Pelosi Says Health Care Is Top Priority

COLUMNIST SENDS SPEAKER A NICE EASTER CARD
E.J. Dionne's column in today's Washington Post sheds a quite divergent view of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. It should be noted Dionne is somewhat liberal and the skewed perception of Pelosi as someone moving the country towards so-called "San Francisco liberalism" is purely a right-wing talking point. Nonetheless, the profile illuminates a possible Congressional road map for the rest of the year.

Pelosi told Dionne, "'The priority, of course, is to pass health care,' Pelosi said without blinking." The American Prospect's Ezra Klein notes in his blog this is the first indication Pelosi sees health care reform as a top priority over cap-and-trade.

To my knowledge, Pelosi hasn't said that before. More to the point, she's not signaled it. At a recent Maria Leavey breakfast, she implied just the opposite, and many folks I've spoken to on the Hill have suggested that her priority was energy rather than health care.

To reverse that specific perception, Pelosi seemed to be giving Dionne a lesson on Congressional parliamentary procedure by saying she could muster 51 votes on health care under the rules of "reconciliation" where committees receive technical instructions on where and how funding will be budgeted. In effect, it's a promise that health care will be legislated but without specifics. Under the procedure a bill only needs a simple majority, whereas, a bill without reconciliation needs a more problematic 60 votes in the Senate. Pelosi also referred to the diversity of the party that also has the support of some coal-producing states. She showed Dionne a statue of a coal miner in her office given to her by a West Virginia congressman.

Dionne also mentions the recent relaxing of Republican attacks against Pelosi. With President Obama's post-election popularity too strong to spar with, Republicans targeted Pelosi without abandon. An article in Politico from last November said the tactic has failed every time it has been utilized, "It didn’t work in 2006, and it’s not working this year, yet many Republicans continue to use Pelosi power as the ultimate threat to American governance."

Presumably, with a bit less than 100 days of the Obama presidency to work with, Republicans are turning their criticism towards the White House. Karl Rove ironically believes Obama is more divisive than President Bush in today's Wall Street Journal.

Despite the constant attacks on her leadership, Pelosi has proven to be a speaker unfazed thus far. Whether Pelosi can help the President push through Democratic-themed legislation like health care reform is unclear, but it shows that it takes more pieces of the puzzle to assemble than one might think.

Is GM About To Lead The Nationalization of Medicine?

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TELLS GM TO RESTRUCTURE
American economic monoliths tend to steer the wheels of commerce by their sheer size and influence. A state like California can enact sweeping environmental laws that leads other states to do the same, and when a company like McDonald's acquiesces to posting nutritional information, others follow. As General Motors and the United Auto Workers iron out a deal involving its vaunted health care challenges, will its decision change how others do business and the debate due to commence in Washington?

As a part of GM's vast restructuring plan, the automaker is negotiating with the UAW to change the terms of the 2007 agreement that created a $35 billion trust fund for employee health care. To justify additional government bailout dollars, GM must show Washington details for future plans. The New York Times noted, GM "has to address how a company that lost more than $20 billion last year can afford $5 billion a year in medical bills."

Matt Miller, whose book The Tyranny of Dead Ideas identifies the role of companies paying for employee health care benefits as one of those mortally-wounded ideas. Instead, he believes the government should carry the burden like every other nation in the industrialized world. In his book, Miller writes:

The second force — The Rush for the Exits — is corporate America's desire to stop providing health care and pensions to its employees. To be sure, these costs are soaring in ways that seem unsustainable, especially when competing firms in other nations bear fewer of them. Still, American business leaders act today as if their search for an "exit strategy" on benefits is the end of the conversation. What happens to the millions of workers who are left unprotected if companies simply walk away?

Miller told NPR last month that the government would need to raise taxes to foot the bill, but with Baby Boomers retiring, taxes will increase anyway. "We need to tax ourselves more smartly ... [by] cutting taxes on things like payrolls, which hurt lower-income workers and kill jobs, and raising taxes on dirty energy, which we want to cut back on because of our environmental goals," said Miller.
The Obama administration may be signaling a willingness to allow GM to tinker with health care, according to statements made by his adviser David Axelrod and the naming of Ron Bloom as a key adviser to the Treasury Department. Bloom, according to the Wall Street Journal, is known for forcing parties to make significant concessions.

If GM is able to restructure its health-care responsibilities under the eyes of the White House, health-care reform critics and proponents alike will be wondering whether it could be the harbinger of the wholesale transfer of health care from private industry to the public sphere in the future.

Q&A: Two Minutes (Literally) With Rep. Pete Stark

EAST BAY CONGRESSMEN WINS HIS 17TH TERM IN OFFICE

After defeating his Republican opponent with 74 percent of the vote, Rep. Pete Stark thanked his constituency Tuesday night at the Hayward Democratic headquarter wearing a fuschia tie dotted with peace signs. He spoke with the Lunatic Fringe Report:

LFR: Congratulations on returning to another term in office. What are some of the things you will be working on in the next two years?

Rep. Pete Stark: Health care. We're just going to be trying to get health care for everybody. Universal health care is my goal.

LFR:I'm not sure the Senate will get a filibuster-proof 60, but you'll have more in the House and now you have the president. What are the chances of something happening with health care?

Stark: They're good. I think they're great. I think it's one of the most important things right now with the economy turned down more people are losing their health care. It's very irritating. Probably one of the most urgent domestic issues.

LFR: Last question, Barack Obama is now the president-elect. What are you thoughts about the night?

Stark: It's a new beginning and a change in the direction of this country. I'm excited to go back to work with him.

George Bush Hates Kids And So Do I

George Bush hates kids, correction; he hates poor kids. You have to hand it to the guy he knows how to kick a man--a kid--when he's down.

This is actually something W. and I can agree on. I don't hate kids, I just hate other people's kids.

When Bush used his extremely rare presidential veto on a bipartisan bill that would have funneled tens of billions of dollars from cigarettes to fund an increase in health care for poor children some thought the "Decider-in-Chief" had stepped over the line. (Watch John Stewart's take on this story on the Daily Show here)

First, Iraq now health care for kids. I can't agree with the first, but I can with the second.

Bush believes in bringing yourself up by the bootstraps. You know that ancient Republican line? Is there a shoe company that makes shoes with bootstraps anymore?

In this case, I can see where George is coming. Have you ever seen a snivelling, runny-nosed kid at the docktor's office? Crying because his ear is throbbing or his tum-tum is hurting. Quit being a baby (or are you actually a baby?)and stop crying and go to work. Those Dora the Explorer mitten aren't going to knit themselves.

You see, children need to learn from oppression. Kids these days are coddled more than my copy of Jenny McCarthy nude in Playboy (the December issue when she's sitting on Santa's lap). What will happen to kids these days when they grow up and think they're entitled to buying a mansion with no money down and $5 in the bank at age 18. Oh, sorry 24-year-olds already think they can do that.

Other than making Johnny boy resort to a cocktail of Tiny Tarts and Robitussin to combat his cold, we need to be tougher on our children and, at least in this case, follow our President.

Case in point, last Saturday while dining at Fuddrucker's in Emeryville I witnessed the sort of tough love the President is espousing.

At the air hockey table was a match between a woman in her late thirties and her eight-year-old son. The boy was slight and whiny and without health coverage. He was clearly peeved. The game started and his mother promptly drilled the plastic disc into the goal. She did it again and again and in the process completely annihilating her son's dreams.

He whimpered to his mother, "Can you let me score once." She said, "Why would I do that?" And that's exactly what George Bush is saying to kids this week, whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.