After months of silent, closed door negotiations between the holy trinity (the executive branch, the congress, & the health care industry), we stand on the brink of health insurance reform.

Health insurance reform. Do not confuse this with health care reform as that was never the intent of this legislation. This is not a minor point. Health care reform would have addressed the central problem of our current health care system and confronted the reality that in order to provide universal, affordable health care for all citizens, we would need to stop treating human health as a commodity. It would have taken a moral imperative to place human life over profit. But, right from the very beginning, the central GOAL in creating this legislation was just the opposite, the development of a plan that not only maintained, but expanded the ability of the health care industry (private insurers, big pharm, large hospitals) to profit off human illness.

And, that has what has been created. A bill that enshrines private health care companies as the government mandated model for health care administration. A bill that will provide 70 billion dollars in subsidies to private insurance companies, at the expense of universal, affordable coverage for every American citizen. A bill that negotiated away the government's ability to stop big pharm price gouging, in exchange for a phony bargain where the pharmaceutical companies would cut up to 8 billion dollars in costs over the next ten years while they elevated prices 10 billion this year alone. A bill that does not allow reimportation of drugs from Canada and holds the American people hostage to a mob type system of pay or die. Under this bill, millions will not be able to afford their prescriptions. Millions more will be forced to choose medication, food, or heat.

Under this bill, denial of care will be allowed for a thousand other reasons then the sole prohibited exception of a preexisting condition.

Under this bill, health care coverage will remain a game of chance.

Under this system, class difference may still determine whether you live or die.


The promoters of this legislation claim that this bill will provide health insurance to 96% of the population. But, they fail to note that doesn't mean it provides health care to 96% of the American people. The reality is that tens of millions will only be able to afford plans that provide either minimal or catastrophic coverage. Millions more will opt out entirely and pay the fine to avoid tax penalties or jail time. Millions more won't be able to pay the fine, and they will incur a thousand dollar penalty in addition to the hundreds of dollars they could not afford to pay to opt out. Or, they will go to jail. Bankruptcy from medical bills will continue en force with this legislation. The most affordable 'comprehensive' policies are allowed to only cover up to 60% of costs. If anyone with a 'comprehensive' policy such as this meets with the bad fate of a chronic or life threatening illness (or even a single hospitalization), they will stand in very real danger of being financially ruined even with their insurance coverage.

Under pressure from the executive branch, the Congress removed the only strong amendment in the House bill that would allow a state from emancipating from the enslavement to corporate insurance by developing their own single payer plans. The Kucinich amendment which would have prevented insurance companies from suing states who developed single payer at the state level is gone. So, yes. That means states can be SUED by private insurance companies for developing an alternate system that would provide universal, affordable and comprehensive coverage to its citizens.

Industry profit above all else.

This reform is being accepted from the American people out of ignorance and sheer and total desperation. We have acquiesced to the corporate dictate for so long, we forget that we even have the alternative to fight back against policies that put our very lives at risk for the sole purpose of corporate and shareholder profit. We have become so accustomed to the myth of compromise,
we have relinquished our principles to the point of our own powerlessnes. So, it is with this legislation. Better to take what crumbs are thrown, then to stand on conviction and demand true reform. Something is better then nothing. Our fear is so great, we cower and give up before we even begin to fight. But, until we break this circle, we will be left with less and less, and our power to influence will be all but impotent.

This legislation was written to save the health insurance system from the collapse which was soon to come. A collapse which very well could have precipitated the transition to single payer.

Why are we reviving the beast?

The implications, the reality, the hard cold truth about health insurance reform....We are enslaving ourselves to private industry with this bill. It is that bad.

House Passes Landmark Healthcare Bill with Amendment Backed by Anti-Abortion Lawmakers
By Amy Goodman

The bill has been described as the biggest overhaul of the country’s healthcare system since the Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965. Among those who voted no was Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, a leading proponent of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare system. Reproductive rights took a hit Saturday night when the House also passed an amendment to establish limits on the funding of abortions within the new framework that would be established by the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Guests: Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Congress member from Ohio. He voted no on the healthcare bill that just passed the House. And Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake blog.

AMY GOODMAN: The House of Representatives voted late Saturday night in favor of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a bill that would expand healthcare coverage and bar insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. On Sunday, President Obama called the 220-to-215 vote courageous and historic and urged the Senate to follow suit.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this legislation, I know that this was a courageous vote for many members of Congress, and I’m grateful to them and for the rest of their colleagues for taking us this far.

AMY GOODMAN: The bill has been described as the biggest overhaul of the country’s healthcare system since the Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965. House Democrats burst into applause as the crucial 218th vote was cast in favor of the bill. Two hundred nineteen Democrats and one Republican, Louisiana’s Joseph Cao, voted for the bill. The no votes included thirty-nine Democrats and 176 Republicans. Among those who voted no was Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, a leading proponent of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare system.

Reproductive rights took a hit Saturday night when the House also passed an amendment to establish limits on the funding of abortions within the new framework that would be established by the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Speaking at a news conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she allowed the amendment to go to a vote as a way to seek, quote, “common ground.”

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: We have sought, in the course of the development of this bill, common ground in many areas, this being one of those. We did not reach the common ground yet that we hope to achieve; therefore, we had an amendment on the floor. We will continue to seek common ground.

AMY GOODMAN: Despite opposition from pro-choice Democrats, the amendment, which was initially proposed by Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, was approved by sixty-four Democrats and all 176 Republicans.

Well, to assess what happened in the House and how the healthcare bill will move forward in the Senate, I’m joined now by two guests. Congress member Dennis Kucinich joins us from Cleveland, Ohio. He voted against both the Affordable Health Care for America Act and the Stupak amendment. We’re also joined in Washington, DC by the founder of the popular blog Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher.

And we welcome you both to Democracy Now! Before we go to the congressman, Jane Hamsher, just lay out exactly what this bill, that passed by a squeaker, 220-to-215, what exactly it mandates, if in fact it joins with the Senate and then it’s reconciled?

JANE HAMSHER: Well, we would get a bill that has a public option that would cover not a lot of people in it. But it would get rid of people being excluded for pre-existing conditions. It has a community rating, and it also has a provision that grants an endless monopoly on biologic drugs, sort of the drugs of the future, that mean that they will never come into generic form and will cost, in perpetuity, you know, fifty to eighty to a hundred thousand dollars a year and only be able to be available to people who can afford them.

It also has a provision barring any insurance company or a public option who offers insurance on the exchange from providing abortion services, which means that you would have to go to a private insurance company that wasn’t on the exchange in order to get a policy that covered it, effectively keeping poor people from being able to afford those policies. So it is a huge victory for Bart Stupak and the anti-abortion Democrats.

AMY GOODMAN: How many people now would be covered, would get healthcare, that don’t normally have it?

JANE HAMSHER: I believe that it’s going to cover approximately 95 percent of Americans, but that is with a mandate, and that assumes that people comply with the terms and do purchase insurance. But the mechanism for enforcement is still questionable as to whether that will work or not.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain the politics of the House, how exactly it passed 220-to-215. Who was for? Who was against?

JANE HAMSHER: Well, in the House, you had Democrats in the Progressive Caucus who were trying to decide whether they should take a stand at the last minute after Bart Stupak and the pro-choice—the pro-life Democrats decided to hold up the bill unless they got their amendment through. They wound up being supported by sixty-four members—sixty-four Democrats in order to pass it. And the Progressive Caucus decided that they were not going to take a stand at this point.

At this morning, we have Diana DeGette saying that she has forty votes in the Congress to be able to stop the bill from going through if it comes back from conference and has the anti-choice stipulations in it. But she hasn’t been joined by any of the pro-choice groups, NARAL and Planned Parenthood, who sort of laid around since July 1st, I believe, when Stupak first wrote his letter, and didn’t do anything about this. So, whether they’ll actually have the political will to carry through on this or not is questionable.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go now to Cleveland to the home district of Congress member Dennis Kucinich. Congress member Kucinich, you voted no on the healthcare bill, one of the 215. Why?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Because it’s not the best we can do. It mandates people purchase private insurance. It is a $70 billion giveaway to private insurance companies and locks in this system that’s the problem, not the solution.

And so, I made every effort, right from the beginning, as you know, as a single-payer advocate. We couldn’t really make this bill single payer; that was taken off the table. But we did something else: We were able to get a bill in the committee passed that would protect the right of states to be able to have—to pursue a not-for-profit healthcare plan at a state level to shield it from legal attack. And that was taken out of the legislation after it had passed. It was taken out by the administration, which has whittled down the public option to the point of not having it truly compete with insurance companies.

So what you have here is people continuing to be at the mercy of the insurance companies, except in this case the government is going to subsidize the policies. People are still going to have premiums, co-pays and deductibles to deal with. And, you know, there’s really a great deal of question here as to what in the world we’re doing in creating a healthcare system that’s really based on the premises of private insurance.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s better than what we have now?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: No. Actually, it’s not, because it locks us into a for-profit system that the government subsidizes. It’s not going to save money in the long run. It’s not going to provide the kind of broad healthcare services the American people need. It’s going to limit the choices that people have over a longer period of time. And people will have to buy private insurance. I mean, what’s going on in this country? We’re told that the only choice we have is to buy private insurance, and with the robust public option being gone, it makes sure that there’s little competition with the insurance companies. This bill doesn’t effectively moderate what they can charge for premiums or co-pays or deductibles. It just says people have to have insurance. Well, insurance doesn’t necessarily equate to care, and care comes at a cost.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you compare the public option in the House bill with the Senate bill?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, that remains to be seen. I mean, Senator Baucus has had a couple different iterations. His first bill didn’t have a public option at all.

Keep something in mind. When Mr. Hacker first came out with his proposal for a public option, it was going to cover 129 million Americans. That really would compete in an exchange with private insurance. But that’s been whittled down to, depending on who you talk to, covering six to 11 million people. So only a fraction of Americans will have access to the public option, which means that there’s not effective competition with the insurance companies to drive down rates.

And the Senate, we’ll see what happens in the Senate.

But as far as the House bill that I was confronted with, Amy, I just felt that it increased privatization of the healthcare system. Requiring the purchase of private insurance, the government subsidizing it, it ends up being a redistribution of the wealth of this nation upwards, which lately seems to be the sole purpose of the government.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip about what we could expect from the Senate. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared on CBS’s Face the Nation that the bill would be, quote, “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Just look at how it passed. It passed 220-to-215. It passed by two votes. You had forty Dem—thirty-nine Democrats vote against the bill. They come from red states, moderate Democrats from swing districts. They bailed out on this bill. It was a bill written by liberals for liberals. And people like Joe Lieberman are not going to get anywhere near the House bill. It cuts Medicare about $500 billion. It’s over a trillion dollars in new spending. It does have the public option. So the House bill is a nonstarter in the Senate.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Kucinich, your response?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, you know, making this about liberal and conservative is a phony argument, to begin with. I mean, when I heard the Republicans attacking this bill in the House as a government-run healthcare system, I said, “I wish.” I wish that it would have been a not-for-profit, single-payer, universal system. Nothing like that.

The fact that there’s a shrinking public option is not a credit to the bill. And the administration, obviously, was terrified that anything could be identified as being adverse to the insurance companies, which is why they took privatization, they took single payer off the table immediately, they knocked down the robust public option. And after an amendment that would have protected the right of states to pursue a single-payer system was passed by the Education and Labor Committee, the administration weighed in heavily and influenced the leaders of Congress to take it out of the bill.

I mean, American people are being locked into a for-profit insurance structure. And we have to ask ourselves, why is this the best that we can do? Why should we settle for this without fighting back? Why shouldn’t we insist that a robust public option is the only way to make sure that the American people really have a fighting chance with the insurance companies? As it is now, the government is going to be subsidizing the insurance companies.

And we’re being told all the time, Amy, that our options keep getting limited. We were told last year the only way people could get unemployment benefits is if Congress votes for war, the only way we can pass a hate crime is if Congress votes for war, the only way we can get housing is to give Wall Street a bailout. And that didn’t put people back in—most people back in their homes who lost them. You know, we’re going to get jobs by giving Wall Street a bailout; that didn’t work. Businesses are going to be helped by giving Wall Street a bailout; that didn’t work.

Our whole economy is being organized in a way that takes the wealth of the nation and sends it right to the top. And this healthcare bill is no different. And we’ve got to fight back, and that’s why I could not vote for this. If we were able to get a single payer—to protect the right of states to have a single-payer plan, maybe the bill would have been worth voting for. But that was taken out. So what are we left with? Private, for-profit health insurance, with the government subsidizing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see, Congressman Kucinich, a way to get from where you’re talking about from here?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Yes, if we are able to get back in the bill a provision that says states will be shielded from legal attack by insurance companies if those states go with their own single-payer plan. I mean, states should have the right to do that. You have ten states which are actively involved in single-payer movements. And I fought to get that amendment in the bill to make sure that states would not be subject to the kind of legal attacks that are building by the insurance companies against efforts at local, county and state levels to have their own single-payer system, so they’re not strapped by the rising cost of insurance companies, their administrative costs, their profits, their stock options.

You know, we’re stuck with a model here. And we’re putting this model in place and keeping it there. That’s what this bill does. So the only way that I think we can get out of it—at least have the hope to—is to be able to have a path towards single payer at the state level. But the administration has been blocking this. And frankly, if I give my vote to that, what I’m essentially doing is putting a nail in the coffin of the single-payer movement. And I’m not going to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the Weiner amendment? And what was the Kucinich amendment? And what happened to both?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, my amendment passed in the Education and Labor Committee, and it would have protected the right of states to pursue single payer by granting states a waiver from what is known as the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, which is currently being used in court by the insurance company to attack single-payer initiatives. My amendment passed the committee. It was taken out of the bill at the behest of the administration.

Mr. Weiner had a stand-alone bill that was a single-payer plan. I didn’t see the plan, but it was single payer, I’m told. And at the last minute, he decided to withdraw it, you know, for his own reasons, which I think had to do with wanting to support the larger bill. But the truth of the matter is that a single-payer bill in this climate, with all of the effort being made to shore up the interests of the insurance companies, would have been a tough ride.

I mean, we need a national campaign. You know, we’re years away from being able to pass a single-payer bill. The question is, what can we do in the meantime? There’s no question Congress could pass a stand-alone bill that would address the issue of pre-existing conditions. You know, we shouldn’t be held hostage on that issue to say, well, you just got to buy, you know, private insurance for the rest of your life. There are many things we can do to fix the system to make it more accessible to people until we get to the point of a single-payer system.

I’m not saying it’s—you know, that it’s my way or the highway, by any means, but we have to make sure that we protect the right of states to pursue single payer, which is what’s happening right now, Amy. But they’re going to be vulnerable to legal attacks if we don’t have states given the opportunity in the bill to get a waiver from the ERISA pre-emption, which, in effect, is the vehicle that insurance companies are using to attack state single payer.

So, you know—and the other thing is, with state single payer, that’s the real threat, not the public option anymore, because it’s so small. The state single-payer initiative is the real threat that the insurance companies have, because if they’re worried about action at a state level that would attack their profits, they’re going to be very careful about continuing aggressive pricing of their premiums, which, by the way, for the last four years, have had double-digit increases. So, you know, inevitably it’s an economic issue, as well as a social issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain—

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: And I think—

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, explain the Stupak amendment that seemed to come up at the very last minute.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I wish it hadn’t come up. I mean, it effectively removes any kind of insurance support and any federal subsidy for abortion. Now, I voted against the Stupak amendment. I think that we should do everything we can to make abortions less necessary, and I think the way to do that is through prenatal care, post-natal care, childcare, universal healthcare, a living wage. This is a very complex social issue. And I respect the right of people to make their own choices here.

But the Stupak amendment, I think, set us into a ferocious public battle over the abortion issue at exactly the time that we should be conciliating over the issue. We’re looking at another fight here. I don’t know how it contributed to the healthcare debate, but I voted against it. And I’m hopeful that, as Speaker Pelosi said, as they go to conference, there will be a way to achieve common ground. But I’m also hopeful that, as they go to conference, there will be a way to achieve protection for state single-payer initiatives.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Jane Hamsher, you’ve written a piece at Huffington Post that says, “Call Bart Stupak’s Donor PACS and Tell Them They’re Paying for His Anti-Abortion Activism.” What are you calling for here?

JANE HAMSHER: Well, one thing I’d like to correct in something Congressman Kucinich said is that the Stupak amendment does not end abortion subsidies, because that was already prohibited by the Hyde Amendment.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Right.

JANE HAMSHER: This ends any company on the exchange from being able to provide abortion in the insurance package that it offers to women who are paying for it. That is something more extreme.

But, yes, I think that people should be calling Congressman Stupak’s donors and playing hardball. And to that end, I’d like to ask Congressman Kucinich—the reason that Congressman Stupak was able to do this was because the Republicans were voting in a bloc against it, against the legislation, and there were problems, which means that any thirty-nine Democrats can stop something. And there were probably twenty-five Democrats who will vote against anything. So, given the fact that there were eighty-three co-sponsors of 676, I believe, was there any attempt to get fourteen of them together to block any legislation from going through that didn’t have a vote on single payer or your state legislation?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: This thing, as it—the answer is no. And, you know, we’ve—you know, there were many Democrats who felt that they had to pass something. And so, those of us who took a strong stand on robust public option, and when it was whittled away, many voted for the bill. Those of us who took a strong stand on single payer, and when that was—my amendment was taken out of the bill, they still ended up voting for the bill. I mean, people have to make their own choices here. And, you know—

JANE HAMSHER: Right, but I would make the point that there is a real problem that we’re going to try and address in the single-payer infrastructure. If—for instance, when Congressman Rangel said that he would not become a supporter and people who had co-sponsored the bill said that they would not vote it on the floor, and there was no price exacted it. It’s eighty-three—

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: And there was no what?

JANE HAMSHER: There was no price exacted for abandoning it. If it was the NRA or AIPAC, they would be yanking their chains very hard, and that didn’t happen.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Your point is well taken.

JANE HAMSHER: I want to know why eighty-three co-sponsors—among those eighty-three co-sponsors, there were not, you know, fourteen that could be found to join you in demanding that this actually got a vote on the floor.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Yeah, you know, I got your point. I mean, unfortunately, there were many people who just didn’t want to fight that. They saw the administration had abandoned the state single-payer issue, and they didn’t feel there was any support for it. I mean, there’s this chemistry that happens, and people look around, and there’s only a few people really taking a stand on something, they may not desire to join.

So, you know, in the end, you know, I voted against a bill that, as someone who’s championing the cause of healthcare for all, who took it into two presidential campaigns, who addressed three platform committee meetings of the Democratic Party and said we have a single-payer plan, only to have the committee reject it, seeing the influence of private insurers in this Congress, I felt that my vote was the only way that I could make a statement about how this is not a state of affairs which is celebrating Democratic principles, Democratic economic philosophy, or the hopes of people to have real healthcare instead of having real health—instead of being forced to pay for insurance. So, I wish there would have been more people who would have stood with me. I think, as we go to conference, maybe that might change, but who knows?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. I want to thank you, Congress member Dennis Kucinich, speaking to us from his home district in Cleveland. He voted no on the healthcare bill that just passed the House. Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, speaking to us from Washington, DC.

http://coto2.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/heal... /

Added appropriate Creative Commons piece which should have been included:

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Lithos/DU Moderator

We need to start framing our talking points and discussions around this basic premise.

We can't fix healthcare because we refuse to place human health and quality of life above industry & shareholder profits.

We can't move forward with clean & green energy because the coal and oil industries won't allow the development of other resources.

We can't work towards peace because our economy is centered around a military industrial complex that pillages dollars away from any program that would advance peace and help the social contract.

We can't provide adequate job stimilus because the borrowed bailout money went to the profits of the banking system that brought America to its knees.

The capitalist system has mutated into a destructive monster that doesn't allow for progress, creativity, ingenuity, or human healing. And, until we address this reality, the economy won't heal. Until we address this truth, we won't provide universal health care to our citizens....we won't have clean energy...we won't feed the hungry...we won't solve anything.

The system is designed to maintain the profits of those vested in the status quo.

The backroom deals Obama made with the big pharm devil are going to save ZERO. This industry is worse then the mob. '

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/business...

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years. Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a pharmaceutical economics professor at the University of Minnesota, said, “When we have major legislation anticipated, we see a run-up in price increases.”

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

“When we have major legislation anticipated, we see a run-up in price increases,” says Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota. He has analyzed drug pricing for AARP, the advocacy group for seniors that supports the House health care legislation that the drug industry opposes.

A Harvard health economist, Joseph P. Newhouse, said he found a similar pattern of unusual price increases after Congress added drug benefits to Medicare a few years ago, giving tens of millions of older Americans federally subsidized drug insurance. Just as the program was taking effect in 2006, the drug industry raised prices by the widest margin in a half-dozen years.

“They try to maximize their profits,” Mr. Newhouse said.

But drug companies say they are having to raise prices to maintain the profits necessary to invest in research and development of new drugs as the patents on many of their most popular drugs are set to expire over the next few years.

“Price adjustments for our products have no connection to health care reform,” said Ron Rogers, a spokesman for Merck, which raised its prices about 8.9 percent in the last year, according to a stock analyst’s report.

This year’s increases mean the average annual cost for a brand-name prescription drug that is taken daily would be more than $2,000 — $200 higher than last year, Professor Schondelmeyer said.

And this means that the cost of many popular drugs has risen even faster. Merck, for example, now sells daily 10-milligram pills of Singulair, the blockbuster asthma drug, at a wholesale price of $1,330 a year — $147 more than last year. Singulair is now selling at retail, on drugstore.com, for nearly $1,478 a year.

The drug companies “can charge what they want — it’s not fair,” Eric White, the 42-year-old owner of a small jewelry store in Queens, said as he left a pharmacy recently.

Despite having drug insurance, Mr. White says he now pays $110 a month out of pocket for two brand-name allergy medicines, even as he has cut prices in his jewelry store by at least 40 percent to keep customers coming through the door.

He shook his head. “What can I do?” he said. “I need my medicines.”

The drug industry has actively opposed some of the cost-cutting provisions in the House legislation, which passed Nov. 7 and aims to cut drug spending by about $14 billion a year over a decade.

But the drug makers have been proudly citing the agreement they reached with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee chairman to trim $8 billion a year — $80 billion over 10 years — from the nation’s drug bill by giving rebates to older Americans and the government. That provision is likely to be part of the legislation that will reach the Senate floor in coming weeks.

But this year’s price increases would effectively cancel out the savings from at least the first year of the Senate Finance agreement. And some critics say the surge in drug prices could change the dynamics of the entire 10-year deal.

More at link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/business...

Dear Senator,

I know you're in a tough spot. It would be bad enough if you only had to get Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln on board, but anyone who has to kiss Joe Lieberman's derriere deserves a congressional medal of honor.

But Harry, you really need to take on future healthcare costs. The House bill fails to do this. The public option in the House bill is open only to people without employer-provided health insurance. That will be too small a number to have bargaining clout to get good deals from drug companies and medical providers. And it will mainly attract people who have more expensive medical needs, which is why the Congressional Budget Office decided it would cost more than it would save.

You also know a public insurance option that's open to everyone would cut future health costs dramatically by imposing real competition on private for-profit insurance plans. That's why the private insurers hate the idea. Even if states were allowed to opt out of this robust public option, the big states would almost certainly opt in, giving it the scale needed to negotiate great deals from drug companies and medical providers. This would put pressure on any state that opted out because its citizens would soon discover they're paying far more.

Continue Reading
In addition to the House's weak public option, the deals the White House and Max Baucus made with the drug companies and the American Medical Association will force Americans to pay even more. If, on the other hand, Medicare were allowed to negotiate lower drug prices, biotech drugs weren't granted a 12-years monopoly, and doctors had to accept Medicare reimbursements in line with legislation enacted years ago, Americans would save billions.

You know all this but you're also trying to get 60 votes in order get any bill to the floor. You have my sympathies, but unless you get these reforms into the final Senate bill you're not really helping most Americans afford future healthcare.

So what do you do?

Find out here at this link & read the rest of the analysis:
http://salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/in...

You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon "cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter, Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?

For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak becomes part of the final bill.

President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.

Women Democrats have taken an awful lot of hits for the team lately. Many of us didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary because the goal of electing a woman seemed less important than the goal of electing the best possible president. Only a self-hater or a featherhead didn't feel some pain about that. And although women are hardly alone in this, we've seen some pretty big hopes set aside in the first year of the Obama administration. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would expand women's protections against sexism in the workplace, is on the back burner. Meanwhile, the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is not only alive and well; it's newly staffed with antichoicers like Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, who, as Frances Kissling notes in Salon, has compared abortion to torture.

Much more here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/poll...

The top of the front page features a article on huge rise in birth defect in Fallujah. This article I thought I would post as an adjunct for further reading.

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2009/11/...

Worse than Dante’s seventh circle if that is possible because the after results of war in Fallujah will be felt for at least for a decade or two. We are not talking about physical destruction of homes and factories or the total annihilation of infrastructure such as water utilities, electricity generating plants, sewage plants, bridges and highways. All of these can be rebuilt and life will go on. In this case we are concerned with much more sinister effects of war, effects that linger on and destroy life. What the people of Fallujah, more than any other people in the world, are facing everyday and every second of every day is hell on earth; they have to witness the death of more than a quarter of the new born within a week of their birth and to make the deeply painful decision of what is to be done about the huge proportion of grotesquely deformed babies that are born with two heads, three eyes, no limbs, one eye.

The world owes the people of Fallujah an explanation of what has triggered this avalanche of deformity and horror. The usual celebratory experience of giving birth has been transformed to a time of anxiety and horror. Women dread becoming pregnant and above all carrying the fetus for nine months only to find out that what they are carrying has been condemned to death the moment that life was to begin. Such rapid and unique developments do not occur without a cause. The only logical proximate cause for this human tragedy was the 2003 war and in particular the 2004 assault on Fallujah. It was estimated that during that assault over 10,000 tons of depleted uranium, DU, was used in the bombardment of the city of 300,000 people.
Both the Pentagon and the British governments insist that the use of DU is not illegal and that the studies that they have undertaken do not reveal DU to be a carcinogen. That might be true but many an international body including the EU and the UN have been trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent the use of DU munitions because there are many physicians, engineers and studies that suspect that the DU produced vapour in battles is capable of contaminating humans, soil and water. It is this radioactive contamination that causes the severe deformities in the newly born “things” since many of them do not look like humans.

A group of doctors at the hospitals of Fallujah have documented the severity of the problems encountered by the newly born and has approached the UN and other world institutions asking for an investigation to determine the root cause of this tragedy. Tragic results from technological developments in war are nothing new. Agent Orange was used extensively to defoliate forests in Vietnam but wound up in causing the death and even childbirth deformities of thousands of people that it was deployed to protect. McNamara, who approved the use of Agent Orange never, forgave himself for all the damage and suffering that his decision has caused to millions of people but especially for loosing his son to an Agent Orange induced illness.

The prospective new parents of Fallujah and the next generation are being asked to bear the unbearable burden of seeing their children die within days of being born or of giving birth to grotesquely deformed beings. This is the result of a war of choice during which one side made the deliberate decision to subdue a city by pulverizing it and by subjecting its innocent civilians to the most incredible of human sufferings. DU is an instrument of death and horror that must be banned from use in war until serious and exhaustive studies can be made to show the opposite. Meanwhile the heart of all decent and honorable citizens in the world goes out to the suffering parents of Fallujah and to the horror that they have been forced to live with. We must make sure that such acts are never repeated again. DU; if found to be the culprit; must be prohibited and declared in violation of the laws of war besides the Declaration of Human rights.

.......................................

So, let me ask again. Why aren't Bush administration on trial for war crimes against humanity?

Just wondering.

The talking point will be:

The right and some blue dogs don't think the Stupak amendment goes far enough. This is their compromise position, and anything weaker will be voted against.

Plan on it.

Called on 11/12/09

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

At the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period. There's really no other way to look at it. I believe the private health insurance industry is part of the problem.
This bill also, I believe, fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is how do we control the costs of health care. It does not address interstate portability, as Medicare does. It does not address real medical malpractice insurance reform. It does not address the incredible waste and fraud that are currently in the system.

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.
Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment (to the House bill, which was approved and attached on Saturday) goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;

•Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes


It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States.
Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today's vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill.

These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH,: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.
Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000 percent. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us

Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.
Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your (members of Congress') duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.

And (members of Congress) are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.

Watch Smith's video: "American Sickos: Will the Current Bills Help? No"

Follow Smith's organizing for real reform at the website of Progressive Democrats of America. She is the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

Full article with preliminary text HERE: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/0...

Last week, as House Democrats took to the floor with near-unanimous praise for legislation to help the unemployed and stimulate the fragile economy, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) offered a wildly different message.

“This bill,” he said, “represents a textbook example of how not to deal with the economic challenges that our country faces.”

The Texas Democrat wasn’t talking about the extension of unemployment benefits at the heart of the bill, but an amendment providing the nation’s businesses — even the largest corporations — with tens-of-billions of dollars in tax rebates to stem recent losses. That provision, Doggett claimed, is less an economic stimulant than it is “a corporate giveaway” at the expense of taxpayers. It didn’t help the congressman’s mood that the Democrats’ bill allocates more than four times the funding to the business tax than it does to extending unemployment insurance.

“Today’s bill allocates $2 billion to the winner and $10 billion to the loser,” he said.

Indeed, although the jobless benefits are the centerpiece of the Democrats’ bill, they represent a mere $2.4 billion of the spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office — or just 10 percent of the $24 billion proposal. Nearly half of the money — $10.4 billion — will go toward the so-called loss carry-back extension, which will allow businesses, both large and small, to apply any losses suffered in 2008 and 2009 to income made in the previous five years, three years longer than current law allows. The result will be tax refunds topping $33 billion next year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Yet another amendment, to extend a popular $8,000 tax credit for new homebuyers, will cost $10.8 billion over a decade, JCT estimated.

Supporters of the two tax breaks — including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the bill sponsors — argue that they’ll help prop up businesses in the midst of the worst unemployment crisis in 26 years.

Yet an analysis of a similar bill by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, indicates that, in terms of bang-for-the-buck, the lopsided allocations in the stimulus bill are dubious. Indeed, for every dollar spent on the business tax rebate, just 21 cents are returned to the larger economy, according to Zandi. By contrast, the homebuyer tax credit returns 90 cents on the dollar, he found, while the unemployment extension returns $1.61.

Heidi Shierholz, economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said that there’s “no economic rationale” for the business tax rebate. “For whatever reason that got in there,” she said, “it has nothing to do with stimulating the economy.”

MORE: http://washingtonindependent.com/67005/tex...

Thank you Dennis. I agree with every last word.

After voting against H.R. 3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement:


“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.


“Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.


“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.


“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.


“During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.


“Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy -- in which most Americans live -- the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.


“This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.


“Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33748707/ns/po... /

The vote added to the Democratic bill an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and others, that prohibits individuals who receive insurance subsidies from purchasing any plan that pays for elective abortions.

House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to allow a floor vote on the Stupak amendment to the bill in order to win the support of about three dozen Democrats who feared that the original bill would have subsidized abortions.

..................

So, people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance will be restricted in the plan they can choose. This is a horrible amendment. Not only does it dictate what type of coverage people can buy if people receive subsidies...it will encourage plans to drop abortion coverage so that they can pick up more subsidized customers.

I am so SICK of women's bodies and choice being used as a bargaining chip for political cover. It is DISGUSTING.

In regard to your first comment, it is a good thing that people with preexisting conditions can't be denied insurance because they are sick. However, this bill doesn't prohibit the zillion other tactics the insurance companies use to deny care. For example, my mother just spent over a year fighting to get thousands of dollars of medical tests for my father paid for from her insurance company. The reason for denial - the tests couldn't be given on the same day. It was pure bs. It would actually be MORE expensive to have these test performed on seperate days for the insurance companies because it would mean paying for an additional office visit. The denial had no basis in anything other then being a made up rule to deny paying the claim. My aunt just spent two months fighting her insurance company to receive a second dose of chemotherapy for thyroid cancer. The reason for denial; not medically necessary, according to THEM. The bill does nothing to stop these abuses.

Even if they can't deny a person the right to buy a policy due to one set reason, it does not mean that actual health care can't be denied. It is utter insanity to mandate people to buy a insurance policy that can deny coverage when it is needed.

In regard to your question, the insurance companies WROTE this legislation. As did big pharm. And, other large corporate interests in the health care industry. They were the ones who were invited to the Senate Finance Hearing committee while the doctors and nurses who showed up protesting for ONE representative for single payer were arrested. The President met behind closed doors with big pharm and struck deals that basically allow them to charge mafia type prices for prescription drugs and extend patents to keep generics off the market. Here is a post link and comment from July regarding this issue:


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/... ... (lots more at actual link)

(note the original link from yahoo is expired but I cut and pasted the story into the post)....

Here is the specific comment relevant to your claim from a health industry insider....

"There is a way out of it — a bipartisan compromise_ but so far the liberals have found that to be anathema," said Robert Laszewski, a health care industry consultant.

Laszewski is pessimistic about the prospects for overhaul legislation this year. But he thinks insurers in particular look like they're in a win-win situation.

"The health insurance industry is in a fantastic position," he said. Democratic liberals overreached and can't move a bill over the objections of their moderate and conservative colleagues.

"Democrats can't blame the industry if this goes down," Laszewski added. "So the health insurance industry is happy to let this thing take its course."

......The health insurance companies are fighting because they don't want even the paltry and toothless legislation that is in this bill to dictate how they rape the consumers of money. That is why you see ads against the bill. However, that does not change the fact that this legislation was crafted by them, for them, and largely benefits THEM. They only got 95% of their terms met, not the 100% they wanted, so they are protesting. That doesn't make it a good bill for the people.

Where's the Kucinich amendment?

Fuck Pelosi. And, FUCK the dems for this wetdream corporate health care bill. No public option (and don't anyone dare try to tell me that their pathetic 2% 'p.o.' that will likely be administred by private insurance companies & cost more then regular private insurance is a po). Subsidies for the private insurance companies that wrecked the system to continue and expand their power, big pharm allowed to treat the prescription drug market as a mafia scam and now this....I am outraged. FURIOUS.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-...

Reporting from Washington - With a historic floor vote looming on their healthcare bill, House Democratic leaders secured an 11th-hour compromise late Friday night to settle a long-simmering debate over how to restrict federal funding for abortion.

The deal appeared to clear the way for a vote on the sweeping healthcare legislation this evening.

And senior Democrats maintained that they would have the 218 votes needed for passage when the House votes.

"You don't go to the floor unless you're there -- and we're there," said Rep. John B. Larson of Connecticut, the No. 4 Democrat in the House.

President Obama, who has made healthcare legislation the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, planned to go to the Capitol this morning to rally House Democrats.

The abortion compromise will allow socially conservative Democrats to offer a strong antiabortion amendment today when the bill comes to the floor. The amendment, which is expected to pass with the support of Republicans, would prohibit the new government insurance plan -- or so-called "public option" -- from covering elective abortions.

The amendment would extend a similar prohibition on private insurers that offer plans in new government-regulated insurance exchanges that are the foundation of the Democratic plan to expand coverage.

The Democratic healthcare bill envisions that millions of people who do not get coverage through work would shop for insurance in these new exchanges.

Under the compromise, federal funds would still be allowed to cover abortions in cases of rape or incest and in cases in which a woman's life is in danger.

Lawmakers who support abortion rights have bitterly opposed this proposal, and emerged visibly disappointed Friday night from a marathon meeting in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

They have been pushing an alternative that would have allowed commercial insurers to offer coverage of elective abortions.

Under their proposal, many insurance companies will probably offer plans to millions of low- and middle-income women who will get federal subsidies to help them buy coverage.

If they cover elective abortions, these insurers would have to maintain separate accounts for these women, so that only private money is used to pay for abortion services.

The new government insurance plan would have to make similar arrangements.

But this arrangement never satisfied conservative Democrats, who threatened to derail the healthcare legislation unless their demands were met for stricter prohibitions on the use of federal funding for abortions.

And in the end, Pelosi had to convince the liberal wing of her party to hold their noses and back a bill that would restrict access to abortions more than many wanted.

With 258 seats -- counting newly elected New York Rep. Bill Owens, who was sworn in Friday -- Democrats can afford to lose 40 members and still pass the bill.

But as Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and other senior Democrats met into the night with undecided members, their safety margin appeared to be narrowing. A succession of Democrats went public with their plans to oppose the bill, including first-term Reps. John Adler of New Jersey, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Walt Minnick of Idaho and Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland.

Many other centrist Democrats said they still hadn't made up their minds Friday, including Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.). "I've been really trying to get to yes," he said.

No Republicans are expected to vote for the more than $1-trillion measure, which would expand health coverage to 96% of Americans over the next decade

I am so angry now I could spit. My hands are shaking as I write this....

I called Speaker Pelosi's office in California about 15 minutes ago. I politely started to state my concerns about the removal of single payer debate on the House floor (the Weiner amendment) & the removal of the Kucinich amendment (allowing states to implement single payer). With just one word: hold, I was put through by the office staff to the answering machine. I left a message on the machine and then called the Washington office.

I got right through and the second I told them what the call was about, I was directed to an answering machine. I wasn't even told to hold.

So, I called right back and I said, I am calling to ask a question. Has Nancy Pelosi directed her staff to not speak directly with those who call about the Weiner Amendment or the Kucinich Amendment?

He told me the office has been INUNDATED with calls about these amendments for the past two weeks and do to the volume of these calls, they just put them through to voicemail.

So, I said that people who were calling to express their very concerns about these issues were being relegated to an answering machine?

Pelosi's official staff policy is for her staff not to speak with those who call about Single Payer. I wonder if they even listen to the messages or they just go to automatic delete!

Anyway, at this point, I told him that Pelosi is ignoring these callers and the issue of Single Payer and real health care reform at her own peril. I told him the democratic/liberal base that the party has taken for granted for so long is on the verge of breaking and that the health care reform will be the final straw. I told him that the democratic leadership so poorly represents the views & beliefs of their liberal base (the majority of people) that they are giving us no reason to support the democrats. I told him that the smartest, most creative part of the democratic party (the progressive base) is seriously on the verge of third party and if this is the way we are treated when we call about a life or death issue, they have made the decision for us. I then told him that I will be making a video and letting the blogosphere know that the Speaker is LITERALLLy ignoring mass numbers of calls about these two amendments.

I will not let this type of disdain to the people go unanswered.

This is where we are at people. They don't give a rat's ass what policies we want - they don't even want to hear our voices. Even though the MAJORITY of Americans want a REAL public option (one where the actaul public can enroll), we will not get it; just a ironic joke piece of legislation that creates a phony public option that is more expensive then private insurance and only 2% would be eligible for anyway. They get FLOODED...INUNDATED with calls for the Weiner amendment and the Kucinich amendment...

They won't take your call. Even when the lines aren't busy and their staff is free to taalk. I got through to both offices on the very first ring, all three times I called.

So, KNOW that the people are speaking. Know that the calls are being made and that the lines are ringing off the hook for real health care reform.

They just won't pick up the phone.