After years of feeding at the health insurance industry trough, it's no wonder these conservative Democratic senators oppose a public option plan to compete for consumers.
Harry Reid thinks he's got enough votes, but then this is the reason why the vote keeps getting pushed back -- because he's obviously still scrambling for the final few votes before he moves ahead.
By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger For weeks, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has opposed climate change legislation. In the Environment and Public Wor...
This weeks historic meeting between the Obama administration and Indian Country should have been a national celebration. Instead, it was a staid, meaningless political affair.
Do you remember how Joe Pesci got killed in Martin Scorcese's film Goodfellas? Pesci was told he was finally going to get what he'd always wanted and ...
Often, people will look at a high-profile example of corruption, and conclude that the egregious act is an exception to the rule. In reality, it might be the tip of the iceberg.
By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger Senate Democrats in the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) finally squelched Republican boycotts ...
In the past week, a drama unfolded around the Senate EPW Committee hearings for the new Senate bill on climate and clean energy jobs. Declarations! Boycott threats! Power plays!
As the health care fight approaches its end game, there's now a way for us, as ordinary citizens, to exercise power, and create enough of a potential cost to deter conservatives standing in the way.
By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held three hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean en...
Private, nonprofit health care cooperatives, properly designed, actually could offer quite a lot to both the left and the right, as well as to anyone who is interested in expanding health care coverage.
The media has been pushing the "public option is dead" theme for so long, it's no wonder they're so astonished by yesterday's news that a public option will be included in the Senate bill.
The public option epitaph was written months ago during the more than two dozen secret meetings that Obama and his aides had with the insurance industry and pharmaceutical bigwigs.
Are the Democrats missing the big picture? If they are, heaven help the sick. Until common ground is found, those millions of American citizens that are sick and without health insurance might not be able to hold on.
Two polls in two days found widespread opposition to the insurance tax, and broad support for an income surtax on the wealthiest households. It's pretty clear where the political center is.
Whoever picked the name "Humana" for the health insurance giant had a great sense of humor. Had the marketing genius in charge of picking a name for the corporation been more honest, he would have called it "Profita."
The only way to go from sickness care to health promotion is with both tougher regulation of insurance companies and a meaningful mandate for individuals to buy health insurance.
Suddenly, all Democratic politicians, even the most conservative, are realizing that their voters will blame them, not the health insurance companies, if the policies the voters are required to buy are too expensive.
The health care reform bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee reinforces health insurance monopolies, does not provide access to affordable care for all Americans, and does not present a full accounting of its costs.
I have to admit before I begin that I don't watch cable television "news" during the day, because I consider it largely to be a waste of my valuable t...
Forcing Senators like Nelson, Baucus, and Lincoln to respond to the American public, through a petition, would be the right thing politically as well as morally.
