So What Happens Once The Republicans Implement Ryan's And Price's Plan To Kill The Affordable Care Act?

Yesterday we all read that life expectancy-- particularly for the American working class-- has dropped. And you can't even blame the NRA for all of it-- heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, drug overdoses are all contributing, as Gaius went into more deeply this morning. And Trump, Pence and Tom Price haven't even been sworn in yet! In theory Trump and the congressional Republicans are in synch about repealing Obamacare. Trump campaigned on repealing it and replacing it with something fabulous. Congressional Republicans mostly just campaigned on repealing it, presenting it as a substitute and an abstract effigy for Barack Obama, focusing as much hatred as they could on it. So do the congressional Republicans have to come up with something fabulous to replace it with so that Trump doesn't look like a lying sack of shit? Or is that just another one that just get slipped down the collective memory hole?

When they repeal and not replace the Affordable Care Act-- or at least start the process by killing off the exchanges-- it will send the U.S. health care system into disarray and lead to 29.8 million people losing their coverage, something like 16.6 million of whom are white-- not just white, but white working class. I wonder how many of them voted for Trump.

According to a new study from the Urban Institute, 82% of those who would lose coverage are in working families. Repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan will more than double the number of uninsured children in the country-- leaving 4 million children uninsured.

  Dangerous plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacing it are a serious threat to hospitals, providers, and caregivers-- jeopardizing lives, livelihoods, and communities across the country. Hospitals are already warning of an "unprecedented public health crisis." Providers, including hospitals and doctors, would see a dramatic surge in uncompensated or charity care, $88 billion in 2019 alone and $1.1 trillion from 2019-2028.

Murderous mission

Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Tom Price, Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander are plotting to repeal the ACA, at least partially, through Reconciliation. The Urban Institute analysis starts with the premise that "since only components of the law with federal budget implications can be changed through reconciliation, this approach would permit elimination of the Medicaid expansion, the federal financial assistance for Marketplace coverage (premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions), and the individual and employer mandates; it would leave the insurance market reforms (including the nongroup market’s guaranteed issue, prohibition on preexisting condition exclusions, modified community rating, essential health benefit requirements, and actuarial value standards) in place." They compare future health care coverage and government health care spending under the ACA and under passage of a reconciliation bill similar to one vetoed in January 2016. The key effects of passage of the anticipated reconciliation bill are as follows:

• The number of uninsured people would rise from 28.9 million to 58.7 million in 2019, an increase of 29.8 million people (103 percent). The share of nonelderly people without insurance would increase from 11 percent to 21 percent, a higher rate of uninsurance than before the ACA because of the disruption to the nongroup insurance market.
• Of the 29.8 million newly uninsured, 22.5 million people become uninsured as a result of eliminating the premium tax credits, the Medicaid expansion, and the individual mandate. The additional 7.3 million people become uninsured because of the near collapse of the nongroup insurance market.
• Eighty-two percent of the people becoming uninsured would be in working families, 38 percent would be ages 18 to 34, and 56 percent would be non-Hispanic whites. Eighty percent of adults becoming uninsured would not have college degrees.
• There would be 12.9 million fewer people with Medicaid or CHIP coverage in 2019.
• Approximately 9.3 million people who would have received tax credits for private nongroup health coverage in 2019 would no longer receive assistance.
• Federal government spending on health care for the nonelderly would be reduced by $109 billion in 2019 and by $1.3 trillion from 2019 to 2028 because the Medicaid expansion, premium tax credits, and cost-sharing assistance would be eliminated.
• State spending on Medicaid and CHIP would fall by $76 billion between 2019 and 2028. In addition, because of the larger number of uninsured, financial pressures on state and local governments and health care providers (hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical manufacturers, etc.) would increase dramatically. This financial pressure would result from the newly uninsured seeking an additional $1.1 trillion in uncompensated care between 2019 and 2028.
• The 2016 reconciliation bill did not increase funding for uncompensated care beyond current levels. Unless different action is taken, the approach would place very large increases in demand for uncompensated care on state and local governments and providers. The increase in services sought by the uninsured is unlikely to be fully financed, leading to even greater financial burdens on the uninsured and higher levels of unmet need for health care services.
• If Congress partially repeals the ACA with a reconciliation bill like that vetoed in January 2016 and eliminates the individual and employer mandates immediately, in the midst of an already established plan year, significant market disruption would occur. Some people would stop paying premiums, and insurers would suffer substantial financial losses (about $3 billion); the number of uninsured would increase right away (by 4.3 million people); at least some insurers would leave the nongroup market midyear; and consumers would be harmed financially.
• Many, if not most, insurers are unlikely to participate in Marketplaces in 2018-- even with tax credits and cost-sharing reductions still in place-- if the individual mandate is not enforced starting in 2017. A precipitous drop in insurer participation is even more likely if the cost-sharing assistance is discontinued (as related to the House v. Burwell case) or if some additional financial support to the insurers to offset their increased risk is not provided.

We asked several of the most promising freshmen members of Congress what they think Democrats should do to protect their constituents. Aware of his outstanding record of leadership on tough, crucial issues in the Maryland legislature, Jamie Raskin was one of the first candidates Blue America endorsed in 2015. He beat a pack of wealthy, predatory self-funders in the primary and went on to win the general election with 60% of the vote. He's someone we'll be looking to for many years, not just for good votes, but for good ideas and strategies. This morning he asked rhetorically, "What kind of leaders seek to dismantle a program that provides health coverage to 20 million Americans? This is political malpractice in a democracy. Every American needs health care, not just billionaires and CEOs. TrumpCare is exactly what the doctor didn't order."

DWT is taking another look at Congressman-elect Ro Khanna, who defeated Mike Honda in a hard-fought run-off last month. Khanna has joined the Progressive Caucus and vowed to make a positive difference in the lives of California working families. Back from the freshman congressional sessions at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government this week, he told us that "Jack Kingston, a former member of Congress and senior Trump advisor, openly told freshman members of Congress at our Harvard orientation that Trump's first priority will be to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He said every Republican needs to be for that because they must have campaigned on it."

All Democrats must make the defense of the Affordable Care Act our highest priority. We need to make the case that repeal will hurt working class Americans most-- many in districts that Trump carried. At a time when unfair trade deals and automation are hurting working families in middle America, we simply cannot afford to strip millions of Americans of basic health insurance.

As someone who was in the Obama Administration when the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, I will play a leadership role to make the case why we must fight with every fibre of our being to keep it. I recognize as one of only two Obama Administration alum in the U.S. Congress and Senate that I have a unique responsibility.

Long term, we need to work towards a single payer system and Medicare for all. We can't take a step back now.

Once Again, Very Tangible Differences Between Carol Shea-Porter And Teabagger Frank Guinta

Only one "Democrat," Rahm Emanuel's prized North Carolina reactionary recruit, Heath Shuler, currently on his way to a cushy job as a lobbyist on K Street, voted for Boehner's and Cantor's little reconciliation trick yesterday. The resolution that allowed it to go forward passed 233-183. (When the legislation itself finally passed later in the day, 17 Republicans + Shuler bailed on it, but the damage was already done. Although Charlie Bass (R-NH) was one of the Republicans to vote NO, his lockstep teabag colleague Frank Guinta was all gung-ho to grind down already strapped and underprivileged people. Carol Shea-Porter, who's running against Guinta, addressed his deranged vote specifically, pointing out that "Guinta voted to hurt the people of New Hampshire today, when he voted to cut public health funding, Meals on Wheels, food programs for poor children and the elderly, child protective services, transportation for people with disabilities, help for cancer victims, etc. This is a very long and very cruel hit list, but missing from the list are Congressman Frank Guinta's Big Oil donors and his millionaire corporate donors. In spite of groups such as March of Dimes, Catholic Charities, AARP, and the American Public Health Association begging him to reconsider, Congressman Frank Guinta voted to take a hot meal away from the poor and the old rather than ask his campaign donors to pay their fair share. New Hampshire will remember his cruelty in November.”

Below is an OpEd from Carol about why she has a sense of optimism about the future of our country, even in the face of the determined efforts by the Republican Party to turn back the hands of time.

Restoring America’s Can-Do Spirit

-by Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)

When I was growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I would listen to my parents’ conversations with their friends. While I cannot remember every conversation, I remember the general theme of their conversations-- indeed, the theme of their lives. Optimism. A sense of confidence that we were Americans, and Americans were problem solvers. Whether they were talking politics, education, health, or other current issues of the time, they sounded more optimistic as a generation then we do today. They looked towards the future with hope and a certainty that they could face the danger and the challenges, and triumph over adversity. Today, we still have the danger and challenges, but many Americans are losing optimism. After being knocked around by a bad economy and some bad actors and events, many are short on faith in both government and private institutions. Can we as a nation find that optimism again, and if so, how?
 
My parents’ generation certainly had their sorrows and challenges. It was just twenty years since WW II had ended, and they had suffered so many losses through that terrible period. My father had witnessed plenty of death and destruction. His ship was hit by a German radio bomb, which had killed almost 200 men on the USS Savannah on 9/11/43. Before that, he had suffered through the Great Depression, and the death of his mother and a brother. He saw more of humanity’s troubles by age 21 than most of us ever see. And yet, he and his generation believed in a brighter future for themselves and for their country. They turned towards tomorrow. Some of my parents’ friends had seen two world wars, but their moods were usually upbeat, and there was always talk about new inventions, new construction, new products. They believed in progress, and medical and scientific advances were discussed and celebrated.
 
This generation by and large believed in their institutions of government, industry, and education. This is the world I grew up in. The world was certainly not free from problems, and certainly the world was not always fair to them. Poverty, racism, disease, nuclear threats, war–all were present, just like today. But the nation’s spirits were higher. Was it innocence, or was it the triumph of hope?
 
Too many right now think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and worry that their children’s future will not offer as much opportunity as they had. People are increasingly cynical about institutions. We need to turn this around if we are to hang onto our uniquely American “of course we can” attitude that encourages education, risk-taking, boldness, and creativity. I know we can turn this around by making some changes in government and business.
 
Our political leaders need to present a more accurate and brighter vision if there is to be a surge of optimism and a renewed sense of possibility again. When citizens are told that America is broke, bankrupt, unable to invest in infrastructure or people, it shakes confidence. America actually is still a very wealthy land, and we can solve these financial problems if we have the political will and courage to address them. Saying “we can’t” is both wrong and bad for morale. We can pay our bills-- there are solutions. We can also afford to educate our youth, who are our future, and take care of our old and our sick. We can also afford to invest in our infrastructure and create jobs.
 
Government leaders also need to address the sense of doubt about fairness. Americans struggling to earn a check and pay bills feel cynical when they hear that powerful people pay as little as 13.7% tax, or when they read that big corporations with friends in Washington and great tax lawyers can pay zero. American laws need to look fair and be fair. This could be accomplished by campaign finance reform, banning certain contributions to lawmakers and by fixing the tax code.
 
Private industry leaders need to clean up their act. There are too many reports of cheating, lying, and other unethical behavior. The Wall Street disaster had its seeds in greed, and Americans are cynical about corporate practices. Corporations can restore confidence by following strict ethical rules.
 
There is a lot of talk now about “fairness” and about what the writers of our Constitution meant when they wrote “promote the general welfare.” I think it means exactly that. We’re all in this together, and together, we can make this better.

A Tale Of Two Clotures

The Senate voted on two cloture resolutions yesterday. One passed and one failed. What they both had in common was that Ben Nelson (D-NE)-- who has voted only voted with the Democrats 44.65% of the time on tight contested roll calls-- crossed the aisle for both, helping the GOP thwart his own party on one but just casting one of his habitual meaningless crazy votes on the other.

The bill they're debating in H.R. 4213, Tax Extenders Act of 2009, which is the wide-ranging economic package Bunning was blocking all last week. Of the two amendments Reid tried moving yesterday, first up was one written by Patty Murray (D-WA) to extend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and provide emergency funding for summer employment for young people. She sought $1.3 billion to create something like half a million summer jobs. Technically it wasn't a cloture that they had to overcome, but a budgetary point of order by Judd Gregg (same thing, 60 votes needed.) In the end, it had a healthy majority, 55-45, the bitter and hateful conservative minority, under the Senate's arcane, conservative rules, triumphed. Joining all the obstructionist Republicans were 4 ConservaDems, Claire McCaskill (MO), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Warner (VA) and Jim Webb (VA).

That was in the morning. After a long break the Lords and Ladies filed back into their chamber and voted on an actual cloture amendment on Max Baucus' amendment that would, in effect, end the GOP filibuster on extending unemployment benefits and tax credits. With Nelson firmly ensconced with his Republican allies, Reid and Baucus needed to find a few Republicans who were willing to stop trying to just bring down the whole country in their party's orgy of obstructionism. They came up with seven which included the two arch-conservatives from Georgia, Chambliss and Isakson (who were, perhaps both responding to a recent poll showing they both had terrible approval ratings back home), Thad Cochran (MS), the retiring George Voinovich (OH), Maine's two relative moderates, Collins and Snowe and... good ole Tea Party fave Scott Brown, who hasn't exactly been the 41st vote he promised he would be but instead is someone trying to carve out a reasonable and plausible reputation as a moderate who could actually be re-elected in a normal Massachusetts election against a candidate who isn't sleep walking.

So, despite some last minute compromising late in the day to try to save the summer employment bill, it looks like that will be another notch in conservatism's gun handle, while the overall bill will pass with a simple majority. Speaking of which, Speaker Pelosi's blog carried an interesting post Monday about how a simple majority in the Senate for the first portion of the healthcare bill is compatible with the law and the framers' intent. She points to a NY Times chart of the history of reconciliation bills since 1981. Here's a piece of that chart:

Rachel, if you really don't understand why "they're not embarrassed," let Tom Tomorrow explain: "TOO MUCH CRAZY"

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THEY'RE NOT EMBARRASSED: Of course they're not, Rachel! Has any Republican uttered a truthful syllable since -- oh, I don't know, sometime back before the Bush regime? As you point out in this segment from last night's show (which features as guest Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown), they've discovered that there's no price to pay for lying.

RACHEL: We keep doing these segments that are called, [turns to face graphic projected behind her] "THEY'RE NOT EMBARRASSED," right? They're about people who have lied or been blatantly hypocritical in their opposition to policies like the stimulus and health reform. The reason we keep calling these segments "THEY'RE NOT EMBARRASSED" is because that's supposed to describe a problem, in that people should be embarrassed when they get caught lying, or when they get caught showing blatant hypocrisy.

But there is a problem here. THEY'RE NOT. They're not. And as the health reform fight draws to a close, people who want health reform to not happen are becoming even less afraid and even less embarrassed about lying abouthealth reform, and about demonstrating rank hypocrisy about health reform. This problem is not getting any better. It turns out that our diagnosis was not at all a cure.

by Ken

Let me say at once that I think it's wonderful that Rachel can still experience such astonishment and rage at all the lying and flagrant hypocrisy. On Tuesday night's show, she points out in this clip from last night's show, she called attention to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch writing an op-ed on health care that was simply contrary to fact. As she puts it, she wasn't expressing an opinion about Senator Hatch or his beliefs, she was simply documenting that he lied. And his response? He didn't contest any of the facts. He tweeted that being slammed by Rachel he considers a "wonderful badge of honor." This useless putz is actually proud of being shown to be a fucking liar.

Then there's Miss Mitch McConnell, lying his worthless head off about previous uses of reconciliation. He claimed yesterday, "Virtually every time reconciliation has been used, the resuts were bipartisan support." What Rachel doesn't point out is that you don't have to have any deep knowledge of Senate history or do any research to know that this is patently idiotic. If there was such bipartisan support, why the fuck would the Senate leaders have resorted to reconciliation? Of course if you do actual research -- you know, involving actual facts -- you find that the reconciliation votes were, oh, 51-50, 50-49, 52-47. In fact, says Rachel, in the majority of cases where reconciliation was used in the last two decades, the result was a party-line vote.

Then there's my personal favorite, what we will call The Two Judd Greggs, demonstrating the popular new Republican stunt that Rachel describes as "taking brave stands against their own records, their own positions."

I believe this is the New Judd Gregg, but it's hard to say for sure without hearing which set of lies he's peddling. This is, after all, a man who can announce diametrically opposed positions and be lying both times!

It was the New Judd Gregg who yesterday traipsed into the Hall of Lies that is Fox Noise and, prompted by a female creature so abjectly ignorant and poisonously contemptuous of reality and truth (mercifullyl not seen in Rachel's edit of the clip) that the mere fact of the earth not opening and swallowing her provides irrefutable proof of the non-existence of God, at 3:05 of the clip denounced the Democrats and all their kin for so much as contemplating perpetrating the profound sin and wickedness of reconciliation, with the intent "to railroad the American people and the Constitution."

"That new Judd Gregg," Rachel cautions, "is really not going to be happy when we introduce him to the old Judd Gregg." And here is the Old Judd Gregg, at 3:25 of the clip:

We are using the rules of the Senate here. That's what they are, Senator. All this rule of the Senate does is allow a majority of the Senate to take a position and pass a piece of legislation to support that position. Now [with heavy saracasm] is there something wrong with majority rule? i don't think so!

[The best part is Rachel echoing mockingly, "I don't think so."]

In a political universe that contained an iota of honesty or morality or ethics, the Two Greggs would have had literally no choice but to file back onto Fox Noise today and blow their itty-bitty brain out.

Then there's the dance of the Beyond-Certifiable Wingnuts, like Sens. Jim "I Defy Anyone to Find a Genetic Human, Living or Dead, More Insane Than Me" DeMint and our old pal Orrin "I'm Proud to Be a Liar" Hatch denouncing the Senate parliamentarian. You'll recall that It's the Senate parliamentarian who will be the arbiter of what, under Senate rules, can and cannot be passed under reconciliation. Now apart from the fact that the gentleman in question is a personally hired stooge of then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, hired indeed to replace a former stooge who had proved insufficiently stoogelike, the fact is that he has yet to do or say a thing. And here are these unaccountably uninstitutionalized raging psychopaths just pounding the doody out of him.

As Rachel points out, DeMint and Hatch are "preemptively bullying" the parliamentarian. It's a particularly insane and unprincipled version of "gaming the refs," and is the sort of thing that Tony Soprano and his associates would attempt without hestiation, but that from a U.S. senator should arouse general revulsion and a universal chorus of demands for official sanctions. Absent resignation, of course, which would be the appropriate remedy. At the very least, these are people -- Orrin, Mitch, Judd, and Jim -- who should be spat upon by all decent folk wherever they may show their faces.

Yes indeed, as Rachel puts it in her calm but emphatic way: There is a problem.

Of course it's not exactly a brand-new problem. As I've been screaming for some time, when we have an entire side of our political spectrum that has suspended any and all responsibilities to reality, oh yes, we've got a problem, especially when we're stuck with a media establishment that is either too stupid or too corrupt to blow the whistle. Random example: How many of the network evening newscasts featured clips of the Two Greggs?)

On this subject, the chair recognizes the great Tom Tomorrow:

[Don't forget to click to enlarge]

Ah yes, too much crazy. Exactly so.

#

The Senate Is A Jungle... And Joe Biden Is Tarzan

-by Doug Kahn

To everyone out there who thinks the Senate parliamentarian is going to play a definitive role in the passage of health care reform: you’re out of your flipping mind. The parliamentarian is an employee, and the boss can defer to an employee, but can choose not to. Is that simple enough for you?
 
Does anyone really question that a majority of Senators, with Joe Biden presiding over the Senate, can do whatever they really want to do? Only two things hold them back, and they’re both judgment calls by the Senators themselves. They are: 1. How is this going to look to the American public? and 2. What’s the downside of tacitly endorsing the same tactic done back at me by the opposition, that is, how is this going to look in the future? The U.S. Senate is all about looks, appearance, façade, presentation, drama.  

“The only way this works is for the House to pass the Senate bill and then, depending on what the package is, the reconciliation provision that moves first through the House and then comes here,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) outside the upper chamber this morning. “That's the only way that works.”


I [Brian Beutler, Talking Points Memo] pointed out that House leadership, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has repeatedly insisted they won’t take a flier on a reconciliation package-- that they will only pass the Senate bill after the smaller side-car reconciliation bill has been all wrapped up.

“Fine, then it's dead,” Conrad said.

[See Kent Conrad to Nancy Pelosi: Drop Dead in Conrad v. Sanity, 2010 Annals of Mediocrity, U.S. Senate.]

Kent says the Senate can’t pass a reconciliation package until the House passes the Senate bill, because until then, the reconciliation package will be about nothing. What about National Seedless Watermelon Day, Kent? You voted for that, didn’t you? 

I don’t know what the rules of the Senate say about the parliamentarian, and I don’t have to know. Practically speaking, here’s how it works in any deliberative body where the process is worked out in public, by spoken word. Someone presides over the debate.
 
Now where’s that old American Heritage dictionary? Preside: 1. To hold the position of authority; act as chairperson or president. 2. To possess or exercise authority or control. The person presiding over the debate (Vice President Joe Biden, who is a Democrat, last I checked) recognizes someone (a Democratic Senator), who makes a motion to do something. (Like pass health care reform with a public option; or alternatively with a prohibition against discrimination based upon pre-existing conditions; or maybe including a gala Sadie Hawkins Day cruise and dance, in a paddle-wheel steamer, on the Potomac River, by Professor Plum, in the Conservatory, with a blueberry cobbler containing four-and-twenty blackbirds. And there’d better be fresh flowers in the dressing room! And ice!) 

In a Town Meeting government, for instance, you have a Moderator presiding over the proceedings. The Moderator is presumed to impartially apply the Rules of Order (Robert’s Rules of Order, typically, in some form). Consider for a moment the Motion to [lay on the] Table. If a member wants to discuss a change in existing law or policy, another member sometimes will get the recognition of the Moderator and move to table (end) the discussion until the next session. The rules say a Motion to Table is not debatable, so if the Moderator recognizes the motion, calls for and gets a second, the question is automatically called, and a majority can stifle debate indefinitely. Tabling is meant to be a way of taking up urgent, crucial issues first. The impartiality of the Moderator is therefore crucial; one expects that he/she should not allow the majority indefinitely to snuff out discussions of policy. But the Moderator is also a member of the Assembly (therefore ‘partisan’), and although prohibited from making motions or debating, can vote if there’s a tie. If the Moderator wants to allow majority rule, it happens.
 
Back to the U.S. Senate. The Chair (or moderator or presiding officer or whatever you choose to call him or her) opens up the question for debate. Then, after a certain amount of blabbing and harrumphing (20 hours under the rules of reconciliation, apparently), someone calls the question, the chair recognizes the call and asks for a second, accepts the second, and so on and so forth. In the end, there’s a final vote.

The Senate parliamentarian supposedly becomes significant when his ruling is requested on a point of order (or some other item of parliamentary procedure, voicing an objection, it doesn’t matter what you call it) from a Senator on the floor (if all the Republicans haven’t already walked out of the chamber in protest, and I think it’s very likely they will when reconciliation actually occurs). Biden can simply say that he determines that the proposal meets the standards of the reconciliation rules, and move on. You say that’s against the rules, or any of this is against the rules? The Congressional Budget Office (more employees!) has to be consulted? The Senate can change its own rules by majority vote any time it wants, not just at the beginning of each session (2 years), or each year, but any time it wants to. A quorum of the Senate is 51 Senators. A majority of the Senate is 51 votes (when all Senators are in attendance). Majority rules. 

After the posturing and preening and acting is all over, we hope it’s going to be about what 51 Democratic Senators think the overwhelming majority of the ‘public’ wants it to get done, and the ‘public’ doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Senate rules. Last fall, there were all sorts of threats about using reconciliation, and we were all for it, because reconciliation is majority rule, and we elected a majority of Democrats.  

They were threatening to pay attention to us, and the other side acted like it was an empty threat. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. This isn’t over yet. But inertia is the immovable object in Washington D.C., and we’re beginning to look like the irresistible force. If health care reform does get enacted, it’s against the odds, especially since we’re now into an election year. Typically, nothing gets done in an election year in D.C.; less than nothing, because things fall apart. Maybe this year is different, though. Usually you don’t see a Democratic Lieutenant Governor challenge a sitting Democratic Senator in a primary, either. I guess this is the year that it makes a difference if Blanche Lincoln has been bought and paid for by the financial sector and the insurance lobby. 

Here’s a useful rule: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” The House passed HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, definitely a revenue bill. Did the Senate then debate this bill, as the rule plainly dictates? No! They took another House bill, stripped out the entire contents of the bill, and filled it up with their own revenue bill. But the Senate didn’t originate a revenue bill, did they, so the rule wasn’t violated, was it?
 
That there rule is the opening sentence of Article 1, Section 7 of the Unites States Constitution. Do not try to tell me that Congress can’t get around rules. 

The Congress is the oldest established permanent floating craps game in the United States, and the bank doesn’t have to pay attention to kibitzers like the Senate parliamentarian. The bank makes the rules.

Republicans Counting Chickens...

You have Paul Ryan, a startlingly corrupt and abysmally mediocre congressman from southeast Wisconsin taking time out of his campaign to dismantle Social Security and Medicare to turn down the presidency (while assuring his lunatic fringe followers that he'll accept the vice presidential slot on the Republican Party ticket). Then you have Indiana clown and off-the-chart extremist Mike Pence reassuring Democrats that when the fascist-oriented GOP takes over Congress again-- despite the public's distrust of and disdain for them-- they'll treat the vanquished Democrats fairly. Example: although about double the Americans polled say they prefer Obama's approach to job creation to the GOP approach, Pence, while backing out of his threat to run for the Senate seat being abandoned by Evan Bayh, was crowing how teabaggers would sweep the GOP into power. (On Meet The Press this morning DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen's defensiveness came through clearly: "I've always said... this was going to be a very tough political cycle... This idea that they're going to be popping the champagne corks prematurely and measuring the drapes is clearly-- they're high on their own hype.")

On the other hand, Miss McConnell (R-KY), a far savvier politician than either Pence or Ryan will probably ever be, is trying to stick a bit-- even if just a little bit-- more to nuts and bolts reality on the ground, something Republicans normally voice contempt for, at least publicly. On Friday, McConnell's office was attempting to persuade Beltway media hacks that Senate Democrats don't have the votes to pass healthcare reform through reconciliation. He claimed there are 18 Democrats in opposition-- or, presumably. 17 + Lieberman. And the GOP obstructionist caucus only needs 11 to derail the effort. Democrats claimed McConnell was pulling the numbers out of his ass and that the Senate caucus hasn't been whipped on reconciliation yet-- and won't be until after Obama's last-ditch effort to get at least a few Republicans to sign on to a bipartisan effort to pass healthcare reform (Thursday).

Now that McConnell's efforts have been exposed, he's trying to walk them back, especially since some of the 18 Democrats he claimed oppose reconciliation, have already publicly embraced it, namely Harry Reid (D-NV), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Max Baucus (D-MT), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Arlen Specter (R/D-PA) and even whacky reactionary Mark Pryor (AR).

Even arch-ConservaDem Evan Bayh (IN) was on NPR the same day as McConnell's propaganda team was in action, saying of reconciliation "may be that that has to be ultimately resorted to because something to improve healthcare is better than nothing.” McCaskill (MO), as usual, is expected to follow Bayh and some of the Senate's most hardened conservatives, all of whom McConnell was counting on-- from Ben Nelson (NE), Kent Conrad (ND), Mark Begich (AK) and Mary Landrieu. McConnell can probably count of lobbyist-in-the-making Blanche Lincoln, who is hiding under her desk and refusing to comment.

Yesterday, McConnell, embarrassed, started hedging and now says it isn't clear if he has enough Democrats willing to cross the aisle and vote with the GOP to kill healthcare reform. He ran to a Republican Party television program, Fox News Sunday and whined that "There'll be a lot of Democrats who will vote against it. Whether there will be 11 Democrats who will vote against it is not clear."

Yesterday Think Progress-- and even Fox's Chris Wallace-- were agog that McConnell claimed-- with a straight face-- that the GOP hasn't been obstructionist. Watch how silly he looked on the GOP show:

Are Members Of Congress Willing To Wreck The Country's Educational Reforms For The Sake Of The Bribes They Receive? Meet Buck McKeon & Ben Nelson

Is Buck McKeon a crook?

For several years we've been covering the House's "fiercest protector of subsidies for student lending institutions," Buck McKeon (R-CA), who rakes in huge amounts of money from the anachronistic middleman lenders President Obama is trying to put out of business-- a move that will save the taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Obama:

"This is not about growing the size of government or relying on the free market, because it's not a free market when we have a student-loan system that's rigged to reward private lenders without any risk" [said Obama as he] reiterated his pledge to end the 43-year-old Federal Family Education Loan guarantee program, which provides subsidies to banks and other lenders. Phasing out the program would curb what the administration terms "wasteful spending." The plan would prevent new loans from the program being made after June 30, 2010.

As we've documented for years, McKeon jealously-- even viciously-- guards this little corner of banksterdom, one of his biggest sources of legalized bribes ($160,000, among the Top 10 in the House) for another sleazy Mormon congressman very much in the John Doolittle mode of anything-goes-as-long-as-you're-stealing-from-the-gentiles.

The same crooks have given the Senate's version McKeon, Ben Nelson (D-NE) $113,500-- and Nelson has been as adamant as McKeon that no one's goring his sacred cow (NelNet). Bad news for these two corrupt old fossils and great news for America: as Ryan Grimm reported at HuffPo yesterday budgetary reconciliation has been agreed between the White House and congressional leaders as the way to go after student-lending subsidies.

Grimm concentrated on Nelson, lately a far bigger threat to Obama's agenda for change than the impotent-- if noisy-- McKeon. Unlike McKeon, whose only concern has been what has gone into his own coffers, Nelson is worried about 1,000 NelNet jobs in Nebraska that would be effected. Nelson's power (as the 58th Democrat-- and, by far, the one who votes most frequently with the Republicans) is rendered useless when Democrats need a simple majority to pass a bill. He is only needed-- if only rarely willing-- when Democrats have to close down a GOP filibuster, which calls for 60 votes.

McKeon and Nelson have based their miserable and hypocritical political careers on whining about other people spending too much taxpayer money. They each insist they are strict fiscal conservatives but now they're screaming like stuck pigs. The White House says at least $4.8 billion will be saved annually and the CBO estimates that Obama's plan would save $94 billion over 10 years and much of the savings could be actually directed towards real student aid-- instead of towards lining the pockets of greedy middlemen-- and the corrupt congressmembers they've bought off. NelNet spent the same amount ($170,000) lobbing Congress in this past quarter as it did in the first quarter of 2008.

Because loan repayment is guaranteed by the federal government, private lenders assume very little risk under the FFELP and yet are rewarded handsomely -- a subsidy that makes little economic sense. Much of the savings from the move to direct lending would be used to increase the maximum Pell grant award to $5,550 for the 2010-11 school year, and make the Pell grant a mandatory government program guaranteed an increase-- inflation plus 1 percent-- every year.

There are other important reasons to make the change. For one, the FFELP program is prone to corruption. A 2006 audit of the student lender Nelnet by the U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general revealed that the company had received more than $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies by gaming the system. Another investigation in 2007 led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found that lenders were lavishing gifts, payments, and other inducements on college financial aid officers in order to encourage them to recommend their loans to unwitting students.

...The student loan industry’s influence in this debate cannot be separated from their extensive campaign contributions to federal lawmakers. For example, The Hill newspaper recently reported that during the last campaign cycle, Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, received $20,000 in donations from major loan companies Sallie Mae and Nelnet, the most of any representative. Responsible members of Congress should be more concerned about supporting policies that will allow us to live up to President Obama’s pledge that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” With the Lumina Foundation for Education estimating that by 2025 we will face a shortage of 16 million college-educated workers, this call to action must be heeded immediately.

OK, McKeon is certainly the worst crook in Congress in this regard and he should be investigated on charges of selling his votes for cash. But he isn't the only one-- and the other perps aren't all Republicans, not by a long shot. It's no coincidence that the members of Congress-- like McKeon (R-CA) and Kanjorski (D-PA) in the House and Cornyn (R-TX), Alexander (R-TN) and Nelson (D-NE)-- who are the most vocal opponents of reform and are all on the take from the two biggest student loan middlemen.