A Happy Round of Holidays, Whatever Your Flavor

So the Senate finally passes it's health care bill...tho one could argue that might not have been the best outcome after certain Senators decided to gut and mangle it. Is the passing of this bill a Christmas miracle, or a Christmas nightmare?

Only time will tell. Right now, we get to see what happens when the House and Senate sit down to reconcile their two versions...versions that are about as different as they could get.

As for me, I apologize for the unannounced break...but posting will resume on schedule, Tuesday and Thursday, starting next week. Where we'll see what we can do about getting up to speed on this mess that healthcare reform has become.

A happy Boxing Day to all of you!

Some News Round Up Action

Today is gonna be quick and simple...in my news searchings, I came across four stories mentioning local politicians and I thought I should share.

The first three are from the Columbus Dispatch:

This story here discusses voting records of Ohio representatives, specifically how they did or did not vote with party leadership. It opens with an interesting anecdote about a defense spending bill that Pat Tiberi bucked the trend on.

Another from the politics page is about earmarks, and who in central Ohio is seeking them in Congress and who isn't. If nothing else, it does show GOP lawmakers from the area are willing to walk the walk on fiscal responsibility.

The final piece from the Dispatch goes into how the Democrats are unable to come up with a cohesive health care agenda, and the lawmakers from Ohio are prime examples of this. Some want a public option, some don't, compromise isn't a word anyone knows, etc etc.

The fourth piece today is actually from the Times-Standard from Eureka, CA. It's on a solar power bill co-sponsored by Pat Tiberi, giving tax credits to solar panel manufacturers in hopes of stimulating job growth.

That's all for this week...tune in next week, same bad time same bad channel.

Senate Votes for Cloture on Health Care

On Saturday night, the US Senate voted on cloture for their version of the healthcare bill, allowing it to move onto a real debate without fear of filibuster.

The concern on a controversial bill like this is once it hits the Senate floor for debate, a Senator opposing the bill filibuster it. This would prevent the bill from even being debated, never mind voted on. All the opposing Senator has to do is speak on and on about whatever occurred to the Senator (once, a Senator filibustered by reading a phone book). No one wanted to bring it to the floor until they had achieved cloture, a procedure where 3/5 of the Senators had voted in the bill should be debated without being filibustered.

They pulled it off though, those crafty Democrats. 60-39. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats voted for cloture after threatening not to. Bernard Sanders of Vermont also sided with the Democrats.

Now onto Step 2: Debating, amending, and passing the bill. This is where you come in!

Write, call, or e-mail your Senators. In Ohio:

George Voinovich, Republican

Web Contact Form

Washington, DC Office 524 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510

(202) 224-3353 Central OH 37 West Broad Street Room 310 Columbus, OH 43215 Phone: (614) 469-6697 Fax: (614) 469-7733 Southeast OH 78 West Washington Street P.O. Box 57 Nelsonville, OH 45764 Phone: (740) 441-6410 Fax: (740) 753-3551 Southwest & Dayton Area 36 East 7th Street Room 2615 Cincinnati, OH 45202 Phone: (513) 684-3265 Northwest OH 420 Madison Avenue Room 1210 Toledo, OH 43604 Phone: (419) 259-3895 Fax: (419) 259-3899 Northeast OH 1240 East 9th Street Room 3061 Cleveland, OH 44199 Phone: (216) 522-7095 Fax: (216) 522-709 Fax: (513) 684-3269 Sherrod Brown, Democrat Web Contact Form Washington, DC Office 713 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-2315 Northeast OH 1301 East Ninth St., Suite 1710 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 p (216) 522-7272 f (216) 522-2239 Southwest OH 425 Walnut Street, Suite 2310 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 p (513) 684-1021 f (513) 684-1029 Central OH 200 N High St. Room 614 Columbus, OH 43215 p (614) 469-2083 f (614) 469-2171 Northwest OH 205 West 20th St. Suite M280 Lorain, OH 44052 p (440) 242-4100 f (440) 242-4108 So have at it! Call up the office (in DC or closest to you), write a letter, or use the web form to be all electronic and speak your mind on the topic! Tell your representatives how to represent you!

Loyal Opposition

Did you know the House of Representatives managed to pass a bi-partisan healtcare bill? No, serious! They did. They had members of both parties vote in favor of it, and managed to pass the damn thing!

Well, they had one Republican lawmaker vote in favor, and passed it by two votes.

If that's not seat-of-your-pants governance, I'm not sure what is. And it sure as hell isn't bi-partisan.

I'm not 100% sure who's fault it is this bill isn't more of a consensus. It's easy to blame one side (the Democrats are railroaded the minority party) or the other (the GOP is refusing to play ball on principle). Really, it doesn't matter who's fault it is. 'cause

The big contentious deal with this bill (as I saw it...correct me if you see it differently, please) was the public option. I understand that. I respect that.

It's totally legitimate for conservative lawmakers from both parties to say, "Nuh uh, no way. That's totally unacceptable for a whole bunch of reasons, and if you have it in the bill I'm not voting."

The next logical step is the introduction of a bill or two that are viable alternatives. And sorry: "viable alternative" doesn't mean "ideologically opposite" which is how it's been taken to mean in the last ten years or so. If you make your answering bill too far away from the original, negotiation is pointless...and I believe the GOP lawmakers know this when they introduce bills. The idea of loyal opposition is just lost on lawmakers these days.

Loyal opposition: "applied to the opposition parties in the legislature to indicate that the non-governing parties may oppose the actions of the sitting cabinet ... while maintaining loyalty to the source of the government's power."

While the idea was initially used to allow the minority parties in the British parliament to disagree with the majority party without being accused of treason, it can be applied in a slightly different manner now. While the Republicans cannot currently push their own agenda as effectively as they like (there are penalties for losing elections), they should be staying loyal to the concept of effective governance.

That's what both sides are forgetting about, that they have a job to do. It's all well and good to stand by principles...but we have problems to solve, people, and being pig headed isn't helping anyone.

Health Care Reform (the real post)

I've been sitting here for the better part of two hours now, trying to figure out how to approach this topic. I'm starting to have some serious sympathy for lawmakers, because the sheer scope is daunting as all get out.

I found the text for the actual bill passed by the House a few days ago. I knew the bill would be too big and unwieldy for me to really read. I didn't realize then my half formed thought would be the understatement of the week. Just digging through the table of contents to see the highlights (Public option, rescission abuse reform, exchanges, standards, etc etc) took me just about a half hour. That's without clicking any of those links to try and untangle the legalese.

Are you seriously suggesting those guys up on Capitol Hill actually read this thing (or any other bills) before voting on it?

Title I is all about the immediate reforms Congress wants to address. Prohibiting rescission, getting the uninsured high risk citizens taken care of under a temporary program, pre-existing condition exclusions prohibition, extension of dependent coverage for uninsured young adults, eliminating domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, post retirement reduction of benefits, lifetime limit elimination are all included. All things that needed to be dealt with sooner than when the new law is fully up to speed.

Title II is a key element. It's protections and standards... the pre-existing condition exclusion is specifically outlawed, as is rescission for anything but non-payment of premiums. Rules for rates are laid out, parity in benefits for mental health and substance abuse problems are called for, and essential benefits are defined and required from insurers. An independent Health Choices Administration with a commissioner appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate is established. The rest of the section fits the new changes into the existing framework of government (where attorneys general fit in, the Federal Trade Commission, etc).

Title III covers health care exchanges, and the public option. It establishes both of them, and defines the rules and regs for them.

Title IV is all about responsibility, a split between personal and employer based. Looks like tax penalties if you don't have coverage.

Title V is where they work in the penalties/off sets into the tax code.

This is where the text gets funky...it starts over with Title I again, this time labelled "Improving Health Care Value." Looking down the bullets, it looks like Medicare reforms.

Now, I'd link you to the interactive document that Thomas provides...but the site deletes search results after so many hours, creating a broken link. So I'm gonna link you to their search option...

http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/111search.html

And tell you to punch in 3962. From those results, you want the third entry...the one that was passed on 11/07/09.

On the whole, I'm not sure what's wrong with the bill. I'm really pretty baffled and growing more and more angry when I consider how close this came to not passing. I think it's time to write some letters.