Now, think about this: Harry Reid is saying Barack Obama needs to be tougher. Let that sink in.

It's especially ironic to me because I got kicked off Sen. Reid's blogger conference call list four or five years ago. Why? Well, I used some naughty language, something along the lines of "What the @*#$&! is wrong with you people?" What's so funny is, I was yelling at the senator for ... not standing up to the Republicans. He responded by telling me in a defensive tone that he got calls from constituents who wanted him to be "more bipartisan."

"With all due respect, Senator, we have a name for people like that. We call them Republicans," I said. I told him that the economy was really bad, working people were very worried and were looking to the Democrats for leadership. "All I can say is, God help them if they actually think the Democrats are going to stand up for them," I said. (Yeah, I've always been this way.)

Oh well! Since I don't work in D.C. and I'm not on a Beltway career track, one perk is that I occasionally get to tell politicians what I think. (And hilarity often ensues!)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid critiqued President Obama's "peacemaker" approach to policy-making and suggested he embrace a tougher posture toward Republicans in an exclusive interview with Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston during the congressional recess.

"On a few occasions, I think he should have been more firm with those on the other side of the aisle," Reid explained. "He is a person who doesn't like confrontation. He's a peacemaker. And sometimes I think you have to be a little more forceful. And sometimes I don't think he is enough with the Republicans."

Reid used the long road to health care reform as a case-in-point.

"I think much of that early on scrimmaging was done in the Senate itself," Reid said. "And the White House didn't come in until later. Now, we came up with a great product, and I'm sure he can look back and say I was right, but boy for me down in the trenches, I know it was a time when I wanted a few folks in the White House behind me."

Despite the criticism, Reid also characterized Obama as "a very strong man" and as someone who's "calm," "cool," and "deliberate."

The one-on-one with Reid comes on the heels of the president's two-day trip to Nevada to campaign for the Senate leader, who is currently embroiled in an intense fight for re-election against Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Obama said the race was a top priority for the White House in 2010.

When White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about Reid's remarks on Monday, the Obama administration official declined to comment. "I don't have anything to say," he said.

Apparently, there's a profit center in causing an ecological catastrophe:

Transocean Ltd. [..], the owner of the rig leased by BP [..] which is currently leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico, made a $270 million profit from insurance payouts after the disaster, the Sunday Times reports.

The amount, revealed during a conference call to analysts, was made because its insurance policy for Deepwater Horizon rig was greater than the value of the rig itself, the paper reports. The Times says Transocean has already received cash payment of $401 million and the rest is due in the coming weeks.

Unbelievable. Of course, that money has been turned around as part of a nice, fat $1B dividend to stockholders.

That was a damn fast turnaround on the insurance too. Have any of the families of those killed during the explosion seen insurance payouts yet? I don't believe so.

The story behind the oil spill is one of such gross negligence and choosing shortcuts to safety in the name of profits that it's absolutely disgusting to see Transocean profit this way, when we all will be paying the costs of their negligence for years and years to come.

Meanwhile Senate Republicans have stalled legislation that would require oil companies to pay fully for their accidents. Listen to Senator Inhofe (R-Oil Companies) push for Big Oil's ability to make obscene profits over safety:

You gotta love how these "Oh noes! Obama wants us to be socialists!" Republicans have no problem with a multi-national oil company privatizing their profits and socializing their costs. Why aren't the protesters who scream about bailouts not screaming about this?

Obama made a statement expressing his frustration:

"I am disappointed that an effort to ensure that oil companies pay fully for disasters they cause has stalled in the United States Senate on a partisan basis. This maneuver threatens to leave taxpayers, rather than the oil companies, on the hook for future disasters like the BP oil spill. I urge the Senate Republicans to stop playing special interest politics and join in a bipartisan effort to protect taxpayers and demand accountability from the oil companies.”

In response to the uproar over their announcement of 39% rate hikes, Anthem has announced they will delay the rate increases until after California officials complete their investigation:

Anthem Blue Cross will postpone by two months a massive rate hike that was set to take effect March 1 pending the results of an outside review launched last week at the behest of California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

The increase, sharply criticized by a top Obama administration official, could impact as many as 800,000 California customers who purchased individual premiums to pay 39 percent more for coverage.

In a conference call with reporters Saturday, Poizner, a GOP gubernatorial candidate, said he reached an agreement with Anthem Blue Cross to delay the start of the rate hike until May 1.

"These are huge, massive rate increases, very concerning to me and my team," Poizner said.

In a letter he sent last Monday to Angela F. Braly, president and chief executive of Anthem's parent company, WellPoint, Inc., and Larry C. Glasscock, WellPoint's chairman, Poizner said the an "outside actuary" will determine if the rate hikes are excessive and if Anthem Blue Cross was spending 70 cents of every dollar on premium medical care as required by state law.

"If we find that their rates are excessive, I will use the full power of my office to bring these rates down," Poizner’s letter stated.

He told reporters Saturday that the actuaries were "instructed ... to review the rates with a fine-tooth comb" and if "they find that these rate increases were unwarranted, I will immediately take action to get Anthem Blue Cross to follow the law and lower their rates."

DOWNLOADS: 1565

PLAYS: 264

Embed

Nancy Pelosi held a conference call today on health care and spent about 30 minutes discussing what's happening now and taking Q's. (I think it's important to get these conference calls up to our readers.)

The HOUSE does not trust the Senate and will not move forward unless Harry Reid gets the Senate rolling first. She's not alone. The Senate has lost the trust of the American people completely. She reaffirmed that the Senate bill has no chance of passing the HOUSE as is.

Brian writes:

Pelosi has insisted for some time now that the Senate health care bill can not pass the House unamended, but that she can probably round up the votes if the Senate and the House both pass a sidecar bill making a number of pre-emptive changes to it.

"Don't even ask us to consider passing the Senate bill until the other legislation has passed both houses so that we're sure that it has happened, and that we know that what we would be voting for would be as effected by a reconciliation bill or whatever parliamentary initiative they have at their disposable," Pelosi said on a conference call this afternoon.

Senate aides have complained that her plan presents them with a big parliamentary difficulty: they don't know if they can pass legislation amending a bill that hasn't been signed into law yet.

Pelosi says that's simply not true.

"No. It is not an obstacle to this path forward."

She talks about repealing the anti-trust exemption, fixing the excise tax and the public option, "reconciliation' as well as some other issues about HCR. I didn't have time to write up a detailed review on today's call so please listen to the above audio.

She was surprisingly confident today about getting something done and says we're close. We'll see. She didn't want to talk for the Senate at all either.

And the operator was awful handling the call because a lot of us had questions and she didn't translate that to the Speaker so it appeared that there were hardly any questions coming in for the Speaker, That led to question hogs.(LOL) I was going to either ask about the public option or the Stupak amendment.

I was on a conference call with Nancy Pelosi Tuesday afternoon, and she was clear: There's not a snowball's chance in hell that the House will vote to pass the Senate health-care bill in its present form.

"Don’t even think of asking us to vote for the Senate bill unless the other bill has passed both houses that will amend it through reconciliation," she said. But she promised several times during the call: "We will get this done."

What the House apparently will vote for is a repeal of the antitrust legislation that exempted the health insurance and malpractice insurers for the past 65 years. She said it will happen next week.

And in case you haven't figured it out yet, the new Democratic mantra is "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Pelosi wove the theme throughout the call.

She talked about job lock ("If you want to leave your job and become a writer or an entrepreneur without worrying about your health insurance, you can do that.")

"Every issue for us has been about jobs. The recovery, the budget, health, education, climate and energy bills – all about the economic well-being of America’s families," she said.

"Healthcare is central because the current system is so unsustainable. It’s not back-burnered," she said. She noted the difference it make "in the economic security of America’s families.

"We have to get this done, we are so very, very close.

She said some senators are calling her, urging her to take the opportunity to put in single payer and the public option. "I have to wonder, is there a market for these things?" she said, noting she didn't think the Senate had the votes for either.

She ended the call with an exhortation.

"It’s a heavy lift," she said. "The other side has endless money, total determination that change will not happen." She said the insurance industries have the "same philosophical backing as the same people who tried to keep Medicare from happening."

"It’s a pretty exciting time. You can’t be discouraged, we have to keep fighting for the American people and our democracy, she said.

"It’s not only about their health, it’s about economic security. We are determined to get that done. If I sound calm, it’s because we will not be deterred from this, we will get it done."

View Larger Map

On Sunday afternoon, I was on a White House conference call with American officials in Haiti, and what stands out from the call is the sheer logistical nightmare it is dealing with their airport. We've all seen and heard reports of complaints that Americans were "not letting the aid in," and now I understand why.

Col. Buck Elton, who was given the mission to open up airfield and assist with airlifts, says they have controlled 600+ takeoffs and landings in an airstrip that normally sees three takeoffs and landings a day.

Because the air traffic control tower has collapsed, all of this is being done by radio, on the ground - in a place that only has one runway/taxiway for planes, set directly in the middle of the airport and thus making it difficult for other planes to take off and arrive.

Col. Buck talked about how they have to "stack the aircraft until we have space for someone else to come in. " The maximum number of aircraft that can fit on the ground: one wide-body, five narrow-body planes. and three smaller aircrafts that can taxi in on the ground, filling that spot as necessary. (It sounds like a game of Tetris.)

"The volume is similar to running a major airport without computers, radar or other equipment," he said.

So now you know.

DOWNLOADS: 1054

PLAYS: 377

Embed

As you know from Susie's post, on Friday Howard Dean and Wendell Potter held a blogger conference call to address their concerns about the Lieberman/Nelson Senate Health care bill. Mike Lux was the moderator and a host of bloggers asked questions about the bill. What followed was a detailed discussion debating Gov. Dean's problems about the Senate bill. As much as the Villagers try to smear Dean, it's all about policy and not ideology when it comes to health care.

It's a long call that features more actual policy debate than what you would find on most political TV programs that are supposed to actually carry the same type of substance, but often fail to do. They are more interested in shouting matches than a substantive debate. You can go to DFA's website where they want you to call Harry Reid's office and say no mandates without a public option.

And as mcjoan notes while looking at the new CBO scores, the public option had a better cost saving effect for the federal government in the Health care bill than it does without it.

TPM has more:

The CBO has concluded that, on average, premiums will be the same as they would have been if the Senate had the public option, but that the public option saved the federal government more money by putting downward pressure on the premiums of low-cost private plans, which will be heavily subsidized.

The bill remains a big deficit slayer--$132 billion in the first 10 years. Over the next 10 years, CBO warns all estimates are very uncertain. But here's a key conclusion: "CBO expects that the legislation, if enacted, would reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law--with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP."

Update: Of special note from the CBO report--which Pelosi should be trumpeting:

[FN 11] The presence of the public plan had a more noticeable effect on CBO’s estimates of federal subsidies because it was expected to exert some downward pressure on the premiums of the lower-cost plans to which those subsidies would be tied.

If the deficit scolds are really so worried about the federal deficit why aren't they backing the public option to be in the bill too?

Just got off another blogger conference call, this time with Howard Dean, former CIGNA exec Wendell Potter, and Mike Lux.

Dean announced the results of a DFA poll that is "really quite stunning," he said. (You can read the results here.) The Senate cloture vote is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, he said.

Democracy for America's "No Option, No Mandate" campaign to contact Harry Reid clocked 7000 calls in four hours, too, he said.

Dr. Dean opened the call by saying "this bill has always been a giveaway to the insurance industry, but we were willing to compromise" to get the public option.

He recapped all the compromises we made: "We wanted single payer, but that was taken off the table early on. That was a mistake. We had to get to the place where we had health insurance for all Americans." But now, he said, there's no public option, and no Medicare option.

"You're forced to pay money to an insurance company or get fined $750 by your government, while 27% of your money goes to CEOs who are flying around in these private jets," he said.

He talked about the compromises made for pre-existing conditions, the most disturbing one the ability to charge you 300% more, merely for being older. "It's guaranteed issue, but if you’re making $65,000 a year for a family of four and you’re paying $20,000 for insurance, how is that reform?"

He said the real bad stuff in the Senate bill was

"hidden in the weeds, so you can’t find it."

Dr. Dean brushed aside the "Get a bill, any bill" mentality in Washington. "Any legislation passed will have a huge impact on American healthcare. If they can’t fix it, it shouldn’t pass."

Wendell Potter, former CIGNA executive and reform activist, said the insurance industry got "every single thing they wanted" in the Senate bill.

"There's no individual mandate, no public option. There's also three words, 'benefit design flexibility' in Senate bill – that means the freedom to design plans that will pass more and more of us into ranks of the underinsured - and charge up to 22% of income if someone gets sick," he said.

In Massachusetts, they have a 2 to 1 premium ratio, "and they're already having trouble finding affordable, adequate insurance. The industry wants to shift even more costs to individuals and families, having the government pay them half a trillion dollars. The Senate bill meets every one of their requirements," Potter said.

"They will continue to shift the cost burden to consumers and get around not using preexisting conditions by charging for certain factors like high cholesterol."

Dr. Dean pointed out the House bill "is the compromise, we didn’t think it was right to take the option of an employer-based system away if people liked it."

In Vermont, he said, you can't be charged more than double the lowest premium.

Dean listed some more of the insurance company wish list the Senate was so eager to fill. "Getting rid of the anti-trust provision. This contributes to the predatory effect of the insurance companies – they're essentially unregulated. We need to get the provision in, get them regulated.

Wendell Potter talked about something you often hear pushed from the Republican side: "Just let us sell across state lines and let the market decide." As he points out, insurers would go to the states with least regulation.

Paul Hogarth from Daily Kos asked them to address criticism that if the bill is killed, "there's no reform and we’re worse off, the momentum is gone."

"I don’t know that we’ll be worse off," Dr. Dean said. "We ought to strip down this bill and get rid of the mandate. It should have been done by reconciliation."

Continue reading »

The GOP has embarrassed itself once more. How can they actively promote an event like their tea party/anti health care protest in DC and watch silently as disgusting signs and insane wackos fill their ranks? Well, it's easy to do when you have Rep. Michele Bachmann telling the teabaggers to "scare" her colleagues into voting against health care reform during this "Super Bowl of Freedom." I mean, come on. First of all she should be arrested for actively promoting this type of hatred form a current member of Congress and can she at least come up with a name that's not as ridiculous as she is?

OK, that's asking too much.

In a conference call Wednesday night with bloggers and activists for the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called on protesters to “scare” members of Congress into killing the proposed health care reform bill.

If the protesters succeed in scaring lawmakers, Bachmann said that it could cripple efforts to restructure health care for a decade.

“Nothing scares members of Congress more than freedom-loving Americans,” Bachmann said.

She said that members were frightened by the August town hall meetings, but “then they came back to Washington, and they got back in the bubble and Speaker Pelosi put the hammer down on the Democrats.”

Rep. Todd Akin is also one of those special kinds of idiots that occupy the rank and file tea party and he led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance because the word "God," just drives us all crazy. I guess he doesn't understand history very well because the original "Pledge of Allegiance" never had the word "God" in it at all, but nothing is allowed to interfere with their conservative/religious talking points.

At the Capitol Hill Tea Party just now, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) stepped up to lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance -- which he said drives the liberals crazy.

"And so as we now renew our commitment to the Red, White and Blue, let us with boldness proclaim the fact that we are one nation under God," said Akin. "It is altogether fitting that we should do this -- and it drives the liberals crazy."

The crowd laughed, and joined Akin in the Pledge, with a genuine shout given to the key words, "...one nation, UNDER GOD, with liberty..."

And no matter what Eric Cantor says, signs that use images of Holocaust victims are just sick and were not planted by anyone but his own. Has he not seen even one teabagger protest? My God, (I used the bad word) that's the norm at these astroturfed gatherings.

And our pal Dana Milbank fills us in even more.

Many of the demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their pet name for the speaker of the House. Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell.

In the front of the protest, a sign showed President Obama in white coat, his face painted to look like the Joker. The sign, visible to the lawmakers as they looked into the cameras, carried a plea to "Stop Obamunism." A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: 1921

PLAYS: 459

Embed

Here's the audio form today's conference call with Speaker Pelosi about the release of the House bill.. Sorry, I'm a bit under the weather so I don't have the blow by blow, but I was able to get on the call and record it for you. She didn't know if she would allow amendments to the bill, but was against the idea. There were a few questions from bloggers that followed.

(I edited out just a few minutes because there was a technical problem when the conference service tried to connect bloggers to ask their questions.)

UPDATE I: To members of the media, please credit Crooksandliars.com if you use any portion of this audio. Thank you in advance.

UPDATE II:

mcjoan has a great write up of the conference call: Pelosi: House Bill is a "Manifestation of Rejecting Business as Usual"

Because there has been conflicting information this morning on whether amendments would be allowed for the bill, I asked Speaker Pelosi if that decision had been made. As of yet, she says she's been too busy getting the bill melded to focus on that, but that she "would have to be talked into it," but isn't closed. The fly in the ointment on amendments is Rep. Bart Stupak and threat to team up with Republicans "unless Democratic leaders allow a floor vote on an amendment that would add new restrictions on the use of federal funding for health plans that cover abortion with private dollars."

This complicates the issue of the single payer amendment that Rep. Anthony Weiner was promised he would be able to offer. When Chris Bowers asked about it, Pelosi said that she would be meeting with Weiner and Rep. Kucinich today or tomorrow. Additionally, Rep. Grijalva is continuing to push for the robust public option.

"I am not rolling over. I will insist on a Medicare-plus-five amendment on the Floor so that the full Caucus can vote on it. We are hopeful that the Rules Committee will allow this amendment, which has tremendous public support, to be voted on for the record."

Leadership, including Rules Committee chair Louise Slaughter, are going to have some interesting needle-threading to do on the rule for floor action and the amendment process on this one. The schedule has not yet been determined completely. It will be available for the next 72 hours for all members to access, then will be submitted as the manager's amendment Monday morning. Floor action could begin as soon as next Thursday. She said that it's possible to have a vote before Veterans Day, Nov. 11, but as of yet that's not decided.