{"id":10595,"date":"2009-11-28T01:26:26","date_gmt":"2009-11-28T01:26:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-11-28T01:26:26","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T01:26:26","slug":"fdl-action-health-care-update-friday-112709","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/28\/fdl-action-health-care-update-friday-112709\/","title":{"rendered":"FDL Action Health Care Update: Friday (11\/27\/09)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2536\/3996343323_077bd43f47_m.jpg\">Here are the <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/\">FDL Action<\/a> health care reform highlights for &#8220;Black Friday&#8221; (November 27).<\/p>\n<p>1. On Wednesday, <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/25\/why-is-hcan-defending-blanche-lincoln-from-a-primary-challenge\/\">Jane Hamsher asked<\/a>, &#8220;Why is HCAN Defending Blanche Lincoln From A Primary Challenge?&#8221; &nbsp;The answer: &#8220;[HCAN] will continue to operate as part of the Democratic party infrastructure, try to kill primary challengers and move to protect their &#8216;own.&#8217; &nbsp;And that means Blanche Lincoln. &nbsp;If health care reform happens in the meantime, well, what a happy coincidence.&#8221; Or &#8220;unhappy,&#8221; as the case may be.<\/p>\n<p>2. Yesterday, <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/25\/the-pr-push-that-helped-phrma-buy-the-government\/\">Jane Hamsher wrote about<\/a> &#8220;The PR Push That Helped PhRMA Buy the Government.&#8221; Included in &#8220;Government&#8221; are &#8220;the <a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/15\/biotech-industry-needs-42-representatives-to-try-to-refute-jane-hamsher\/\">42 members of Congress<\/a> who helpfully inserted lobbyist language into the Congressional Record in favor of endless patents on biologic drugs on behalf of the prescription drug industry.&#8221; So nice of those 42 members of Congress, huh?<\/p>\n<p>3. <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/27\/how-is-newt-gingrich-not-a-lobbyist\/\">Jane Hamsher wonders<\/a>, &#8220;How is Newt Gingrich Not a Lobbyist?&#8221;, and concludes that the &#8220;definition of &#8216;lobbyist&#8217; seems a bit too flexible to prohibit the biggest of the professional influence peddlers from getting their claws in.&#8221; Not that we&#8217;d ever think Newt Gingrich had claws or anything. Heh.<\/p>\n<p>4. <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/27\/really-peter-orszag-your-critics-have-no-ideas-for-controlling-cost\/\">Jon Walker provides<\/a> &#8220;13 very specific proven solutions&#8221; for OMB Director Peter Orszag, who had &#8220;defended the Senate health care reform bill&#8217;s minor cost-control measure&#8221; by suggesting that critics had no ideas of their own for controlling costs. Among the 13 ideas Walker presents: &#8220;Turn all health insurances companies into non-profits;&#8221; &#8220;Allow Medicare to directly negotiate lower drug prices;&#8221; &#8220;create a much stronger risk adjustment mechanism [on the new exchanges];&#8221; and &#8220;Create a robust public option that can use Medicare rates and Medicare&#8217;s provider network.&#8221; I believe the ball is now in your court, Mr. Orszag! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2536\/3996343323_077bd43f47_m.jpg\">Here are the <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/\">FDL Action<\/a> health care reform highlights for &#8220;Black Friday&#8221; (November 27).<\/p>\n<p>1. On Wednesday, <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/25\/why-is-hcan-defending-blanche-lincoln-from-a-primary-challenge\/\">Jane Hamsher asked<\/a>, &#8220;Why is HCAN Defending Blanche Lincoln From A Primary Challenge?&#8221; &nbsp;The answer: &#8220;[HCAN] will continue to operate as part of the Democratic party infrastructure, try to kill primary challengers and move to protect their &#8216;own.&#8217; &nbsp;And that means Blanche Lincoln. &nbsp;If health care reform happens in the meantime, well, what a happy coincidence.&#8221; Or &#8220;unhappy,&#8221; as the case may be.<\/p>\n<p>2. Yesterday, <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/25\/the-pr-push-that-helped-phrma-buy-the-government\/\">Jane Hamsher wrote about<\/a> &#8220;The PR Push That Helped PhRMA Buy the Government.&#8221; Included in &#8220;Government&#8221; are &#8220;the <a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/15\/biotech-industry-needs-42-representatives-to-try-to-refute-jane-hamsher\/\">42 members of Congress<\/a> who helpfully inserted lobbyist language into the Congressional Record in favor of endless patents on biologic drugs on behalf of the prescription drug industry.&#8221; So nice of those 42 members of Congress, huh?<\/p>\n<p>3. <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/27\/how-is-newt-gingrich-not-a-lobbyist\/\">Jane Hamsher wonders<\/a>, &#8220;How is Newt Gingrich Not a Lobbyist?&#8221;, and concludes that the &#8220;definition of &#8216;lobbyist&#8217; seems a bit too flexible to prohibit the biggest of the professional influence peddlers from getting their claws in.&#8221; Not that we&#8217;d ever think Newt Gingrich had claws or anything. Heh.<\/p>\n<p>4. <a href=\"http:\/\/fdlaction.firedoglake.com\/2009\/11\/27\/really-peter-orszag-your-critics-have-no-ideas-for-controlling-cost\/\">Jon Walker provides<\/a> &#8220;13 very specific proven solutions&#8221; for OMB Director Peter Orszag, who had &#8220;defended the Senate health care reform bill&#8217;s minor cost-control measure&#8221; by suggesting that critics had no ideas of their own for controlling costs. Among the 13 ideas Walker presents: &#8220;Turn all health insurances companies into non-profits;&#8221; &#8220;Allow Medicare to directly negotiate lower drug prices;&#8221; &#8220;create a much stronger risk adjustment mechanism [on the new exchanges];&#8221; and &#8220;Create a robust public option that can use Medicare rates and Medicare&#8217;s provider network.&#8221; I believe the ball is now in your court, Mr. Orszag! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[8000,6911,855,7464],"class_list":["post-10595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","tag-8000","tag-6911","tag-855","tag-7464"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2KT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}