Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Wednesday, December 9.

1. Marta Evry points out that it’s far too early to “fold up our tent and start our Christmas shopping early” with regard to protecting women’s reproductive rights in health care reform legislation. Evry notes that, “so far, One Voice For Choice is the only campaign going on out there that’s targeting the Stupak coalition of conservadems” on this issue. She encourages everyone to join a “One Voice for Choice” phone bank or start one of your own. Thanks.

2. Jane Hamsher says that “despite the fact that the country wants a public option, the President campaigned on one and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid both promised there would be one in the final bill, the woman who took $763,000 from health care interests for her upcoming Senate race is allowed to dictate what happens.” And that woman’s name is…you got it, Blanche Lincoln, who until recently claimed on her website that she supported “a quality, affordable public plan.” And if you believe that one, I’ve got some awesome, low-priced private insurance I’d like to sell you. 🙂

3. Jon Walker writes that, at this point, “it is impossible to even evaluate this pile of vague ideas that may or may not be part of this ‘deal.'” Walker concludes, “Fancy names like ‘Medicare buy-in’ sound good, but it could easily be worthless subterfuge, just like the trigger. I recommend everyone stay very skeptical and hold judgment for a day or two until we actually know what we are dealing with.”

4. Jane Hamsher is incredulous that OFA is fundraising off of a health-care reform package that she sees as – to put it mildly – subpar.

5. Jon Walker warns Howard Dean that the “Medicare buy-in” he is talking about “might not at all resemble the Medicare buy-in that [he] wants.” Or it might. The main thing right now is to “wait until you hear details” of this plan; until then, “we are simply chasing vapor.”

6. Jane Hamsher urges everyone to sign a petition urging President Obama to “save the public option and make these statements more than mere campaign promises.”

7. Jane Hamsher reports that she contacted Physicians for a National Health Program to see what they thought about lowering the Medicare age to 55. The response was that it “only works if it is mandatory…Otherwise it becomes the place where all the sickest patients get dumped.”

8. Jon Walker asks, “Why Did Snowe Not Demand Giving Americans The Freedom To Buy Cheaper Drugs From Canada?” More broadly, Walker finds it “very unfortunate that Snowe decided to use her new-found power for evil instead of good.”

9. Jon Walker notes results from a new Quinnipiac poll indicating strong support for a public option, “even as Senate Democrats look to kill the idea.”

10. Jane Hamsher provides a timeline indicating longstanding support in the Obama administration for a “trigger,” stating that this is “something that Rahm Emanuel has been fighting for all along.”  

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Tuesday, December 8.

1. Marta Evry reminds everyone that doing a “One Voice for Choice” phone bank is “easy, it’s fun, and best of all, you will make a difference.” What more can you ask for? 🙂

2. Jon Walker writes, “As a substitute for the public option, this OPM exchange is worthless, but I strongly hope this OPM exchange is structured to at least help fix the terrible, state-regulation-gutting “nationwide plan” idea.”

3. Jon Walker says that the “grand compromise possibly being discussed is frighteningly similar to my theoretical compromise, although it is noticeably weaker,” and that “Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and the Senate Democrats could have saved themselves lot of heart burn by hiring me four months ago.” Yes, but then what would they do with all the time they would have saved? Focus on the economy and jobs? Deal with climate change? Pass comprehensive immigration reform? Pass appropriations bills so that federal agencies don’t have to operate for months on continuing resolutions?  What ARE you thinking, Jon Walker? (snark)

4. Jane Hamsher asks rhetorically, “You Mean ‘We’ll Fix It In Conference’ Was Just BS?” The sarcastic answer? “No!”

5. Jon Walker explains how Medicare expansion can be “done right” (“Simply dropping the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 50 would help tens of millions of Americans, and be a win for progressives.”) or “done bad” (“Conversely, I can imagine a convoluted set of restrictions that would prevent the proposal from helping basically anybody.”).  Unfortunately, Walker concludes, “it sounds like the negotiations are much closer to the latter than the former.”

6. David Dayen reports that a motion by Barbara Boxer to table Ben Nelson’s anti-abortion amendment has passed with 54 votes. According to Dayen, “So the question becomes, what now?” Good question.

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Monday, December 7.

1. Marta Evry asks that you consider joining a “One Voice for Choice” phone bank or starting one of your own. As Evry says, “It’s easy, it’s fun, and best of all, it works.”

2. Jane Hamsher says sarcastically that there’s “[n]othing like having Joe Lieberman running the country.” Except maybe John McCain or George W. Bush running the country?

3. Jon Walker argues that “the new ‘alternative’ to the public option” is “nothing at all even like a public option.” Instead, “It is an OPM run exchange for current, private, non-profit insurance companies.” Great stuff, huh?

4. Jon Walker warns that “Sen. Debbie Stabenow is prepared to kill the public option to make Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln happy.” As I always say, anything to make Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln happy! (snark)

5. Jon Walker says that Sen. Ben Nelson’s anti-abortion amendment “is as close to the Stupak language as possible…it would have an incredibly long reach, and could make abortion coverage extremely rare in this country.” This must be stopped, hence the efforts of “One Voice for Choice”.

6. Jon Walker reports that “Senate Democrats are considering a possible early Medicare buy in for older Americans.” Walker believes this proposal on its own could have merit, but “without more concrete details about exactly what the proposal is, I will not really know if it has value.”

7. David Dayen believes it’s possible there might not be a conference committee for health care reform, “with the House expected to accept whatever the Senate passes.” Dayen believes this is ominous, particularly when one considers “the recent history of the credit card bill.”

8. Finally, Jon Walker agrees with the health insurance industry that if “the Senate bill ends up like I fear: no public option, no serious regulation on insurance, no real medical loss ratio, very low insurance standards, and an individual mandate the private insurance companies will have truly won.” Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Friday, December 4.

1. Jane Hamsher points to a new Mason-Dixon poll indicating that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trails two potential GOP opponents.  This doesn’t make Hamsher particularly sad, to put it mildly, given that she believes Reid “is doing what he always intended to do – take the public option out of the bill.”

2. Jon Walker warns that “unless we do health care right, every private sector union will be dead in nine years.” The reason? “Manufacturing in this country will not expand or even survive as long as health care insurance is an ever-growing overhead cost,” which means “there simply will not be a manufacturing sector to unionize.” I’d add that there won’t be a healthy economy in general if health care costs continue to rise and health care expenditures make up an ever-growing portion of our GDP.

3. Jon Walker has Part 5 of his series on “what the Senate bill does better.”  In this episode, we’ve got the fact that “the risk adjustment mechanisms in the Senate bill (page 226 – 238) are slightly better [than in the House bill].”  Well, that’s something at least. 🙂

4. Jane Hamsher announces that “Blue America is going to be working to get single payer candidates on the ballot in every Congressional district across the country.”  Also, “Tomorrow at noon ET, Blue America will host Jonathan Tasini, a long time single payer advocate who is running for the US Senate in New York.” That should be interesting, check it out.

5. Jon Walker writes that he has been “watching the debate on health care reform for the past five days, and it is amazing how much time and effort the Republican party has dedicated to defending massive government waste and huge corporate giveaways.”  Walker is talking, of course, about Medicare Advantage, “a network of private plans that the government pays to provide Medicare-eligible seniors with health insurance instead of covering them with traditional Medicare.” The problem is that “[a]s the result of a broken payment formula (put in place by the Republicans), the government overpays these private insurance companies by roughly 12%.” It’s a huge corporate giveaway, in other words, which certainly helps explain why Republicans are so enthusiastic about it!

6. I highlight an interview on Blue Arkansas with the founder of “Draft Bill Halter” to primary Sen. Blanche “No Public Plan For You” Lincoln.

7. Speaking of Blanche Lincoln, Jon Walker says that she’s trying to “shake her corporate shill image with [a] faux-populist amendment,” but that “it is unlikely that most insurance companies will even be affected by this amendment.”  Walker concludes, “Sorry Blanche, but no amount of meaningless symbolic amendments will change the fact that you are doing everything you can to defend the profits of the private insurance industry.”

8. Finally, Jon Walker predicts that the Senate “like all entrenched institutions, will only change when there is a crisis.” And, Walker believes, “[t]his is the perfect moment for the progressives to force the crisis needed to change how the Senate works.” Walker believes that if this doesn’t happen, it “will pretty much guarantee not a single piece of really progressive legislation is passed during Obama’s presidency.” On that cheery note, have a great weekend! 🙂

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Thursday, December 3.

1. Jon Walker reports that “Thomas Carper’s terrible new “alternative” to a public option is not winning over progressives in the House,” with Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona saying, “I think that compromise is totally unacceptable…It basically emasculates the public option.” Jon Walker adds, “If there is a choice between Carper’s worthless fig leaf and no public option at all, I would choose the latter.” Yes, it’s that bad.

2. Jon Walker writes about a report in Politico that ” Snowe, Lincoln, and Landrieu have submitted an amendment that would effectively eliminate all state regulations concerning what insurance companies must cover.” According to Jon Walker, “This is a very bad amendment that will make health insurance worse for millions and millions of Americans.” Uh, guys? That’s not what we mean by “reform.”

3. Jon Walker reports that a new poll by Thomas Reuters finds that “59.9% of people favor reform containing a public option.” In other words, the part of health care reform that’s supposedly the most “controversial” is also the part which polls strongest among the American people.  And we wonder why people are cynical about politics and politicians?

4. Michael Whitney asks for help to “raise money to make a big move against Harry Reid in his home state of Nevada.” If you would like to contribute, please click here. Thanks.

5. Jon Walker reports that Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s “relatively uncontroversial” amendment dealing with cost-sharing for women’s preventive care passed earlier today by a vote of 61-39. Three Republicans (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, David Vitter) voted yes, while two Democrats (Ben Nelson, Russ Feingold) voted no. Walker believes that “Vitter’s yes vote is a big surprise,” but that perhaps he is “hurting with women in his re-election polls.” Apparently, the diaper and prostitutes weren’t bad enough to lose him a chance at reelection. Sigh.

6. Jon Walker remarks that Sen. Mary Lasndrieu (D-LA) “has created the unholy grail of terrible gimmicks meant to cripple the public option…a several-year-delayed, triggered, state-based, non-public co-op limited to the exchange option.”  This may sound funny in a way, but according to Jon Walker, “If Senate Democrats think they can pass a bill forcing Americans to buy extremely expensive junk insurance from for-profit corporations, with only the vague promise that possibly, after five more years of abuse, they might get the to choose a completely unworkable, state-based, non-public ‘alternative,’ they are in for a rude awakening.”

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Wednesday, December 2.

1. Jane Hamsher announces the launch of One Voice for Choice, “a national phone bank that will launch calls into the districts of the Representatives who voted for Stupak.” For more on this, see Politico. To volunteer, please click here. Thanks.

2. Jon Walker reports on Day #3 of the Senate “debate” on health care reform, with not “a single vote on any amendment.” Given this snail’s pace, Walker concludes that a final vote by Christmas is “highly unlikely.”

3. Jon Walker says we can “get ready for Carper’s non-public non-triggered co-op non-option.” Walker believes that Carper’s proposal “will serve none of the goals of the public option, and will be completely worthless.” Other than that, he loves it. 🙂

4. Jon Walker writes about Republicans spending the last three days “defending the massively wasteful corporate giveaway to private insurance companies,” also known as the Medicare Advantage program. According to Walker, you “can’t be a defender of the broken Medicare Advantage program and still be a fiscal conservative.” And yet Republicans will do just that and claim to be fiscal conservatives. Of course, these are the same people who racked up much of our national debt, so what else would you expect from them?

5. Jon Walker notes that “Ben Nelson is currently threatening to filibuster reform if it does not contain a version of the anti-choice Stupak amendment.” Of course, as Walker points out, “for months now, Reid has had the option of using reconciliation to pass a decent bill without the Stupak language and with a public option.”  Apparently, that would be too easy.

6. Jon Walker believes that “Democrats made a huge mistake not pushing the bill through months ago using reconciliation” and that now, having failed to do so – and given Republican obstructionism and delaying tactics –  “this is going to be an extremely long debate.”  So, pull up a chair, grab some popcorn, and “enjoy” (or, more likely, not)! 🙂

7. Finally, Jon Walker advises that we should not “confuse capitulation with compromise” when it comes to the public option, especially since a “handful of conservative Democrats” — Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu — “have all the power.” What’s that saying again about Democracy being the worst system ever invented, except for all the other ones?

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Tuesday, December 1.

1. Jon Walker has some advice “for every potential manufacturer and transnational company looking to expand…don’t start a single business-or expand an existing one-in this country until we really try to rein in health care costs.” Walker elaborates, “As a nation, we will not be able to compete going forward if we are spending upwards of an extra $6,000 on our workers health care compared to Germany, Japan, Canada, the UK, etc.” But wait, aren’t those all “socialist” countries? (snark)

2. Jon Walker takes issue with Peter Orszag’s assertion that “basically everything that has been put forward in health policy discussions for a decade is in this [health care reform] bill.” To the contrary, Walker writes, “This is not true at all, and Orszag knows it. The Senate bill does not even contain many of health care reforms championed by Obama on the campaign trail last year.” The result, in Walker’s view, is that the “bill does not do is take the serious steps that could reduce our national health expenditures by trillions of dollars in this country.”

3. Jon Walker argues that “We will never see a Washington not run by lobbyists until we make a commitment to hiring sufficient numbers of highly qualified staffers committed to doing the job long term.” Excellent point.

4. Jane Hamsher reminds us that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) “wasn’t always so enamored of Medicare Advantage,” a program “which Jon Walker recently said ‘may have the dubious distinction of being the biggest and most wasteful form of corporate welfare in the country.'” Wait a minute, a Republican is being a liar and a hypocrite? I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you! 🙂

5. Jon Walker writes that even Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), author of the terrible “non-public triggered co-op” idea, says that “the decision to add his worthless idea to the bill is completely up to Harry Reid.”

6. Continuing his series of “what the Senate bill does better,” Jon Walker points to SCHIP, which will be eliminated under the House bill but, “[t]hanks in large part to the efforts of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV),” will remain intact under the Senate bill. According to the CBO, “maintaining the SCHIP program would be roughly $15 billion cheaper than eliminating the program and moving the children into the new exchange.” Can we say “no brainer” on this one?

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Monday, November 30.

1. To put it mildly, Jon Walker believes that the Urban Institute’s new report “endorsing the idea of a super-hard trigger for a robust Medicare-style public option” is off base. Walker argues that the idea of a “magical robust theoretically super-awesome trigger” is “purely a fantasy of health care wonks that does not have a prayer of ever becoming law.”  And Walker has a great punchline to all this, apparently riffing off of Prince’s “When Doves Cry”: “This is what it sounds like when veal moos.” Wow, what did Jon Walker eat for Thanksgiving anyway? LOL

2. Jane Hamsher argues that the  opt-out provision “was a trojan horse, championed by liberals who were negotiating against themselves,” and that in the end, it failed to pick up a single Republican vote. Now, we’re going to get the same charade with “the sequel, ‘The Return of Trigger,’ starring the Urban Institute and other featured players.” Something tells me this is a sequel we don’t want to see, but may be forced to anyway.

3. Jon Walker has some good news, “What The Senate Bill Does Better, Part 3: Starts With Greater Access To The Exchange.”

4. I’ve got a post pointing to excellent framing by The Pennsylvania Progressive, who writes, “Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana says we should stop reforming health care so we can concentrate on killing Afghans…killing is a higher priority than healing.” Wow, it sounds so…Republican!

5. Jane Hamsher asks, “Why Continue to Fight For a Public Option?” The answer: “The public option battle has become a proxy war over who controls government, whether Congress has the slightest responsibility to reflect the will of the public, whether Democrats from Obama on down can just casually abandon their campaign promises in the wake of unrelenting influence peddling and whether progressives are going to take a stand for something and refuse to back down.” Those sure sound like fighting words to me.

6. Jon Walker riffs off of an article by Ezra Klein which argues, “If you had tuned in six months ago for 10 minutes, you would have had all the information necessary to predict exactly where we’d be today.”  Walker concludes that the Senate “just spent almost half a year working on health care reform, and didn’t accomplish anything that couldn’t have been done in three weeks if they were a functioning legislative body.” In other words, health care reform could have been completed last spring, leaving Congress free to turn to other matters, like…uh, the economy perhaps? Clean energy and climate legislation? Comprehensive immigration reform? A million other things? Nah, much better to have spent the better part of a year negotiating against ourselves and chasing the ever-elusive “bipartisan” support. Great.

7. Jon Walker live blogs the Senate debate over health care reform, which began at 3 pm earlier today.

8. Jon Walker summarizes the new CBO report on the Senate health care bill and its effect on premiums, writing that “reform would do basically nothing to reduce or increase premiums for most Americans.” According to Walker, this will largely keep U.S. health care costs “nearly twice as high as any other industrialized nation,” an outcome that “should not be a surprise” given the “sweetheart deals with all the concerned health industries.” And on that happy note…

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for “Black Friday” (November 27).

1. On Wednesday, Jane Hamsher asked, “Why is HCAN Defending Blanche Lincoln From A Primary Challenge?”  The answer: “[HCAN] will continue to operate as part of the Democratic party infrastructure, try to kill primary challengers and move to protect their ‘own.’  And that means Blanche Lincoln.  If health care reform happens in the meantime, well, what a happy coincidence.” Or “unhappy,” as the case may be.

2. Yesterday, Jane Hamsher wrote about “The PR Push That Helped PhRMA Buy the Government.” Included in “Government” are “the 42 members of Congress who helpfully inserted lobbyist language into the Congressional Record in favor of endless patents on biologic drugs on behalf of the prescription drug industry.” So nice of those 42 members of Congress, huh?

3. Jane Hamsher wonders, “How is Newt Gingrich Not a Lobbyist?”, and concludes that the “definition of ‘lobbyist’ seems a bit too flexible to prohibit the biggest of the professional influence peddlers from getting their claws in.” Not that we’d ever think Newt Gingrich had claws or anything. Heh.

4. Jon Walker provides “13 very specific proven solutions” for OMB Director Peter Orszag, who had “defended the Senate health care reform bill’s minor cost-control measure” by suggesting that critics had no ideas of their own for controlling costs. Among the 13 ideas Walker presents: “Turn all health insurances companies into non-profits;” “Allow Medicare to directly negotiate lower drug prices;” “create a much stronger risk adjustment mechanism [on the new exchanges];” and “Create a robust public option that can use Medicare rates and Medicare’s provider network.” I believe the ball is now in your court, Mr. Orszag! 🙂

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Tuesday, November 24.

1. Jon Walker explains “the difference between really trying and pretending to try” by Majority Leader Harry Reid on the public option. Walker quotes Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal, who writes, “Maybe Mr. Reid plans to push as far as he can with a bill including a public option, to show his party he has done all humanly possible, before yanking the public option just before the whole effort goes off a cliff.”  The problem for Reid, though, is that such a maneuver is not likely to fool anyone. Or, as Walker puts it, “his party’s base will not buy it.” So much for that idea.

2. Jon Walker has the second part of his series on what the Senate health care bill does better: “the Cantwell basic health program,” which Walker argues “is much closer to how sensible countries have designed their regulated health insurance marketplace or exchange.” Wait, we’re gonna start being “sensible” now? Ha.

3. David Dayen predicts that immigration could become a new sticking point for health care reform legislation, with “Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a key ally of Barack Obama’s from Illinois, [saying] today that he would find it ‘extremely difficult if not impossible’ to vote for a health care bill that included the restrictive and discriminatory measure on undocumented immigrants that appears in the Senate’s version and has the White House’s support.” If it’s not one thing, it’s another…

4. Scarecrow explains why there needs to be a viable public option, arguing that “[w]ithout it, health insurance reform will be just a very bad, very foolish, and very expensive experiment – and clearly not the platform Democrats should want in 2010.”

5. Jon Walker asks, “Is PhRMA Afraid Of The Progressive Block?” The question is prompted by the fact that PhRMA is running ads in Connecticut urging Joe Lieberman to support the current Senate bill. Verrrry interesting.

6. Michael Whitney points to a powerful new video contrasting Blanche Lincoln vowing on the Senate floor to oppose a public option with thousands of uninsured Arkansans in Little Rock for a free health care clinic. It’s powerful stuff, and if you’d like to help us run the ads, please click here. Thanks.

7. Finally, Jon Walker compares the Senate filibuster to a game of “Shoots and Ladders” with “made up rules.” Walker concludes that “Senate Democrats have to decide if keeping their fun, made up rules is more important to them than helping millions of Americans in need.” Why does something tell me they’re going to go with the “fun, made up rules?”  Sigh.