Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Monday, November 23.

1. Yesterday, Jon Walker took on Nate Silver, who “believes progressives should trade the public option away, but what he wants in return is far more useless and an even tougher political battle.”

2. Jane Hamsher says it all “comes down to a simple question: will Harry Reid allow for majority rule? Or will he let corrupt members of his own caucus block a majority of the public and Congress who want a public option?” Hamsher urges everyone to sign the petition to Harry Reid to pass the public option.

3. Jon Walker writes that Sen. Blanche Lincoln “is willing to force tens of millions of Americans to pay higher premiums for the small possibility it could gain her some political advantage,” and that this constitutes “the trifecta of awfulness.” For those keeping score at home, that’s a lot of awfulness! 🙂

4. Jon Walker points out “what a difference a serious primary challenge can make.” Specifically, “{Sen. Michael} Bennet is currently facing a serious primary challenge from Andrew Romanoff, while {Sen. Blanche} Lincoln is not currently facing a primary challenge.”  Walker concludes, “It is amazing how quickly a serious primary challenger turns a senator into a reliable vote on the important issues.” Sounds like we need a lot more primary challenges from real progressives.

5. Speaking of progressives, Jon Walker argues that “you can’t be a progressive and support the filibuster,” which he calls “a tool to thwart the will of the people” and “the great maintainer of the status quo.”  It’s not like the filibuster is in the Constitution or anything, it’s just an internal Senate rule, and those rules can be changed. Is there any good reason not to change it?

6. Jon Walker warns that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) may be “jumping on the trigger bandwagon.” Even if he’s well intentioned, the problem is that any trigger in this case will likely “be designed to make sure it is never pulled, so there will never be a public option.” Obviously, that’s not an outcome we – or hopefully Sen. Menendez – find acceptable.

7. Jon Walker analyzes “what the Senate bill does better,” focusing in this post on the “waiver For state innovation.” Given many progressives’ frustration at this point, it’s good to know that the Senate bill “is not all bad,” as Walker puts it.

8. Finally, Jason Rosenbaum reiterates that “triggers are nothing but a plan to kill the public option.” Other than that, they’re a greeeeeeaaat idea. (snark)

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Friday, November 20.

1. Jon Walker asks, “Is Harry Reid Laying The Ground Work To Betray Progressives For Snowe’s Vote?” In the end, Walker concludes, “Reid does have the power to get a public option passed, there is no good excuse for failure.” Cool, so don’t fail! 🙂

2. Jon Walker says that “the crack team of reporters at the Washington Post don’t know how to read” and that they “make the ridiculous claim that the public option would not be able to keep down costs.” Other than that, they totally know what they’re talking about. Heh.

3. Jon Walker discusses why the House bill is much more “small c” conservative than the Senate bill. In short, the House bill “would do a better job of maintaining a health care system similar to the one we currently have” and the “reason for this is the employer mandate.”

4. David Dayen reports that “Ron Wyden has reached agreement with the leadership to get an amendment into the bill which would allow as many as 1 million additional individuals who get health care from their employers to participate on the insurance exchanges, including selecting the public option.” Dayen believes that this could “lead to significant changes in the current health system by expanding the risk pool in the exchanges, strengthening them, and setting a precedent for moving away from the employer-based system.”  The Republicans’ worst nightmare, in other words.

5. David Dayen reports that Bill Clinton told FDL’s Eve Gittelson that it would be problematic for him to attend a free medical clinic being held in Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow because MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had ‘politicized” the event.'” Huh?

6. David Dayen says that while “{e}veryone’s talking about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and their imposition into the legislative debate over health care, particularly abortion,” the there’s also their “opposition to a restrictive provision in the Senate bill that would ban undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance on the exchange with their own money.” Go Catholic Bishops on this one!

7. Jon Walker asks, “Why Does The Senate Bill Create Two Exchanges?” The answer: “I have been unable to find a good reason why the decision was made to create two separate marketplaces.”  Well, that’s comforting! 🙂

8. Finally, tomorrow (Saturday) at 8pm eastern time is the big vote to proceed to debate on health care reform legislation in the U.S. Senate. We’ll see how it goes, but there’s little doubt that conservadems love their leverage in this process.  Thrilling, no?

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Thursday, November 19.

1. Jon Walker lays out “eight things wrong with the Senate health care bill,” beginning with “Delays Start Until 2014” and including “Nationwide Plans Gutting State Regulation.” Definitely a few things that need to be fixed here.

2. Jane Hamsher has a statement from FDL on the Senate health care bill. The statement concludes, “If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear at the moment that Reid is so inclined.

3. Speaking of the opt-out, Jon Walker writes that the “CBO has concluded that the design of the opt-out provision will end up denying the public option to roughly a third of the population in this country.” Needless to say, that would not be good.

4. Jon Walker identifies the “most frightening line in the CBO report,” regarding risk adjustment mechanisms in the Senate bill that are “dangerously weak.” According to Walker, “that might not sound scary, but that line should strike fear in the hearts of any health care policy expert.” Find out why by clicking here.

5. Jon Walker writes that “at the request of AHIP, [the] Senate bill guts state  health insurance regulations.” Walker says that this “is a dramatic move by the federal government, forcing states to deregulate their health insurance markets,” and that it could “gut state health insurance regulations and create a race to the bottom.” Other than that, it’s great! (snark)

6. Jon Walker examines the House and Senate health care bills and concludes that the House bill is 12% more cost-effective than the Senate bill.

7. Jon Walker analyzes “how the Senate abortion language differs from Stupak”. In short, the Stupak amendment “would make it practically impossible for any insurance provider to offer abortion coverage on the exchange for a variety of financial and legal reasons.”

8. Jane Hamsher contrasts Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) “hold[ing] health care…hostage” while Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter “brings Olbermann clinics to Arkansas.” Quite a contrast.

9. Finally, Jon Walker reports that, “{l}ike a monster in some B horror movie,” Tom Carper is now working with Olympia Snowe “to bring back the trigger, which [Carper] has comically named the ‘hammer.'” The hammer? What, is this named after Tom DeLay or something? Weird.

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Wednesday, November 18.

1. Jane Hamsher reports that voting is now open for the Public Option Please (POP) art contest. There are six finalists, vote now!

2. Jon Walker writes that “it seems [Senator Thomas] Carper [D-DE] has completely reinvented (cribbed? copied?) Snowe’s trigger proposal, and must be hoping no one notices.”  Whoops, we noticed! 🙂

3. Jon Walker writes about a new CBS News poll which “found that a majority of Americans (51%) want Congress to pass a health care bill with a public option.” Only 26% of Americans prefer “no bill at all,” while an even smaller share (16%) would like a health care bill without a public option. Part of that 16%, of course, is Joe Lieberman, who is now being asked by “Concerned Clergy of Connecticut”, “what is it that your conscience tells you?”  A scary thought, indeed.

4. Jane Hamsher urges women to “get realistic about your uteruses.” I think I’ll just let Jane explain this one. LOL.

5. Jon Walker analyzes the Capps, Ellsworth, Stupak, and Senate Finance language on abortion.

6. Jon Walker says that “Ben Nelson is unlikely to block allowing debate to proceed on health care reform” because – get this – he fears that if he doesn’t, the legislation would move ahead under reconcilation and turn out less “moderate” (e.g., more progressive) than he and his pal Joe Lieberman would prefer. And that would be a bad thing, apparently. Got it.

7. Jon Walker writes that the Senate health care bill, at long last, will be unveiled tonight, with a vote possible on the motion to proceed as early as Saturday night. Of course, as Walker points out, “allowing a bill to be debated on the Senate floor is a long way from allowing the final up-or-down vote needed to pass the bill out of the Senate.” Hey, after decades of waiting, why rush this thing? (snark)

8. I blog about a story in North Decoder on Kent “Coop” Conrad calling Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Dakota “irresponsible” for a mailing it did on health care reform. What’s hilarious is that Conrad has been the biggest proponent of health care cooperatives, yet that’s exactly what “irresponsible” BCBS of North Dakota hopes to be under federal legislation. Nice, huh? 🙂

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Tuesday, November 17.

1. Jon Walker reports that a new ABC/Washington Post poll indicates the country “nearly divided” on the overall health care reform effort, but “very high popular support [for] the public option and the employer mandate.” Isn’t it interesting how the most progressive parts are the most popular? Hmmmm.

2. Jane Hamsher comments on an email from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) that says, “The question is no longer if we will have some sort of public option in the final health care reform bill, but instead what form it will take.”  To put it mildly, Hamsher is suspicious of what this means. asking if Durbin’s and Reid’s “online people really think they can burn the entire online left community by manipulating them so shamelessly on something that is this important to them, and that nobody will remember?”

3. I’ve got a roundup from the state blogs, including Calitics, Loaded Orygun, Blogging for Michigan, Blue Virginia, Minnesota Progressive Project, and West Virginia Blue. Keep up the great work, everyone!

4. Jon Walker analyzes the options for passing health care reform in the U.S. Senate without having 60 votes, and asks, “how many thousands of lives and billions of dollars are they willing to throw away to maintain some of their terrible, anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, special Senate privileges?” The answer to that question, of course, should be “none.”

5. Jon Walker writes that we need to address health care costs, and that it’s no “great mystery” how to do so: “There are plenty of thoroughly tested, completely proven cost control mechanisms we can directly borrow from other nations.” One thing’s for sure, though, Walker concludes, “we need to take off the ‘free market economagic’ blinders” and “start by adopting solutions proven to work elsewhere.”

6. Jon Walker is concerned that the Stupak Amendment “could radically reduce the availability of abortion coverage in this country,” and that “its reach could be far beyond the exchange.” Which is why it’s such a bad idea and should be removed from health care reform legislation, ASAP!

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Monday, November 16.

1. Jon Walker reports that “HR 3962’s Massive Expansion Of Coverage Would Result In Very Small Increase In Health Care Spending.” Walker adds, “Despite the Republican talking point, it is not some liberal overreach-this reform bill is extremely modest reform that leaves statue quo mostly unchanged.”

2. Jane Hamsher requests that we “[a]sk Sherrod Brown to save us from PhRMA and the Eshoo/Hagan/ lobbyist-written biologics legislation HERE.”

3. I blog about a story on My Left Nutmeg, which has a rabbi telling Joe Lieberman with regard to health care reform and the public option, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbors.” The rabbi also asks Senator Lieberman, “what is it that you stand for?” That’s an easy one: Joe Lieberman stands for Joe Lieberman, not for the people of Connecticut, on this crucial issue.

4. Jon Walker blogs about a report in the New York Times that “the drug companies have dramatically jacked up the prices of their medications this year to lock in profits before reform starts.” Wonderful, huh? As Walker puts it, “there goes your magic savings from the PhRMA deal.” Ugh.

5. Michael Whitney reports that “Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) will oppose a final health care bill that has triggers or that allows states to opt out of the public option – with an asterisk.” The “asterisk” is that she would “allow states to opt-out only if they did provided ‘a more progressive option’ offered at the state level.” Sounds reasonable to me.

6. Jane Hamsher asks “What do you do when you’re busted spamming the Congressional Record?” Easy: “Raise Drug Prices!” As Hamsher notes, that takes “some serious stones”.

7. I report on the teabaggers in Virginia backing off their plans to burn Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perriello in effigy for supporting health care reform. It turns out, they were scared off by bloggers like Blue Virginia and Firedoglake. Are we “liberal bloggers” really that scary to big, bad tea partiers?  Apparently so!

8. Jon Walker writes that the Senate health care debate is expected to start on November 30, which obviously “does not leave the Senate a lot of time to finish up amending the bill before Christmas.” Are we going to miss another deadline on getting a health care reform bill to President Obama’s desk for signature? It’s starting to look that way, unfortunately.

9. Jon Walker says that Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware “thinks Democrats should embrace Snowe’s worthless trigger,” and predicts that “Senate Democrats are going to rue that day if they sellout the over 80% of their base that supports a public option in order to win the support of one single Republican.” And that’s not even counting Joe Lieberman! Heh.

After an exciting week in Washington, I returned to the 10th Congressional District this week to host my first town hall as a Congressman. More than 100 constituents were in attendance for the event, where we emphasized economic development and job creation opportunities in Livermore. “It’s about jobs, and that’s what I really want to focus on here,” I told the assembled crowd.

California has a 12.2 percent unemployment rate (up from 7.8 percent this time last year), and there are many opportunities to create new jobs at the national labs and through the federal stimulus package and local transportation and clean technology investments. But while I would estimate that two-thirds of the crowd was interested in the job creation discussion and supportive of my actions as a Congressman to date, a minority of the crowd was more interested in using the opportunity to criticize my vote on the House health care bill.

Lisa Vorderbrueggen of the Contra Costa Times and Randy Shandobil of KTVU 2 have good coverage of the event, including partial video. While there was a brief moment where the crowd got a little rowdy, once I respectfully asked everyone to stop shouting and clapping, we were able to continue with a constructive back-and-forth dialogue.

More of the town hall’s health care discussion over the flip…

I wanted to share with you what I told the audience after a gentleman made the claim that the House health care reform bill is somehow a threat to our economy (video by Lisa Vorderbrueggen):

“What’s happening to the American economy? You take the American economy and look at how we are spending our money. We spend a vast amount on war. We also spend an even larger amount on health care.

In 1991, when I become Insurance Commissioner for the State of California, we were spending about 10 percent of our total wealth, of our GDP, on health care. The inflation rate in health care was at that time running about twice the general inflation rate.

In the intervening years, 19 years of them now, we have seen the inflation rate in health care running at about two or three times the general inflation rate of the economy. The result of which is we now spend over 17 percent of all of our wealth on health care. The result of that is the money we need for education, for transportation, for research, for economic development in manufacturing or sales or any of the other activities, is crowded out, pushed aside by the health care sector.

And the unfortunate fact is that the more we spend, the worse the result. The more we spend, the more uninsured we have, because people can’t afford it. And simultaneously, the results are not good.

The status of American health care, population health care, the number of our children that die at an early age, the morbidity of the general population, the illnesses that occur in the state of California and across the nation would rank the United States at the very bottom of all the industrialized nations of the world, and in fact, rank us below the country of Columbia in our health care status. So it turns out that the more we spend, the worse our results. This has to change. It simply cannot continue. I had the privilege of voting on Saturday, and I voted yes on that reform proposal.

[crowd cheers, claps, boos, and jeers]

Now that everybody has had an opportunity to express their opinion on both sides of this issue, let’s not do it again. Otherwise we’ll just develop into an unfortunate and a rather useless waste of our time. So if you can accommodate that, we’ll let everybody state their view at the podium, and we’ll hold clapping and cheering on either side of this question, and move along, hopefully with an exchange of information.

Now let me just complete this point. The health care reform proposal that did pass Congress has many elements in it. There are essentially three parts to those reform proposals, one of which is the reform of the insurance system itself. I’ve spent eight years as your representative as Insurance Commissioner, and during that period of time, I had as my task the regulation of the insurance companies.

And there are numerous problems in the private health insurance system today. Things such as what we call cherry-picking. If you have an illness or if you happen to be at the age of 55, you don’t get insurance, because you have a pre-existing condition or you might become ill and expensive. There’s such a thing as post-event underwriting, so if you present yourself at a doctor or hospital and the insurance company comes back later and says, “Oh my, we can’t cover that because you didn’t fill out the form properly and didn’t tell us you had acne when you were a teenager.” Now that happens to be a real story, a real fact.

There are numerous other ways the insurance industry makes it really tough on people. Like not paying claims. PacifiCare, one of the major companies in California, denied 39.6 percent of all the claims they received in the first six months of 2009. There are very real problems.”

I continue to intently watch events unfold in the Senate, and I know you do too. I encourage the Senate to think big and pass a comprehensive health care reform bill that includes a robust public option. I also strongly encourage them to make it explicitly clear in their legislation that women’s reproductive health coverage will not be taken away. If the Senate approves a bill, it will go into conference to be merged with the House bill, and we want to make sure that the pieces that form the final puzzle are as comprehensive and effective as possible. I stand by my pledge to vote against any health care bill that does not include a public option.

I will be hosting four additional town halls in the month of December, and at least one will be virtual. We will continue to promote these open forums as opportunities for the public to ask questions and offer suggestions on economic development and job creation. There are many opportunities in the 10th Congressional District and neighboring communities to work with research labs, colleges and universities, and private sector employers to create good jobs for people of all levels of educational achievement. I’m ready to rebuild our economy, and I remain proud to say that I cast one of the decisive votes for health care reform. Indeed, health care reform makes rebuilding our economy all the more possible.

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Friday, November 13.

1. Jane Hamsher writes about a Goldman Sachs evaluation that says the House version of the public option would cause insurance stocks to drop 36% by 2019. Jane concludes, “It’s hard to look at this as anything but advocacy on their part to apply political pressure to weaken and pass the Senate Finance Committee bill, because it’s highly unlikely that no health care bill will be passed.”

2. Jon Walker has more on the Goldman Sachs analysis.  Walker highlights Goldman Sachs’ belief that “the public option would be the dominant player on the health insurance exchange, with over 50% of that market…significantly more than the CBO’s projection that the public option would only sign up 20% of the customers on the exchange.”  Walker believes that Goldman Sachs is “much better at this type of analysis” than the CBO, and thus recommends “listening more to Wall Street’s analysis than the CBO’s.”

3. Jane Hamsher marvels at Harry Reid’s “list building off the public option,” saying she is “[g]lad to hear it” and that “as long as reconciliation is a possibility, I doubt either the AFL-CIO or us will accept him shrugging his shoulders and saying ‘what can I say, Joe made me do it’ as a solid excuse for ditching it.”

4. Jon Walker writes that the CBO analysis of the Senate health reform bill “is taking even longer than expected.”

5. I’ve got a “Voices from the States” writeup by Betsy Muse of BlueNC, in which she writes, “Under the current makeup of our state government, I don’t think there is a chance that North Carolina will opt out of participating in healthcare reform.”

6. Jane Hamsher highlights a story first blogged on Blue Virginia that “teabaggers” in Virginia are planning to burn Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perriello in effigy tomorrow afternoon.  Fun times in Danville, Virginia! (not)

7. Finally, Jane Hamsher reports that Harry Reid’s online poll indicates 67% saying that the public option is the “most important aspect of health care reform.”  Hamsher believes that Reid’s effort is sincere, given that “You don’t list build by appealing to people you plan to punk.”

I hope you had a lucky Friday the 13th! 🙂

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Thursday, November 12.

1. Jane Hamsher writes that “Harry Reid says he has a wonderful relationship with the albatross hanging around his neck,” aka Joe Lieberman. Personally, I still can’t comprehend how Lieberman wasn’t booted from the caucus when he not only endorsed John McCain, but campaigned with McCain and Sarah “Wolf Killer” Palin against Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2008. Argh.

2. Jon Walker blogs about a Washington Post story “that Harry Reid is looking into possibly raising the Medicare payroll tax for those making above $250,000 a year.” Walker believes that “[i]f Reid can get the Senate bill to more heavily rely on taxing the wealthy, and less on taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits, it could reduce the number of contentious issues needed to be settled in conference.” Not that there are any contentious issues that need to be settled in conference. Ha.

3. Jon Walker writes that “[w]hile health reform does not directly address many GLBT issues, it does try to fix many of the problems with our current system that do strongly disadvantage the community.” Let’s hope so, it’s about time this issue is addressed!

4. Michael Whitney writes that “[s]ince Monday, activists from Firedoglake, CREDO, and Democracy for America helped put in hundreds of calls to progressive Members of Congress to find out where they stand on triggers and opt-outs in the final health care bill.” Whitney asks that “you call progressive Members of Congress and find out where they stand on triggers and opt-outs.” Please help out if you possibly can.

5. I report on a new poll by Quinnipiac University that indicates the public option is highly popular in Connecticut, and on balance it’s a political loser for Joe Lieberman to oppose it. Not that he gives a rat’s hindquarters.

6. Jon Walker writes that this is “only one important battle for health care reform,” that even if “a health care reform bill passes this year, there will be at least two more legislative battles before progressives could turn it into a quality universal health care system.” Something to look forward to.

7. Jon Walker believes that Rep. Bart Stupak has no plans to “fold,” and also that if “the pro-choice block in the House is not serious with their threat, the Stupak amendment will be in final bill.” That’s an outcome we don’t want, so let’s hope pro-choice representatives get “serious.” Fast.

8. Jon Walker says that Senator Harry Reid “may pay for reform with Medicare payroll tax on capital gains.” Walker believes that this is “a smart way to raise money and should be a relatively easier sell, as tax increase[s] go.”

9. Michael Whitney reports that “Rep. Michael Capuano’s office is telling constituents that he will oppose a final health care bill that has triggers or opt-outs.” That’s good news, but of course we need more commitments like this. As mentioned above, if you can, please call progressive Members of Congress and find out where they stand on triggers and opt-outs. Thanks.

Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Wednesday, November 11.

1. Jane Hamsher points us to Kagro’s “excellent rundown of what happened on the public option fight,” and also why abortion rights activists, with “an existing network of professional lobbyists and policy analysts, plus a multi-million dollar funding base,” didn’t see the Stupak amendment coming and work effectively to head it off. Simply bizarre.

2. Jon Walker reports on Sen. Tom Carper’s “no good, super terrible, completely awful, new new new ‘alternative’ to the public option,” namely “to take Olympia Snowe’s worthless trigger idea (which already should have 60 votes if no liberal Democratic senators bolt), and  weaken it further for no reason.” Brilliant!

3. Jon Walker writes that “if Harry Reid tries to go this route [e.g., “accept some worthless fig leaf like the Snowe’s trigger or Carper’s Plan B”] to get a watered-down compromise, it will not ‘show the left that he did everything he could do.'” In the end, Walker concludes, “The left will not be ‘placated’ by a big show and half hearted measures.”  Sorry, but that’s not what we’ve worked so hard for the last several years.

4. Jane Hamsher writes that “the absolute best, most optimistic outlook for passing a bill in the House without a public option means that 13 or fewer progressive votes could stop it.” She then proceeds to list 16 progressives who have pledged that they’ll vote against any bill without a public option. The result of this analysis is powerful: “no health care bill will pass without a public option. Period.”  Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how about the Senate stops wasting time and gets this thing done already?

5. Jon Walker says that “PolitiFact Is Wrong About Nita Lowey: Abortion Coverage Could Become Rare With Stupak Amendment.” What’s weird is that even after Walker contacted PolitiFact and told them exactly why they were wrong, they still would not correct their story, arguing that the possibility of abortion coverage becoming rare “seems remote.” Based on this, Walker remarks, snarkily, “PolitiFact claims to be a ‘fact checker,’ not a ‘in my opinion it seems like an unlikely outcome’ checker.” Heh.

6. Finally, Jon Walker reports that “since the House agreed to decouple the public option from Medicare rates, [Sen. Kent] Conrad has expressed some tepid openness to the public plan.” True, it may not be a “ringing endorsement” of the public option by Conrad, but on the bright side he “does not sound like a man who is about to threaten to bring the whole bill down if it includes one.”  Hey, that almost makes me tepidly optimistic!  LOL