights from the health care reform debate, including exclusive video interviews with leading experts and independent journalists each Friday. Even better, you can be a part of the conversation. Stay tuned to find out more!

A power shift is underway in Washington. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick announced on Monday that a special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy would not take place until January 19, 2010. With Kennedy's seat empty, the Democrats no longer have the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster in the Senate. Up until this point, the White House was hoping for a compromise bill that the entire Democratic caucus, and maybe even a few Republicans, could agree on.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that the Gang of Six has made itself irrelevant. These powerful members of the Senate Finance Committee were in charge of hammering out a bipartisan health care bill. They forgot that they were only powerful if people believed a bipartisan compromise was attainable.

Talking Points Memo reports that the White House has given up on Republican gangster Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). They finally got the hint when Enzi told a radio listeners that Democrats wanted to kill the elderly with comparative efficacy research. The White House should have cut its losses two weeks ago when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) repeated the "death panel" meme at a town hall meeting. Grassley has also been raising money campaigning against "Obama-care."

It's looking more and more like the Democrats will have to look to budget reconciliation, a special parliamentary procedure that could sidestep a filibuster and pass a health care bill by a simple majority vote.

In Salon, Robert Reich pleads with the congressional Democrats to instill some party discipline in their caucus.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's top lobby group, dispatched 50,000 employees to town halls to fight the public option. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones took a cue from Michael Moore in Sicko. She asks AHIP what kind of insurance their top lobbyist has. Mencimer says AHIP was so standoffish you'd think she had a preexisting condition.

In Mother Jones, Ben Buchwalter and Nikki Gloudeman take a closer look at the corporate megabucks behind the town hall brawls. Corporate enemies of healthcare reform are using front groups like FreedomWorks to organize angry mobs at town hall meetings. Zach Roth of TPM Muckraker reports that "legendary GOP bamboozler" Howard Kaloogian has launched a tea party bus tour to protest healthcare reform.

Speaking of frauds, you've probably heard about so-called crisis pregnancy centers that pose as abortion clinics in order to cajole women into having babies. Ever wonder what happens to those babies? In the Nation, Kathryn Joyce goes inside the world of high-pressure Christian adoption agencies that support desperate women, as long as they promise to give up their babies.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net.

This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

Comments

[den1953]

I never thought they were that relevant in the first place considering at least two of them never wanted to negotiate any thing and were against any thing that was for health care reform!

[Cautious]

This whole thing is just too historically necessary not to pass, and specifically with a very robust and meaningful public option.

At this point, it's hard to tell if BHO has been "playing poker" with the opposition or not. The opposition surely has shown the extreme moral and intellectual poverty of their position on this, and it's time to just get this passed.

My dream for the address to Congress is that he takes a baseball bat with him, either truly or verbally.

He tried to let this be bipartisan, and history will show that. But whether he likes it or not, history and the American people are calling on Barack Obama to step up and get this done.

[mamalisa38]

It's really sad to see so many in Washington work so hard to destroy something that will help all American's.

[janeycat]

i bet...no i know when a bill does get signed it will loaded with pork...i bet pork is whats holding the bill up....i bet some of the dems are holding out for the pork they want to be in the bill....th­eres no telling how many more needless projects will get funded that we all will have to pay for just to get health care reform.if the bill does have to be loaded with pork,then we should get single payer.....­..then watch all the dems and reps sign for public option...

BOYS AND GIRLS WE ARE MAKING HISTORY...­REMEMBER ALL OF THIS THAT YOU CAN...WE WILL BE TELLING ALL OF THIS TO OUR GRANDKIDS AND GREAT GRANDKIDS.­....WOW WHAT A THOUGHT...­.......mak­es me excited

[MrBadger]

"It's looking more and more like the Democrats will have to look to budget reconciliation,"

Was there ever any real chance that they could be ALL of the Democratic senators into line? It has always been about the reconciliation process.

[CTtransplant]

I don't know about anyone else - but I'm getting more than a bit tired of our representatives in Congress who say they don't need to read the bill, they won't sign it regardless of what's in it, etc.
These guys make me mad! They are in effect saying to the voters 'we will not do our job'!

We all have - or know of – health care horror stories...­things that should not have been allowed to happen.

Well, Our elected officials in Congress receive health care mostly paid for by us tax payers, yet many are trying to make it impossible for us to have an affordable plan of our own :

While many of us are struggling to afford medical insurance/medical bills.
While Congress people try to stop healthcare reform.
While Congress people accept large contributions from lobbyists to prevent health care reform.

Please sign these petitions - and by all means, spread the word! Thank you!
http://www.petitiononline.com/PubOp676/petition.html
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/keepthepledge?source=email&subsource=fwd
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4951/content.jsp?content_KEY=2793&tag=pod_auto-email1

[castlerider]

Granted, there's a lot of things government does and has done badly.

But this is different.­.. This is like a call to arms in a great battle against a very formidable foe.
This requires we pull together, make an effort and believe.
Believing in our government the same way President Kennedy believed we could get to the moon, and we did it. The space program wasn't just some kid's dream. It pushed us, and gave us greater technology and incredibly advanced engineering on the way. So many great inventions and better means for living were inspired, started, and continue with the space program.
That is America, at its best. That's what government can do, and needs to do now. Failure's not an option.

That's why it's so important, even to demand patriotiism, and believe our government can do this.
We don't have a choice. Our economy's on the ropes, and will get much worse if we don't grab a hold, gut this pig, and start over with a clean slate, dropping off the excess FAT and GREED that's been strangling our nation... A great change in our workforce awaits.

It must be done. Those saying it can't be done must be ignored. They're cowards, or they dwell in ignorance. Cautiously, we must believe, and move on.

America must have the best, most inexpensive healthcare in the world. That's the mission.
This mission makes us better. We'll be a nation where healthcare is a right, and not a luxury.

[Marcospinelli]

"Granted, there's a lot of things government does and has done badly."
==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­===

Only under Republicans' sabotage.

That's a fact.

Republicans have been underfunding government programs, stealing from social security trust funds to pay for their pet wars, for decades.

We need to get Americans educated in order to vote smarter, yet Republicans keep cutting public education money so that's not going tohappen.

There is nothing that privatization of government programs does to improve services -- The point of privatization is to shift massive profits to the CEOs and shareholders.