Yesterday shocked everyone. In an unprecedented move, the House Financial Services Committee voted to approve an amendment by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to audit the Federal Reserve — the first time anything like this has happened in the Fed’s history.

A push is already under way to remove the amendment on the House floor. Scott Lanman of Bloomberg:



Dean Baker laughs at the idea that the Fed is “independent” when phone records for Timothy Geither during his time at the NY Fed show that he was in constant contact with bankers. What we effectively have is a system where the private banks conduct monetary policy for their own benefit away from the prying eyes of the public.

But it’s clear that there is going to be an incredibly strong full-court press by the banks, by Timothy Geither and Larry Summers and by the Fed itself to undo this. They thought they had it in the bag with the Watt Amendment, which would have made the Fed even more opaque, but a last minute push by progressives helped Grayson garner the votes he needed. As the Huffington Post notes, the letter we circulated signed by progressive leaders in support of the bill was “key” to Grayson’s ability to whip Democratic votes.

It was an incredible defeat for the banks, who have been able to write their own ticket by orchestrating the bailouts, controlling the Federal Reserve and demanding their divine right to profiteer while the unemployment rate skyrockets.

We’re proud of the role we played in this effort. It’s time we stop bailing out Wall Street and start investing in Main Street. But we need your support to help make that happen.

If you want us to keep fighting against the bankers and stop them from gutting the Paul-Grayson before it sees the light of day, please consider donating today.

It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with no competition to keep prices down.

The President set an arbitrary $900 billion 10-year price tag for the final bill. In order to comply with this, the Senate bill delays the ban on excluding people from coverage for pre-existing conditions until 2014. According to a study by the Harvard Medical School, nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, and it is estimated that medical costs contribute to 62% of all bankruptcies. This is a callous decision that has an enormous cost in human lives and untold suffering.

Yet in the midst of quibbling about $90 billion a year for health care, the President just signed a one year $680 billion defense spending bill, which does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents a serious problem with the priorities of those in government.

But while people struggling with crippling health care costs and pre-existing conditions may have to wait until 2014 for relief, states can begin opting out immediately. That means for the next four years, health care will become a partisan football at the state level, easily gamed by the same insurance company lobbyist dollars that flooded on to Capitol Hill this year. And just as 42 members of the House did the bidding of PhRMA and inserted language into the Congressional Record in support of their endless monopolies on biologic “drugs of the future,” the Senate bill followed suit and included the Anna Eshoo-written language which prevents generic versions of vital lifesaving drugs from ever coming to market.

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe it is important to give people the choice of a public option when forcing them to buy insurance. They do not trust insurance companies. A clear majority of the Senate agrees with them, and would willingly pass a bill with an unfettered public option. But Harry Reid has capitulated to lobbyist money and has allowed the Senate to be held hostage by Senators like Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson, who have each received over half a million dollars in campaign donations from insurance companies.

It is time to acknowledge that the Senate process is broken and undemocratic, and is working against the interests of the American people. It is too easily gamed by lobbyist money and has become unresponsive to the needs of small businesses struggling to pay for the health care costs of their employees at a time when unemployment is skyrocketing. The Senate filibuster — and the ability of any one Senator to hold the entire body hostage on behalf of lobbying interests — must come to an end.

If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need.

Some senators are skeptical lawmakers will be ready to tackle another huge issue after finishing health care. "After you do one really, really big, really, really hard thing that makes everybody mad, I don't think anybody's excited about doing another really, really big thing that's really, really hard that makes everybody mad," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. "Climate fits that category." --- via OpenLeft

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner fiercely battled against the suggestion he step down from his post in light of growing concerns from both the left and right over his leadership.

In a fiery exchange at Thursday's Joint Economic Committee hearing with ranking Republican Kevin Brady (Texas), who suggested that Geithner had "failed" and should reconsider his job, the Treasury secretary asserted that he and his team had made great strides bringing the economy back from "the brink."

"I agree with almost nothing of what you said," replied a heated Geithner, charging President George W. Bush's leadership was to blame for the country's financial woes.

"Again, it's just a basic fact: A year ago, this economy was falling at the rate of 6 percent a year. We were losing between half a million and three-quarters of a million jobs a month," he said, noting those numbers changed when President Barack Obama took office.

That explanation, however, hardly satisfied Brady, who shot back that the country "has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job." He also said Geithner's failure was beginning "to reflect on your president."

Sensing the exchange was about to grow more pointed, Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) informed Brady his time had expired. But Geithner still returned fire, blaming "almost a decade of public neglect," and the economic harm that it wrought on the country, on the Bush administration.

Replied Brady, "Tell all of that to the millions of Americans who no longer have jobs because of your decisions."

A number of lawmakers this week, including Democrats, have questioned whether the Treasury's recovery efforts have prioritized Wall Street at "Main Street's" expense.

"A growing consensus in the caucus ," Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said on MSNBC on Wednesday, a statement Brady cited during Thursday's hearing.

But Geithner left no doubt about the future of his job.

"If you look at any measure of consumer and investor confidence today, if you look at any measure of the stability and health of the economy ... it is substantially stronger today than when the president of the United States took office," he said. "And that did not happen on its own."

.....Asked specifically whether Geithner should stay in his job, DeFazio replied: "No.

"Especially if you look back at the AIG scandal," he added, "and Goldman and others who got their bets paid off in full...with taxpayer money through AIG. We channeled the money through them. Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counter-party?' He would not answer that question."

.....

1) Delays Start Until 2014 – One of my biggest criticisms is the delayed timing. The House bill starts most of the reforms in 2013; I already thought that late start was both a moral and political disaster. Many Americans desperately need reform now, not several years from now. I also would not want to be a Democrat who voted for health care reform trying to explain why there were still so many uninsured Americans during both the 2010 and 2012 elections. To make the Senate bill appear cheaper, Reid made the disastrous decision to push back the start date until 2014! In effect, his bill is not really cheaper than the House bill, it is just scored over only six years instead of seven years.

2) Pre-Reform Public Option Opt-Out – I’m relatively pleased with the general design of the public option, but I’m very disappointed with the design of the opt-out provision. It allows states to opt-out right away, years before reform begins. It basically insures that many red states will opt-out sometime between now and when public option would be made available. This problem is made even worse because reform is pushed back until 2014.

3) Multiple Exchanges - The bill would create two exchanges per state. There would be an exchange for individuals and a “Small Business Health Options Program” know as the SHOP exchange for businesses. This is, pure and simple, a dumb idea. The more customers using one exchange the larger the risk pool and the better the bargaining power. Creating multiple exchanges is unnecessary administrative waste. It also does not move our country towards one, single, integrated health care system. States would be allowed to merge the individual and SHOP exchanges, but that should already be the default.

4) Nationwide Plans Gutting State Regulation - The merged bill still has the “nationwide plans” (formerly “national plans”) from the Senate Finance Committee bill. They are a top priority of the health insurance lobby. National plans would not be required to follow the minimum benefit laws in the states in which the policies are sold. These “nationwide plans” effectively gut state law regulating insurance coverage.

5) “Free Rider” Provision – Instead of the employer mandate there is the terrible “free rider” provision. The CBPP does a good job explaining why this terrible provision would disadvantage many low income Americans.

6) Incredibly Low Actuarial Value – The minimum actuarial level of the lowest level qualified health insurance is 60%. This level is far too low. This is even lower than the requirement in the Senate Finance Committee bill, which was 65%.

7) No Coverage For Undocumented Immigrants With Their Own Money - Undocumented immigrants will not be able to buy private health insurance even with their own money. This policy is not just cruel, but also bad fiscal policy. Undocumented immigrants will be forced to go to the emergency room for their medical care. Everyone else will be forced to pick up the tab for this uncompensated care. If an Undocumented immigrant wants to buy health insurance with their own money, so as not to be a burden on our health care system, that is not something we should discourage.

8) Sell Insurance Outside The Exchange – Health insurance companies will still be allowed to sell health insurance outside of the new exchanges. Until you get every insurance company playing by the same rules, in the same marketplace, you are never going to address the cherry-picking and efforts to game the system.

The CBO has concluded that the design of the opt-out provision will end up denying the public option to roughly a third of the population in this country.

CBO’s analysis took into account the probability that some states would opt not to allow the public plan to be offered to their residents. Rather than trying to judge which states might opt out, CBO applied a probability recognizing that public opinion is divided regarding the desirability of a public plan and that some states might have difficulty enacting legislation to opt out. Overall, CBO’s assessment was that about two-thirds of the population would be expected to have a public plan available in their state.

This estimates sounds a bit low to be honest. There are currently eleven state governments completely controlled by Republicans. (AZ, FL, GA, ID, NE, ND, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA) Roughly 79 million people (26% of Americans) live in these states, and I would not be surprised if everyone of them opt-out of the public option right away, or at least sometime before 2014. In addition to these eleven, there are easily another dozen conservative states where I suspect the Republican party can gain complete control of the state government for at least some period of time in the next 4 years. Add to that that not all Democrats fully support the public option, and I estimate it is more likely that over 40% of the country will be opted out of the public option before it is ever made available.

It’s great to see that the Democrats have put the health care of the people of Texas at the tender mercy of Rick Perry. I guess the new motto is: Universal affordable quality health insurance for everyone lucky enough not to live a red state.

A Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) member said there's "growing consensus" among liberals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should step down.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he and other liberal House members are becoming increasingly tired of Obama administration economic policies that they say are too focused on maintaining the stability of Wall Street firms and largely ignore "Main Street."

"A growing consensus in the caucus ," DeFazio said on MSNBC this evening, adding that some lawmakers are "considering questions regarding him and other economic advisers."

DeFazio said that lawmakers have not yet drafted a plan to remove Geithner. The lawmaker also took aim at top Obama economic adviser Larry Summers for furthering many of the same policies favored by Geithner.

"We need a new economic team," said DeFazio.

The veteran congressman specifically mentioned last year's bank bailouts and the Geithner's handling of the collapse of insurance giant AIG. At the time, Geithner was head of the New York Fed in the Bush administration.

"We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans," the congressman added.

Rep. Peter DeFazio called for the firing of President Barack Obama's top two economic aides on Wednesday for pursuing a recovery plan skewed too heavily towards Wall Street's favor.

The Oregon Democrat told MSNBC's Ed Schultz that he was dismayed with the administration's lack of focus on job creation and insisted it was time to dismiss both White House economic adviser Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary "Timmy Geithner."

"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent funds, we reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work. Rebuilding America's infrastructure is a tried and true way to put people back to work," said DeFazio.

"Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea," he added. "They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd."

Asked specifically whether Geithner should stay in his job, DeFazio replied: "No.

"Especially if you look back at the AIG scandal," he added, "and Goldman and others who got their bets paid off in full...with taxpayer money through AIG. We channeled the money through them. Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counter-party?' He would not answer that question."

DeFazio said that among he and others in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, there was a growing consensus that Geithner needed to be removed. He added that some lawmakers were "considering questions regarding him and other economic advisers" -- though a petition calling for the Treasury Secretary's removal had not been drafted, he said.

"(Obama) is being failed by his economic team," DeFazio concluded. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."

.....

John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the "transcendent challenge" of the 21st century, "radical Islamic extremism," contrasting it with "stability, tolerance and democracy." But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

.....

Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers' commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to "establish" or officially support any particular religion or denomination.

McCain once excoriated the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his ilk as "agents of intolerance." That he took such a position gave his opposition to similar intolerance in Islam credibility. In light of his more recent disgraceful kowtowing to the Christian right, McCain's animus against fundamentalist Muslims no longer looks consistent. It looks bigoted and invidious. You can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio (R) said on Monday that he would welcome the endorsement of ex-Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska).

The conservative insurgent candidate challenging Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) said that Palin's endorsement would be more than appropriate because they agree on nearly every issue.

..... The Hill, November 10, 2009

.....

Rubio says he largely supports the tea party protesters, many of whom have cast health care reform as a socialist takeover. (The feeling is mutual: FreedomWorks, the conservative lobbying group that has helped organize the protests, is planning to mobilize thousands of volunteers on Rubio's behalf.) Asked if he would welcome the support of former GOP vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Rubio offers an unqualified yes, adding that "I can't think of anything her and I disagree with off the top of my head." ... CBSNews, November 9, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - A year before one of the most wide-open elections in state history, Florida's Republican Party has splintered over everything from philosophy to questions over how the party is being run.

The divide goes beyond former House Speaker Marco Rubio's challenge to Gov. Charlie Crist in next year's primary for the U.S. Senate. There are also divisions over party leadership and party message that have resulted in the unusual sight of contested primaries in five statewide contests. Those factions include Crist loyalists, allies of Bush upset with Crist, as well as some who are loudly critical of Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer.

While tensions have simmered since Crist veered onto a moderate, and occasionally populist, path starting from nearly his first day as governor, it was Crist's decision to forgo a second term and seek the U.S. Senate that has helped move these battles out into the open.

Mirroring a national debate, Florida's GOP is split over whether to move further to the right, embracing its conservative roots, or to expand its tent to reach more moderates and independents.

..... Sarasota Herald Tribune, November 8, 2009

In the latest instance of a high-profile GOP member taking a passing swipe at the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate, former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney jokingly dismissed Sarah Palin’s inclusion on Time’s list of influential people in an interview broadcast Sunday.

He asked, was “the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people?”

Romney, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” was replying to a question from moderator John King on whether Time’s inclusion of Palin and talk show host Rush Limbaugh on their list of “The World’s Most Influential People” was good or bad for the Republican Party.

Romney, who has not ruled out another White House bid, said he wanted more influential Republicans on the list before adding pointedly: “I think there are a lot more influential Republicans than that would suggest.”

.....

But Romney’s quip reflects the deep unease among many in the GOP establishment about the continued high-profile of Limbaugh and especially Palin. There is almost a sense of exasperation among many party elites over the media coverage the two polarizing figures get — attention which, in Palin’s case, is widely seen as a product largely of her good looks and tabloid-fodder family troubles.

“She’s bigger in the media than in reality,” lamented veteran GOP consultant Mike Murphy.

The active involvement of George P. Bush and Jeb Bush Jr. in the race raises the possibility that their father could endorse Marco Rubio down the road and give his campaign added momentum, though the former governor has dismissed those suggestions.

.....

Marco Rubio has fiercely denounced Crist's support for the Obama stimulus. His campaign ads show images of Crist and Obama side by side and damn the stimulus as "trillions in reckless spending" and a "terrible threat to a fragile economy."

Rubio's last term in the Florida House ended in January 2009, so he did not share responsibility for the state's fiscal crisis. But when asked by reporters what he would have done differently, Rubio has suggested that he would have refused the federal stimulus dollars and instead cut up to $6 billion out of the $65 billion state budget. When asked where precisely he would have found those savings, Rubio demurred: "I don't have the budget in front of me."

These answers have gained Rubio little traction among Florida voters, where he trails Crist badly in all demographic categories. Rubio even trails Crist by 10 points among Hispanics, despite his Cuban ancestry and fluent Spanish.

But Rubio's message of uncompromising, unremitting opposition to President Obama has won him an enthusiastic following among conservatives nationwide.

Rubio's national base is generating national dollars. Writing on FrumForum.com, the website I edit, Tim Mak reports that Crist has raised less than one-quarter of his money from outside Florida. More than one-third of Rubio's money has come from out of state. Only 13 percent of Crist's out-of-state dollars come from the Washington area, as compared to 22 percent of Rubio's.

The candidate who purports to speak for populist rage in fact turns out to be the candidate of a national political leadership. They used to have a saying in Tammany Hall: "It's better to lose an election than lose control of the party" -- and control of the party is precisely what is at stake in Florida 2010.

.....

Club for Growth is uncowed, ready for jihad against Crist, Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race and a host of other Republicans whom leaders deem insufficiently batty. Being fundamentally nihilistic, CFG disciples don't care if they lose 10 races, so long as they eventually win one.

Their intimidation campaign is working. Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele quickly warned the anemic GOP minority in Congress to "walk a little bit carefully" on votes. Translation: Vote for ideology, not your districts' interests or feel the purge, baby.

In May, President Obama nominated a renowned scientist known as the "father of green chemistry" to head the EPA's Office of Research and Development. For an administration that supports ambitious climate change legislation and stresses the importance of sustainability, the nomination of Paul Anastas, director of Yale's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and a former White House environment director, was very much in keeping with its broader agenda. Anastas' nomination was unanimously approved in committee in July, and his confirmation seemed all but assured. Yet six months later Anastas still isn't confirmed. Standing in his way is Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), whose block on Anastas' nomination raises questions about Vitter's close ties to the formaldehyde industry.

Today, the future of the formaldehyde industry is very much in jeopardy. A few years back, the International Agency for Research on Cancer definitively announced that the chemical, used in building materials and household products, causes cancer in humans. The EPA, which has studied formaldehyde's risks for more than a decade, doesn't go quite so far, saying it's a "probable human carcinogen." But that could soon change. The EPA has recently signaled that it plans to definitively assess formaldehyde's health effects. "This is not the time for more delay," an EPA spokeswoman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in September. As the agency's research director, Anastas would surely have a role in this assessment. Given that one of Anastas' specialties is researching "the design of safer chemicals and chemical processes to replace hazardous substances," the formaldehyde industry is predictably concerned about his nomination.

Here's where Vitter comes in. Instead of the EPA ruling on formaldehyde now, Vitter wants the agency to let the National Academy of Sciences review formaldehyde's risk, a process that could take a year or more and that might favor industry supporters, environmentalists say, because the NAS review would use industry-based reports. Likewise, blocking Anastas' nomination is another way of slowing the EPA's movement on formaldehyde. (An EPA official told Mother Jones that agency head Lisa Jackson met with Vitter to ask him to let the nomination go through, which didn't happen.) And though a Vitter spokesman's recent comments that the FEMA-trailer debacle, which exposed thousands of displaced Gulf Coast victims living in government-issued trailers to high formaldehyde levels, demonstrated the need "to get absolutely reliable information to the public about formaldehyde risk as soon as possible," Vitter's position ensures the EPA won't be rolling out formaldehyde guidelines anytime soon.

So why is Vitter so sympathetic to the formaldehyde industry? Campaign finance records show that many of Louisiana's big formaldehyde polluters happen to be—you guessed it—Vitter campaign donors. He's received $9,000 from Dow Chemical's PAC, $5,000 from Monsanto's, $5,000 from ExxonMobil's, and $2,500 from the American Forest and Paper Association's. The American Forest and Paper Association is also a member of the Formaldehyde Council, an industry group whose views align with Vitter's (it's lobbied for an NAS review, too).

.....

WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.
The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.

.....

In an e-mail message to fellow lobbyists on Nov. 5, two days before the House vote, Todd M. Weiss, senior managing director of Sonnenschein, said, “We are trying to secure as many House R’s and D’s to offer this/these statements for the record as humanly possible.”
He told the lobbyists to “conduct aggressive outreach to your contacts on the Hill to see if their bosses would offer the attached statements (or an edited version) for the record.”

In recent years, Genentech’s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members, including some who filed statements in the Congressional Record. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers. But Evan L. Morris, head of Genentech’s Washington office, said, “There was no connection between the contributions and the statements.”

.....

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.

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.

.....

....

What the Stupak-Pitts amendment does for the Catholic health care system is omit a competitive advantage secular and other religiously-affiliated hospitals without doctrinal restrictions can use to simultaneously market their services to both the expected influx of newly insured patients and the outpatient medical professionals who will treat them.

By restricting insurance coverage of women's reproductive health care, the competitive barriers faced by Catholic institutions will be eliminated — provided the amendment is not stripped out of the final bill that emerges from House-Senate health care reform conference committee. Which is why pro-choice advocates should expect nothing short of a full-frontal attack by the Vatican on conservative Senators.

And in the case of an industry that accounts for 18 percent of the gross domestic product and is expected to double in less than 10 years, it's absolutely critical to follow the money.

.....

WASHINGTON — A restriction on abortion coverage, added late Saturday to the health care bill passed by the House, has energized abortion opponents with their biggest victory in years — emboldening them for a pitched battle in the Senate.

Abortion rights advocates charged Sunday that the provision threatened to deprive women of abortion coverage because insurers would drop the procedure from their plans in order to sell them in the newly expanded market of people receiving subsidies.

House Democratic leaders had sought to resolve the issue by requiring insurers to segregate their federal subsidies into separate accounts.

Insurance plans would have been permitted to use only consumer premiums or co-payments to pay for abortions, even if individuals who received federal subsidies used them to buy health plans that covered abortion. But the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was unable to hold on to enough moderate and conservative Democratic votes to pass the health bill using that approach, forcing her to allow a vote Saturday night on the amendment containing the broader ban.

The bishops objected to the segregated funds proposal previously embraced by the House and Senate Democratic leaders in part because they argued that it amounted to nothing more than an accounting gimmick.

Advocates on both sides of the question weighed in, but the bishops’ role was especially pivotal in part because many Democrats had expected them to be an ally. They had pushed for decades for universal health insurance.

Beginning in late July, the bishops began issuing a series of increasingly stern letters to lawmakers making clear that they saw the abortion-financing issue as pre-eminent, a deal-breaker.

At the funeral of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in August, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, stole a private moment with Mr. Obama to deliver the same warning: The bishops very much wanted to support his health care overhaul but not if it provided for abortions. The president “listened intently,” the cardinal reported on his blog.

Bishops implored their priests and parishioners to call lawmakers. Conservative Democrats negotiating over the issue with party leaders often expressed their desire to meet the bishops’ criteria, according to many people involved in the talks. On Oct. 8 three members of the bishops conference wrote on its behalf to lawmakers, “If the final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill.”

On Sunday, some abortion rights advocates lashed out at the bishops. “It was an unconscionable power play,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, accusing the bishops of “interceding to put their own ideology in the national health care plan.”

The justifiable anger at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for lobbying on the Stupak-Pitts amendment overshadows what is possibly the bigger motive for the Vatican: the billions of dollars at stake for the church's hospitals.

The scale of the church's involvement in the rapidly growing $2.5 trillion dollar American health care industry is staggering. (edited link)

What the Stupak-Pitts amendment does for the Catholic health care system is omit a competitive advantage secular and other religiously-affiliated hospitals without doctrinal restrictions can use to simultaneously market their services to both the expected influx of newly insured patients and the outpatient medical professionals who will treat them.

By restricting insurance coverage of women's reproductive health care, the competitive barriers faced by Catholic institutions will be eliminated — provided the amendment is not stripped out of the final bill that emerges from House-Senate health care reform conference committee. Which is why pro-choice advocates should expect nothing short of a full-frontal attack by the Vatican on conservative Senators.

And in the case of an industry that accounts for 18 percent of the gross domestic product and is expected to double in less than 10 years, it's absolutely critical to follow the money.

One in six patients are cared for in 624 Catholic hospitals scattered throughout the U.S. in 2006, according to the Catholic Health Association. The church also operates more than 800 post-acute care, senior living and skilled nursing centers across the nation. All told, $84.6 billion was spent on Catholic church-affiliated care.

The Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives is now the largest of the church's hospital systems in the country with 78 hospitals and 40 long-term care facilities in 20 states and operating revenues exceeding $9.6 billion ranking it sixth among all for-profit and charity health care networks.

Now consider that there are 60 some Catholic-affiliated hospital systems in all 50 states — representing 13 percent of the nation's entire in-patient health care system. That's easily tens of billions of dollars flowing through the business arm of the Catholic church that continues to grow through mergers with private and other religiously-affiliated hospitals.

Congressional health insurance reforms promise the prospect of 36 million uninsured Americans — who are currently self-rationing care, paying on sliding fee scales, or not paying at all — flowing into hospitals, clinics and outpatient facilities via subsidized insurance, mandated policies and more affordable options in the proposed insurance exchange.

Conservatively, those newly insured people will not only add millions of dollars more to hospital coffers in the short term but the potential for trillions in billable services over their lifetimes.

So why would the bishops risk the House health reform bill collapsing under the weight of a bitter abortion debate? It appears to be a fairly brazen attempt to kneecap their health care industry competitors while knowing the president's top domestic agenda would be passed in some way, shape or form.

Catholic institutions are uniquely bound by religious directives on care, effectively eliminating key reproductive health and end-of-life treatment that other institutions will provide to patients and bill to their insurance carriers.

Add those restrictions and compound it with two simple facts: 73 percent of the now uninsured are of reproductive age and the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 is accidents.

In essence, the people most likely to benefit from the proposed public option and insurance exchange will undoubtedly be seeking the type of care Catholic hospitals refuse to provide as a matter of religious principle. And these prospective patients are young and will conceivably need care for many decades to come.

For the business arm of the Catholic church it's a theological and economic two-fer.

The bishops can extract abortion care from the private insurance benefits of millions of American women that are federally subsidized ten ways to Sunday (with the blessing of conservative lawmakers' corporate welfare earmarks) and they level the competitive playing field without having to revise its medical doctrine to modern standards of care.

Analyzing the bishops' lobbying efforts from a cold, calculating green eyeshade perspective adds a very different dimension to their motives that may help spur secular business interests to protect both a woman's right to choose and their own bottom line.

The pro-choice community should raise holy hell with lawmakers for passing the discriminatory Stupak-Pitts amendment. But while you're grabbing your pitchfork look to some new allies in unlikely places where the password is money.

The Archdiocese of Miami announced Sunday that 14 struggling Catholic churches will close in the coming months.
The churches on the list have not been able to financially support themselves and have lost significant membership.
''We're looking at a shift in the Catholic population,'' said archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta, adding that the archdiocese can no longer afford to subsidize stained churches.

The churches to close include Resurrection, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Cecilia, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis Xavier, St. George, St. Luke, St. Philip Neri, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Vincent de Paul, Divine Mercy Mission, St. Joseph Haitian Mission, Our Lady of Aparecia Mission, and Vietnamese Apostolate.

They will all merge with nearby congregations.

.....

In January, the archdiocese announced it would close six struggling Catholic schools, shaving $1.8 million off its budget. Those schools will now reopen in the fall as secular, publicly funded charter schools and will lease school buildings from individual churches.

.....

And once again, we see the problems with government funding of "faith based" programs in general. Money tends to muddy up the whole argument, doesn't it?

I doubt seriously that anyone will have the guts to even bring this up. Religious correctness is far, far more prevalent than anything the PC police could ever gin up. But it does bring up the wider issue of fungibility. We are told that insurance companies cannot keep these funds separate because money is fungible. When do you suppose they figured that out? Faith based programs are all premised on the idea that religious organizations would keep government funds separate from those which are used to proselytize. In fact, there are dozens of examples of private contractors keeping federal money separate from their own private funds and 17 states do it even in the case of medicaid for abortions.

If the churches want to use this fungibility argument, bring it on. It's hard to see how even the Roberts Court could uphold this double standard. And I can't see how the churches benefit if they don't.

I personally think the whole thing is absurd. Money is fungible and all the protestations of the churches over the years that they weren't using my tax dollars to spread their word never made any sense to me. And it's not my "moral objections" that rule in this case (although I do have them) it's the US Constitution which clearly intends that the government not be involved in the religious sphere. Churches aren't taxed for just that reason --- separate spheres, no taxes, no interference. The churches and their adherents, however, not only want to be tax exempt, which most people agree with, they want taxpayers to actually fund them. And now they also want to determine how tax dollars are spent, including those spent on constitutionally guaranteed rights.

At some point some legal decisions are going to have to be made one way or the other. Either federal money is fungible or it isn't --- and either the constitution allows government money to be spent on abortion or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways on those issues. This silly pretense that just because some people really, really don't like abortion means they get an exception to every rule that guides federal and state or private partnerships in other circumstances is ridiculous.And why government money can't be spent for a constitutionally sanctioned medical procedure just because some people feel strongly about it makes no sense. Churches have many privileges in society and there are very few people who would argue that they shouldn't have them. But they have limits as well.

And the fact that they also have huge financial stakes in the outcomes of these moral decisions should not be ignored. Money is power and power is money and there's no doubt that a rather large incentive exists to tilt the playing field to those who can control the political system. Anyone who thinks that the Christian tradition isn't riddled with political ambition and financial corruption hasn't been paying attention.