This is really heating up. Stay tuned for further developments as Congress is emboldened by the SEC civil fraud charges:

Washington is suddenly looking very unkind to the firm that used to be known as "Government Sachs." Now the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, is planning to focus hearings scheduled for next week at least in part on Goldman Sachs's role in the financial disaster.

Levin's staff has uncovered new documents "that link certain actions to specific people" at Goldman, according to a senior legislative official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official would not divulge the nature of the allegation but said that Levin believes it amounts to "another big shoe to drop on Goldman."

Spokespeople for Levin said they were not prepared to discuss the nature of the probe, but his committee has been conducting several weeks of hearings and one is planned for April 27 on "the role of the investment banks." "We expect to have some information tomorrow," spokesman Bryan Thomas said Monday.

Keep in mind that a win in the SEC case is by no means a slam dunk:

To a layperson, the case against Goldman may seem clear cut. After all, investors did not know some information about the product that they might have considered vital, and they lost $1 billion in the end. But the rules that govern these kinds of transactions are not so plain.

Several experts on securities law said fraud cases like this one, which focuses on context rather than content, are generally more difficult to win, because it can be hard to persuade a jury that the missing information might have led buyers to walk away.

They added, however, that the strength of the S.E.C.’s case is impossible to gauge until the agency discloses more of the evidence it has assembled. So far it has provided only a sketch.

When it comes to the Wall Street meltdown, just about every financial institution out there is a villain. Then there's Washington Mutual, who may have rewritten the definition of villain by their conduct in the subprime mortgage madness of the past decade.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is beginning hearings today on Washington Mutual's lending practices to make a record on the behaviors that led to Wall Street's meltdown in 2008. Based on what I've read so far, it promises to be explosive.

Levin:

Washington Mutual built a conveyor belt that dumped toxic mortgage assets into the financial system like a polluter dumping poison into a river,” said Levin. “Using a toxic mix of high risk lending, lax controls, and destructive compensation policies, Washington Mutual flooded the market with shoddy loans and securities that went bad. Examining how Washington Mutual operated, and what its insiders were saying to each other, begins to open a window into the troubling mortgage lending and securitization practices that took our economy over a cliff.

Here are some of the revelations you can expect to hear:

• WaMu intentionally lured borrowers qualified for prime mortgages into subprime mortgages, then bundled those with the riskier loans to "spread the risk."
• Over half of the loans made were obtained with fraudulent information.
• The WaMu culture emphasized revenue and production over all else, including prudent lending practices, rewarding employees with trips to Hawaii and the Caribbean for high production.
• Loans were marketed and sold by mortgage brokers who were not employed by WaMu. After funding the loans, WaMu chose the ones most likely to default for packaging as securities to be sold on Wall Street.
• When Washington Mutual executives were made aware of the danger in 2006, their only concern was for how it would make them look, rather than the damage it could do to the financial structure of the country as a whole.

If Washington Mutual were unique, we could listen to these hearings, call for prosecution of those executives who should have been more prudent and banker-like in their dealings and move on. But it wasn't unique. Countrywide Mortgage engaged in similar practices, as did other large banks and lenders across the country, while the rug was pulled out from under the middle class.

I expect the subcommittee hearings to reveal a story of greed, power, privilege and unparalleled arrogance. Senator Levin is carefully making the case for sound financial reform with a consumer protection agency at the center of it.

LA Times:

Levin said the findings showed the need for a new consumer financial protection agency, which Obama has proposed as part of his regulatory overhaul, to stop lenders from preying on borrowers. "The bottom line is that WaMu had poor policies, poor controls, inadequate oversight of its loans [and] turned out toxic mortgages that sunk the bank, devastated homeowners and polluted the financial system like a poison," Levin said. "This was a Main Street bank that got taken in by these Wall Street profits."

Stay tuned. I know I will.

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 26th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

In our community - half-rural and half-suburb -- 50 community health centers will receive funding to provide health and preventive services to people with no access right now. And that's just one benefit. They're all valuable.

cross-posted at USHealthCrisis.com

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(h/t Heather.)

First of all, I'd like to reiterate that yes, a bill without a public option can serve the same purpose as the public option: namely, to force efficiency and competition. So yeah, I do see this as a win - and so does Nate Silver. And I don't buy the insurance company "we won" mantra just yet, because the Medicare buy-in proposal is a real threat to them. After all, the 55+ group is very profitable for them.

It seems clear the most important component of a plan lacking a public option is a mandated medical-loss ratio. But here's the most important detail of a requirement that companies spend 90 percent of each premium dollar on care: Who will be responsible for enforcement? In order to work, it's got to be the feds.

This is the most important part of the argument, because insurance companies (and their PACs) have enormous influence in state markets - and in state legislatures. State insurance commissioners are usually (not always) hired from the ranks of the industry, and are famous not only for rubber-stamping rate increases, but for far too often turning a blind eye to insurance company abuses.

What we want to watch in the Medicare buy-in is, are they going to take premiums (subsidies, whatever form it finally takes) into the Medicare trust fund? Believe it or not, it would be a very good thing if they did. A younger, healthier population would actually lessen the strain on the Medicare system. But I'm betting Republicans will shamelessly present it as "an assault on Medicare."

We also have to look at who gets to buy in - and why. Under the current proposal, people 55+ get to pick Medicare through the new exchanges in 2014. But what do we do until then? Well, they plan to allow them in starting in 2011.

Is this only for high-risk patients? Because it would really be a drain on the Medicare system (if the premiums went into the same system) if it was. It would be a bad idea anyway, because it would be too difficult to sustain if it was all people with pre-existing conditions.

Will the new Medicare members be charged the full cost? At 65, you're heavily subsidized for most of the cost, paying about $100 a month. The real cost is closer to $500. So will there be subsidies to purchase Medicare? Definitely, in 2014.

In the meantime? Not clear. This is one of the areas on which you want to lobby Congress.

You probably already know the problems with triggers - namely, that they're usually written in such a way as to make it highly unlikely they ever kick in. (That's why Queen Olympia loves them.)

As you might expect, we'll be watching closely.

Howard Dean writes at DK why he's so encouraged by the Senate healthcare reform bill. And remember, unlike us, he's actually worked on providing universal care:

Medicare is a government-run, single-payer system. What the Senate is working out could move the ball forward, if people under 65 will -- for the first time -- have the option of signing up for such a program under certain circumstances. The specifics of those circumstances matter a lot. The under-65 pool should not be limited to high-risk people only, and subsidies will ultimately be needed for those who cannot afford the premiums.

The other groundbreaking piece of the current Senate proposal is that a significant number of Americans over 55 who do not have access to health insurance today, would be able to get it within six months of the final bill being signed. Of course, more reform and access to choices are needed. However, this proposal moves us in a very good direction. The realities are Congress rarely passes reform that is not incremental and it is important that the increments they pass are headed in a direction we ultimately want to go. Expanding Medicare would do that.

The proposal to expand the Federal Employee Healthcare system could also be a step in the right direction. While I am not a fan of the private health insurance market, with the proper regulations, this could work. The OPM has done a reasonably good job of running the current plan, but Senator Rockefeller’s proposal to require insurance companies to spend 90 percent of their revenues on healthcare is absolutely essential.

This is the Medical Loss Ratio amendment that Jay Rockefeller and Al Franken are working on. It's the most important piece in this compromise. Without it, it won't work.

We must continue to work towards a system that gives Americans real choices. The truth is America already has a socialist system (the Veterans Administration with 25 million people). We already have a single-payer system (Medicare with 50 million people). And we already have a private insurance system (with almost 50 million Americans uninsured). The American people can reform healthcare by making real choices, but Congress must let us have those choices.

Both the current Senate proposal and the House bill will give us choices that Americans did not have before. The central problem will be that not enough Americans will have those choices. So while we may be able to take big steps in the right direction – the fight for healthcare reform does not end here. We must continue to pressure Congress to pass real reform.

Powerl Line is not too happy: "She had a decade-long record as a district court judge, but Ralph Neas and Nan Aron apparently found nothing to object to. An attorney I know who has appeared before her has nothing positive to say. From a conservative point of view this would be (is?)a high risk nominee. I hope someone will point me to evidence that I'm wrong. Mark Levin at Bench Memos asked for such evidence and does not appear, as yet, to have received any."

LifeNews likes the other Edith better:" Edith Jones and Edith Brown Clement, both of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit are frequently mentioned as the top potential women for a Supreme Court nod. Jones is pro-life and has issued a decision condemning the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion."

I have to resist the urge to immediately like her because of what I'm reading here, but I have to take a look like everybody else. Here's her page in Wikpedia.