A massive 8.8 earthquake hit Chile early this morning, causing 147 deaths so far as well as vast amounts of property and infrastructure damage. The quake also caused tsunami warnings across the Pacific, including in Hawaii. President Obama expressed condolences and solidarity of the American people with our Chilean friends.

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There seems to be only one way to pass comprehensive health reform in the current Congress: the Senate health bill would need to be passed through the House as is, and a smaller measure to fix the areas of the Senate bill many House members find egregious needed to be pushed through both houses of Congress, and in the Senate through a procedure (called reconciliation) that allows the Senate to legislate by majority vote.

Many argued that the House must hold the Senate bill hostage to the Senate's passage of the reconciliation measure to ensure those fixes happen.  To me, however, common sense dictates that you can't fix something if it doesn't exist, and the Senate bill that the smaller reconciliation bill would fix does not exist in law yet!  Hell, it hasn't even been agreed to by both houses of Congress yet.  How can Congress amend parts of the law that, well, isn't law?  Therefore, I have argued that the House needs to pass the Senate bill first, followed by the reconciliation measure.

News came yesterday that the House, courageously, may be moving to do just that.  Rep. George Miller, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and one of the closest confidants of Speaker Pelosi, is now signaling that the House may have to, and will, act first by passing the Senate bill.

Miller conceded that the House may have to pass the healthcare bill first approved by the Senate in December before the Congress can take up a bill using the reconciliation process in order to make fixes to the Senate bill. Using that process, the Senate could approve those changes with only a simple majority vote, instead of the 60 votes usually needed to end a filibuster.

"That may require us to pass the Senate bill first and then send the reconciliation bill to the Senate for them to pass," Miller said. "I think Sen. Reid believes he can put the votes together for that."

Up till now, the Democratic leadership has been saying that they cannot pass the Senate bill in the House without a reconciliation bill first.  Something certainly has shifted in the directional momentum of that.  Miller isn't alone in sending this signal.  The man who counts the Democratic votes in the House, Majority Whip James Clyburn, said last night that who goes first wasn't "important," once again signaling the willingness of the House to go first.



Now, I don't think that the top leadership of the House and talking out of steps with the Speaker.  The President is now intricately involved in the process, and I believe that the House Democrats realize that they must act first, and also that the Senate will not abandon the process of fixing the bill, since the President has now put on the line his personal ideas about what the final product should look like.  This may well have been the reassurance or guarantee that the House was looking for before they moved ahead with the Senate bill.  And now, they have it.  And they are moving forward.

House Democrats, in doing this, once again become health care heroes.  This is a big deal.  The bill isn't perfect, and thanks to the right wing propaganda machine, people are scared.  The members of the House are not just about to do something historic by sending a comprehensive reform legislation directly to the President's desk.  They are profiles in courage.  Make no mistake - every single member voting for this bill will be fighting attacks from the right and sometimes from the ideological left who are displeased about one provision or another.  This is tough, and I think at this moment, we must stand with them.  Ask your member of the House to become a profile in courage, and ask them to move forward by voting for the Senate bill so it can be sent to the President's desk.  When you call, don't just tell them you want them to vote for it and follow it up by a reconciliation bill.  Thank them for their courage, for doing the right thing.  Tell them you have their back. Here are the numbers for the Capitol switchboard, and ask to speak to your representative (or find them on House.gov).

1-866-338-1015
1-866-220-0044
1-866-311-3405

After you have called your representative, asked for their vote for health reform and thanked them for this important step forward, call the switchboard back. Call your Senator. Tell them that you expect them to vote for the fix.

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Today is going to be a very important day for health reform.  So most of today's readings and videos are of course focused on that.  First off, today is just a great day for video, but don't forget your readings!

First of all, the health care summit starts at 10am EST, 7am PST.  You can watch it on WhiteHouse.gov, MSNBC.com or other outlets.

Reading List:

• Read the President's proposal on health reform, if you haven't already.
• An excellent analytical diary from Monday by "jim bow" on Daily Kos comparing the President's proposal with the House and Senate passed bills.  I can't recommend this piece enough.
• Early this morning, the great Ezra Klein tells the truth: There's no plan B for health-care reform.
• An interesting take by Michael Stickings on why the President's strategy on health reform makes perfect sense.

Videos:

Sen. Barbara Boxer appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night to talk about reconciliation and health reform, and made it very clear that as a supporter of the public option, she does not want health reform held hostage to any one provision.



Watch Congressman Anthony Weiner clobber House Republicans for being wholly owned subsidiaries of the health insurance industry.  Priceless!



And last, but certainly not least, watch Keith Olberman's special comment about Life Panels and health care reform - heartfelt and personal.



With that, I hope you will have a chance to watch the health summit with the President and Republican and Democratic leaders.

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Jay Rockefeller is probably the strongest proponent in the Senate of the public option, and the Senator who proposed an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee to add a strong public option based on Medicare rates in the Senate bill.  And so, Markos Moulitsas, the hold-(or set)-the-Democrats'-feet-on-fire guy and the proprietor of the well-known blog Daily Kos, wants to primary Jay Rockefeller.  At least, that is the only logical conclusion if you read what he had to say on his blog today:

Give us an up or down vote on the public option. Then we'll know who to put on our primary list for the years ahead.

The implication being that if a Democrat in the Senate does not vote for the public option in reconciliation, he or she will be added to Markos' "primary list."  Well, if Markos is to honestly follow through on his threat and not just making empty howls, he has put on that list Sen. Rockefeller who said:

that he thought the maneuver was overly partisan and that he was inclined to oppose it.

"I don't think the timing of it is very good," the West Virginia Democrat said on Monday. "I'm probably not going to vote for that, although I'm strongly for the public option, because I think it creates, at a time when we really need as much bipartisan[ship] ... as possible. "

Rockefeller added: "I don't think you [pursue] something like the public option, which cannot pass, will not pass.

Just to be sure, Sen. Rockefeller is the one that pushed for a strong public option in the Senate.  He fought and fought and fought for it - far more than Markos will ever do - and realized that it was not achievable in the context of the current bill.  Rockefeller is not a Johnnie-come-lately to the public option.  He's the one that took the fight for the strong, Medicare-rate public option to the lion's den, the Senate finance committee:



Were it not for Jay Rockefeller, the fight in the Senate for the public option would be a whole lot shorter.  And now Markos tells us he wants to punish people like this if they don't vote for the public option in reconciliation due to what they believe can and cannot be (and should and shouldn't be) put through reconciliation.  Really, Markos?  You really wanna pick this fight?  I know what side I stand on in that fight, Markos, and it isn't yours.

Ezra Klein (he's fast becoming my favorite economic and domestic policy analyst) puts it very, very well what Rockefeller is doing, despite the price he is likely to pay from the angers of people like Markos.

I've had multiple offices tell me that they think this whole public option resurgence makes passage of the bill less likely, even as their bosses are being touted as supporters of the public option strategy...

Rockefeller will pay for his comment yesterday, because he said publicly what the other offices are saying privately: He supports the public option, but think it's too dangerous to attempt in a reconciliation meant to close out a fragile and uncertain process. The left is going to hammer him for that, and understandably so. I wouldn't be surprised to see him walk it back. But the truth is he's treating liberals with a lot more respect than the offices that are telling them what they want to hear but have no intention of actually passing a public option.

This is, as Ezra calls it, the inconvenient honesty on Rockefeller's part.  It, I think, is also the inconvenient truth many on the ideological blog-leaders side, are unwilling to admit.  The resurgence of the public option is ignoring the fierce urgency of health reform and making health reform less likely to happen after it has been delayed so much already.  Not because it's a bad idea, but because of the internal dynamics and politics of Congress.

This is why I hate knee-jerk reactions like the one Markos put out today.  These types of threats are not helping the chances of health care reform, they are hurting its chances.  Rockefeller knows it.  Ezra Klein knows it.  And guess what?  So do the Senators who are signing that letter.  Markos wants to make Democrats face primary challenges, fine.  I think democracy is a good thing.  But try to identify who the real foes of the progressive movement are, who the real opponents of our values are, who the real threats to our achievements are.  And that takes more research, more studying, and more thought than the irresponsibility  and arrogance Markos is displaying in his threat, especially considering his influence in the progressive Internet and other media spheres.  Great influence brings great responsibility, and must be exercised wisely.  We need to stop threatening our friends on a knee-jerk basis.  Enough is enough.

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I think MoveOn Political Action has this exactly right. Today and tomorrow, MoveOn is organizing phone calls and faxes to Congress to pass health reform. Here is MoveOn's message, plain, short and simple:

Dear [Sen/Rep X]

In a year without health care reform...

2.3 million people lose insurance
930,000 people file for bankruptcy
45,000 PEOPLE DIE

As Congress stalls, real people are hurting. Our health care system is broken. It's time to finish health care reform.

I sent my faxes, and I made my calls. You should do yours now, if you haven't already. This is the message we should be sending Congress. We should be telling Congress to pass health care reform, just as President Obama did during his State of the Union.



We should be demanding that Congress act, act without delay, and act without holding health reform hostage to any one provision (even if that provision is the public option). Despite political pronouncements from both ends of the political spectrum, most elements already included in health reform (and in the President's proposal) are popular among the public. In fact, a lot of the provisions are massively popular, and more so than the public option. The Kaiser Family Foundation found in its polls from this month:

• 91 percent support banning pre-existing conditions and annual and lifetime benefits limits
• 76 percent support reforming the way health insurance works
• 72 percent support tax credits for small businesses
• 71 percent support creating a health insurance exchange/marketplace
• 71 percent support helping close the Medicare "donut hole"
• 70 percent support expanding high risk insurance pools
• 68 percent support providing financial help for low-/middle-income people

(Part of the list taken from this article from The Hill, all numbers verified in the Kaiser poll. In October, a Washington Post/ABC News poll put support for the public option at 57%.) Nate Silver demonstrated a month ago that the popularity problem that health reform faces is not due to its provisions but due to the lack of awareness of its provisions (especially the good ones).

Health insurance reform is the right thing to do. The vast majority of the substantial elements of it are immensely popular, even without a public option. And this is what we will lose if health reform stalls. We will lose everything in the above list, and we will lose out to the forces of the status quo if Congress fails to pass health reform. We will lose this:

2.3 million people lose insurance
930,000 people file for bankruptcy
45,000 PEOPLE DIE

Every. Single. Year. It's time. It's time to pass health reform - with no delay, no obstructions, and no hostage taking from any side of the debate. The President is leading, and the people are backing the substantial reforms already included in substantive numbers. It's time to get it done. Have you made your calls today?

If you would rather make your own calls without going through MoveOn's page, you can do that, too. Organizing for America provides you with a great tool and a script to call. Here are the toll-free numbers to the Capitol Switchboard:

1-866-338-1015
1-866-220-0044
1-866-311-3405

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I am a supporter of the public option.  But there is a meme going around that the public option is somehow the most popular element of health insurance reform, and that Democrats are stupid for not twisting enough arms to pass it by any means necessary.  In a scathing, fact-free piece accusing the President of gutting the public option because of the deals made with private industry, Huffington Post columnist Miles Mogulescu claims, "The most popular aspect of health care reform is the public option, which is supported by nearly 60% of voters."  Let's solve that issue once and for all, because we numerically can: The public option is NOT the most popular item in health reform.  Not by a long shot.

In fact, Mogulescu's "nearly 60%" number is correct.  Back in October, a Washington Post/ABC News poll put support for the public option at 57%.  I will use this number for comparison purposes.  So let's look at what is in the bill that is supported by a greater majority.  In an article for The Hill yesterday, Peter Fenn quoted recent Kaiser polls (here are actual findings from the poll):

76 percent support reforming the way health insurance works
72 percent support tax credits for small businesses
71 percent support creating a health insurance exchange/marketplace
70 percent support expanding high risk insurance pools
68 percent support providing financial help for low-/middle-income people

And when it comes to preventing insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and putting a cap on lifetime benefits, the numbers are off the charts — 37 percent believe that it is Extremely Important to put this into law, 39 percent believe it is Very Important and 15 percent believe Somewhat Important. That is 91 percent!!!

All of these things - the banning of pre-existing conditions, insurance reforms, tax credits for small businesses, health insurance exchanges, high risk insurance pools and subsidies for low to middle income Americans - are more popular than the public option, and are already in the House and Senate bills, as well as in the President's proposal.  A month ago, Nate Silver noted a whole host of popular ideas already included in the House and Senate health care bills while their awareness lagged.

The public option is popular.  Well, at least a version that was never really considered in Congress is popular (this would be the version that lets everyone participate in the public plan).  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  It is not - by far - "the most popular" idea in health insurance reform.  The zealotry for lashing out at the President (who, by the way is about to preside over the largest expansion of social safety net since Medicare) for not pursuing it in his proposal should not be leading authors on leading progressive publications to make false claims.

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This has been said, and said again.  For all the misdirected anger at the White House for not including the public option in its health care proposal, the facts on the public option itself has not changed from three months ago.  I know we are calling Congress today and tomorrow.  I know there is a letter going around on WhipCongress.org signed by Democratic Senators asking Harry Reid to put it back on the table.  And that is where the problem is. The letter has been signed by 22 Democratic Senators so far and an independent, bringing the total to 23.  That is less than half of the Democratic caucus of 59.  That is less than half the votes it will take to pass the public option even if it were allowed with a majority vote under reconciliation.

A similar letter signed by House members isn't doing much better, like it or not.  It has 120 House Democrats.  That is also less than half of the Democratic caucus in the House, and only slightly more than 218 votes required to pass a bill in the House.  The House has of course already passed a bill with a public option, and will do so again if given the chance.  But why, then, didn't all 219 House Democrats who voted for the House bill sign up to push for the public option?

The simple fact is this: the appetite for the fight over the public option is simply not big enough to get it through in Congress.  Even the Senators signing onto this letter don't want to re-litigate the public option.  Ezra Klein took stock of it last week:

I've spoken to a lot of offices about this now, and all of them are ambivalent privately, even if they're supportive publicly. No one feels able to say no to this letter, but none of them seem interested in reopening the wars over the public option. That's why the White House kicked this at Reid and Reid tossed it back at the White House. If the public option is a done deal, everyone will sign on the dotted line. But between here and there is a lot of work that no one seems committed to doing, and that many fear will undermine the work being done on the rest of the bill.

No one I've spoken to -- even when they support the public option -- thinks that its reemergence is good news for health-care reform. It won't be present in the package that the White House will unveil Monday.

My impression is that popular as it may be, it is holding up actually moving forward on health reform, and legislators are tired of getting yelled at from both sides of the political spectrum while having nothing accomplished.

Not only are there only 23 senators signing that letter, one of the champions in the Senate of the public option, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), whose valiant fight for the public option is more than any screaming head on a blog or on a television screen will ever do, essentially ruled out the public option in reconciliation.  Another supporter of the public option, Tom Carper's (D-DE) office flat out said that he will not support the public option through reconciliation.  Mark Begich (D-AK) will not be signing the letter and previously expressed reservations about the reconciliation process.

There are those who would like to hold up health reform altogether because of the public option.  They are wrong.  And I know that these days, it's fashionable in the left-ideological blogosphere to bash the President for not including it in his latest proposal, but the fact of the matter is that now is that right now, the votes are not there.  Right now, opening a brand new battle and holding health reform hostage to the conclusion of that battle will only serve to lessen the chances of health reform, not increase it.  However important, no one component alone makes health reform worth passing, and the lack of no singular provision is enough to kill health insurance reform.  That is what hangs in the balance here.  We Democrats need to be united on this issue.  The President has now provided a direction that draws upon the Senate bill and strengthens affordability, closes the Medicare drug benefits donut hole completely, provides all states significant assistance in the expansion of Medicaid (not just to Nebraska) and actually brings some needed fixes to the Cadillac tax in addition to delaying it (like letting it vary by age and region), all of which, by the way, tracks closely with what was already negotiated prior to the arrival of the 41st Republican Senate vote and what Pelosi and Harkin had said was going to be there anyway.  Tomorrow, there will be the health care summit at the White House.  After that, we must all line up behind this bill and get it passed.  No more delays.  No more scorched earth policy.  Let's pass health reform - no if's, but's, or and's.  No holding the bill hostage to a public option.  Let's pass it, and let's pass it quickly.

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Here are some things you should be reading today:

• The President's health care proposal
• this is a great proposal, improving on the affordability, coverage, and regulation provisions of the House and Senate bills, and it forces members of Congress to choose from the same exchanges as everyone else.
• New York Times on the Obama proposal 
• For something non-political, check out why the choice of your web browser matters.

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Every day health care reform is delayed, we hear stories of insurance industry exploits.  Every day health insurance reform is delayed, more small businesses are crushed under the burden of health care costs and make the decision to drop coverage for their employees.  Every day health care reform is delayed, it's one extra day the insurance industry and their friends in Congress have to scuttle any help for Americans altogether.  Next Thursday, the President will have a summit at the White House with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders on health care reform.  I believe that it will be a true exchange of ideas - at least for the Democratic side.  The President has announced that a unified Democratic health care bill will be posted online for everyone to see on Monday.  It's a near certainty that Republicans will take no similar step.

As Ezra Klein pointed out on MSNBC on Monday, it only takes 24 hours to pass health reform should the House choose to act.  But now, it seems, something else may end up blocking this maneuver - the thing that may deal a fatal blow to health reform may well be the insistence of some activists on the left upon the resurgence of the public option and its passage in the Senate before these activists would allow the House to act.  And why not?  It's popular, the media is obsessed with it, it's great policy, and it doesn't have the votes.  2 days before the Democratic bill is to be posted online, 19 Senators have signed onto a letter asking for the public option to be included in a fix to be passed in the Senate through reconciliation.  Even if a public option is allowed under the Senate rules in reconciliation (which only allows budget-related items to pass with a majority vote), nothing has changed, and the votes are simply not there.  Once again Ezra Klein nails it in his recent column,

I've spoken to a lot of offices about this now, and all of them are ambivalent privately, even if they're supportive publicly. No one feels able to say no to this letter, but none of them seem interested in reopening the wars over the public option. That's why the White House kicked this at Reid and Reid tossed it back at the White House. If the public option is a done deal, everyone will sign on the dotted line. But between here and there is a lot of work that no one seems committed to doing, and that many fear will undermine the work being done on the rest of the bill.

No one I've spoken to -- even when they support the public option -- thinks that its reemergence is good news for health-care reform. It won't be present in the package that the White House will unveil Monday.

Ezra Klein is right.  The emergence of the idea of the public option - while nothing whatsoever has changed in terms of votes for it, pushed by those who are knowingly or unknowingly leading activists to expect something when the inevitable result is a let-down - can in fact turn out to be counterproductive.  I know it's not to be said in liberal circles.  But damnit, someone has to say it.  This is hurting the chances of health reform at this late stage.  As long as members are pushed for it without having the votes, they are forced into the very difficult position of having to vote for a reconciliation package that they get the impression is a bad package - from the left and the right.  They are forced into this position while having to take a tough vote.  At this point, the pressure on the public option seems designed to put legislators in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't position.  At least it is in the short term.  And we can't wait till this dust settles to pass health care reform.  Time is running out.  Enough already.

This is the problem with us progressives.  We push for better legislation, and that's good.  But we don't appreciate our legislators when they take a tough vote.  A tough vote is when they vote to advance away from the status quo despite a poisoned political climate - poisoned by Republicans and special interest campaigning for a year against health care reform.  Poisoned by charges of government take-over of health care that is (unfairly) fueled by the public option.  And what do we do on the left?  We curse them after they pass the largest expansion of social safety net since Medicare and call them sellouts.  We call that bill worse than nothing.  We don't focus our rage on the select few who made the bill less progressive.  No.  We focus outrage on the entire Democratic caucus and the Democratic President and we call them political whores.

Well, screw that.  I'm done with that.  I am done with running around chastising our legislators when they take a tough vote on an less than perfect legislation.  Health care is hard to do.  That's why seven presidents have tried.  That's why seven have failed.  And I, for one, am not going to make our legislators feel like crap for taking tough votes.  I am not going to stand by and let people on my side of the isle accuse the President of political prostitution as he pushes for health care reform.

This has got to stop.  Pass the bill.  Pass it now.

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How long would it take to pass a health care bill, if Congress decided to do it?  Twenty four hours.  How is that possible?  Because that's all it would take for the House to pass the bill that has already passed the Senate.  Ezra Klein explained on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show on Monday:



Yes, a limited bill to improve the Senate bill can be, and should be passed through reconciliation, but the bottom line is that it's up to the House now.  Reconciliation is very limited in its scope, and as for those pushing for a public option in reconciliation, it remains a pipe dream with only 18 senators signing on in a letter in favor of it, and a 100-some House members (nowhere even close to what is needed for passage).

So, once again, the ball is in the House's court now.  They need to pass the Senate bill first, and then move forward with a fix process.  If they decide to do it - pass the Senate bill - we can have health care reform in 24 hours.  Twenty-four hours.

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Hon. Raul Grijalva and Hon. Barbara Lee
Congressional Progressive Caucus
Washington, DC

Dear Representatives Grijalva and Lee:

First of all, as someone committed to liberal causes and progressive policy initiatives, I want to thank you both for your tireless work in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  The CPC is the conscience of Congress, and I hope you will continue to fight on behalf of those of us who believe in and desperately need government to work for the American people.

In today's note, I want to draw your attention to an organization that you are both Board members of: ProgressiveCongress.org.  You may be aware that the non-profit education and research organization maintains an affiliated lobbying arm, Progressive Congress Action Fund, which you are not on the Board of.  However, ProgressiveCongress.org and Progressive Congress Action Fund do not separate their web presence, and far more notoriously, the Donate page of ProgressiveCongress.org defaults to the donation form for the 501(c)(4) lobbying arm, not the 501(c)(3) non-profit.  To donate to the non-profit, one must click on another link from that page.

I am concerned that those visiting ProgressiveCongress.org with the credibility that your endorsement bestows upon it may be tempted to donate to the educational and research 501(c)(3) and may end up donating to the lobbying arm instead.  This lack of separation of the web presence and the donation page defaulting to the form to donate to the lobbying arm is troublesome, particularly when members of Congress are involved in (c)(3) side of the organization.  A clearly separated web presence is the best solution to this.  Lacking that, the donation form of a shared website of organizations with both a educational non-profit arm in which members of Congress are involved and a lobbying arm in which members of Congress are not involved should not default to the lobbying arm, it should default to the educational project.

Because the two organizations are so intertwined, I feel compelled to point out that Eve Gittelson, one of the key contributors to the FixItAndPassIt.org project, commissioned by the Action Fund has expressed agreement with the sentiment that President Obama is indifferent to the deaths of 45,000 Americans yearly who die due to the lack of health insurance.  A screen-shot from the project's official Facebook page is below.



To the extent that ProgressiveCongress.org and its associated organizations and persons derive credibility from your good names, I do not believe that you condone this type of rhetoric or behavior.

I ask you to bring this issue to the attention of Darcy Burner, the Executive Director of both organizations, and to resolve the issues.

Thank you for all you do.

Note: The letter above was emailed to progressive@mail.house.gov, since the individual Congressmembers' contact forms on their official websites are designed so that only constituents from their districts may email them.  This is true for all members of the House.

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Last Friday, I wrote about the website FixItAndPassIt.org, a project of Progressive Congress Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) and a partisan lobbying organization essentially mixing and mingling their non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) operations of ProgressiveCongress.org.  Both organizations have the same Executive Director, Darcy Burner.  The Progressive Congress Action Fund launched the Fix It And Pass It project, spearheaded by Noelle Bell and Eve Gittelson, who apparently believes that President Obama is indifferent to the plight of uninsured Americans.



At any rate, I had called the press contact (Doug Gordon at (202) 494-5141) for this project and left a message asking two questions:

1. Would donations to the non-partisan C3, Progressive Congress (NOT the Action fund) be used for FixItAndPassIt.org efforts?
2. Does the non-partisan non-profit and the Action Fund have the same Board of Directors?  If not, who are in the Board of Directors for the Action Fund (the 501(c)(4))?

Well it appears that they have answered the questions, even if they didn't bother with the courtesy of returning my phone call.  But we do know who is on the Board of Directors of the Action Fund, and who is on the Board of the non-partisan non-profit C3.  Here are some people who are on the Board of the non-profit, but are curiously missing from the Board of the Action Fund:

• U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva - Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair
• U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee - Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Emeritus 
• Markos Moulitsas – Founder of DailyKos.com

What's so interesting about this list?  First of all, the primary project of the Action Fund now is to call Congress to "fix" the Senate health bill first and for the House to not pass it until the fixes happen.  But the Action Fund is missing the two members of Congress that are willing to be on the Board of the associated but non-lobbying non-profit.  Perhaps that's because members of Congress are not allowed to be on the Boards of lobbying organization.  That, of course, begs the question of why the non-profit is so closely intertwined with the lobbying arm.  Furthermore, one should notice that if you visit ProgressiveCongress.org and click on 'Donate', the default 'Donate' page gives your money to the lobbying arm, not the research and educational foundation.  How do I know?  From this disclosure, at the bottom of the form:

Your donation will go to the 501(c)(4) Progressive Congress Action Fund. Gifts are not tax-deductible, but funds can be used for lobbying and political organizing. To make a tax-deductible donation (for research and education) please donate to our 501(c)(3) non-profit, ProgressiveCongress.org.

I am wondering if the members of Congress on this Board are aware that they are lending their names to an organization that does not separate its educational and lobbying web sites, and whose donate page leads, by default, to the lobbying arm's donation form.  I will be releasing an open letter to Reps. Grijalva and Lee regarding this shortly.  Stay tuned.

In the mean time, let's look at the other notable absence.  The absence of Markos Moulitsas, the founder and publisher of the most influential liberal and self-proclaimed "reform" blog from the Board of the Action fund is rather telling, in my opinion.  Is it because he does not want to be seen as fundraising to pay two of the regulars on his website's 'Recommended Diaries' list (Noelle Bell and Eve Gittelson)?  I doubt that.  After all, when Darcy Burner posts on Daily Kos (and she has posted numerous diaries), they, too, shoot up to the 'Recommended' list, and Markos is on the Board of the non-profit, which Burner also runs (and presumably generates income from).  So Markos' absence is rather puzzling.  The only sane explanation I can come up with is that Markos is in fact not aligned entirely with the goals of the Action Fund or its Fix It And Pass It project, which seeks to hold health reform hostage to unattainable demands - which will only serve to derail health care legislation rather than pass it at this point - of the inclusion of a public option and a Medicare buy-in.  It is the "kill the bill" strategy couched in "we wanna make it better" rhetoric.

I am still smelling something, and it smells rotten.

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This morning, I woke up to a Politico story about Democrats sparring with the notorious Grover Norquist ally Jane Hamsher over a series of polls her blog commissioned in some Republican leaning but Democratically held Congressional districts.  The poll is nothing more than an attempt to rile people up about the individual mandate in the current health care bills.  At the request of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emory University Professor Alan Abramowitz released a memo with what are in my judgment pretty strong and unavoidable criticisms.  Let me go through the memo (which can be found here), and test if each of its criticisms are valid.  We will take, for convenience's sake, the data for the polling of Indiana's 9th CD.

The first question Prof. Abramowitz raises is that the questions asked about the health care bill is biased.  Well, let's have a look at the questions.

5. There are many pieces to the health care reform bill that is being considered by Congress. One change, called the individual mandate, would require every American to carry health insurance, whether they want insurance or not. Are you familiar with the individual mandate?

This is, of course, a bold faced lie.  Every American will not be required to carry health insurance under any bill.  If one cannot find health insurance for less than 8% of their income in premiums, they are NOT required to buy health insurance.  I have prepared a nifty table and explanation of the caps (both premiums and out-of-pocket expenses).  The House bill's caps are a little different, but in the same range.  I scoured the questions, and yet I cannot find any explanation of the hardship exemption.  The truth of the matter is that the bills require one to buy health insurance only if one can afford it.  Hmm.  I wonder why Jane Hamsher would choose to leave that out.  Perhaps Jane has an interest in driving a certain narrative regardless of the whole truth.

Medicaid is expanded to 133% of FPL in the Senate bill, 150% of FPL in the House bill.  People who will fall under this are obviously not required to buy health insurance.  Again, completely left out of Hamsher's poll.  Even people for whom the bill would deem insurance affordable are not required to carry insurance.  If they do not, they are merely required to pay a small fine, err, tax to the tune of 2% of their income.

Which brings us to their next question:

Under one proposal, if a person does not carry health insurance from a private insurance company, they would be fined up to 2% of their income. Is this fair? Or unfair?

Once again, the 2% "fine" applies only to those for whom insurance is available under 8% of their income in premiums.  The poll questions conspicuously and conveniently hide this fact.

While we're going along with pumping propaganda to voters, here's another classic one:

If the bill required individuals to have health insurance, but gave them the choice of buying health insurance from a private insurance company, OR buying into the government run Medicare program ... would you be strongly in favor, somewhat in favor, somewhat opposed, or strongly opposed?

Uhh.  Anyone bother to tell the voters that the Medicare buy-in that was under consideration would only be available to people aged 55-64 who could not obtain insurance through an employer?

Oh, by the way, where are the questions about whether or not the people who were polled know about the minimum benefit requirements in the Democratic health care legislation, which will force insurance companies to provide comprehensive coverage?  Where are the questions about whether people know that their insurance company will no longer be able to drop them or jack up their rates because they get sick?  Where are the questions about affordability credits?  In other words, how are the very valid criticisms of Professor Abramowitz addressed:

First, with regard to the wording of the health care questions, the questions asked in these polls are clearly biased and loaded. Respondents are asked their opinions about imposing fines on individuals who fail to obtain health insurance without any explanation of the benefits that such individuals would obtain such as the ability to obtain insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, the availability of lower cost policies in the proposed insurance exchange, or, most importantly, the availability of subsidies to help those with low to moderate incomes purchase insurance.

I will give you a hint.  They are not addressed.  In my judgment, that is because the poll's funding source had an interest in not finding out the answers to those questions.

Next, Jane Hamsher and Survey USA severely under-represent young voters.

Second, the samples in all three of these House districts appear to severely underrepresent younger voters and overrepresent older voters. The percentage of voters under the age of 35 in the samples range from zero to five percent while the percentage age 65 and older range from 35 to 45 percent. These percentages are way out of line with the known age distribution of the electorate in recent midterm elections.

For example, according to the 2006 national exit poll, voters under the age of 35 made up about 25 percent of the electorate while those age 65 and older made up about 20 percent of the electorate.

Interesting to watch how self-proclaimed leaders of the progressive movement don't care about under-representing young voters.  But perhaps it should not be a surprise coming from a funding source whose blog traffic is dominated by (estimated) a decidedly older, white and childless household demographics.  Be that as it may, my job here is to do statistical analysis.  The sample is completely out of whack.  Yes, more older voters tend to vote in midterms, but not that much more.  Yes, less younger voters vote in midterms, but not essentially zero!  In the Indiana 9th polling, for example, Survey USA assumes young voters to be 5% of likely voters and older (65+) voters are estimated to be 32% of likely voters.  But the Professor says that in 2006, voters under 35 made up a quarter of the electorate and and voters over 65 about a fifth.  Is he right?  More importantly, is he right in the case of Indiana?  It turns out that as far as Indiana is concerned, the actual numbers fall right in the middle.

• In 2006, voters 18-29 made up 21% of the electorate.  We are dealing here with voters up to age 34, so the percentage is likely to be higher nationally.
• In Indiana, voters 18-29 made up 11% of the electorate in 2006.  Once again, we are dealing here with voters up to the age of 34, so taking that into account, my estimate is that voters 18-34 made up about 16% of the electorate in Indiana in 2006

Notably, only 12% of Indianans of voting age are over 65.   Essentially, Survey USA is underestimating the youth vote in Indiana by about 300%.  A glaring error like that can by itself make a poll so biased that it serves no useful purpose.

So far, we have established the following in Jane Hamsher's poll:

• Facts about the health care bill was suppressed and only biased information was given to voters.
• Younger voters were severely under-represented in the poll.

So the absolute numbers of the results are essentially (and quite conclusively) invalid.   However, the before and after numbers do add a twist.  And the twist is this: If Hamsher and FDL's goal was to show that these Democrats are more endangered because of the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, she utterly failed.  Let's look at the second and last questions:

Assume Baron Hill votes to pass a version of the health care bill that does NOT include a fine. If there were an election for US House of Representatives and the only two candidates on the ballot were Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel, who would you vote for?

Hill (D): 40%
Sordel (R): 48%

Which is the exact same margin at the beginning of this poll:

If there were an election for US House of Representatives today, and the only two candidates on the ballot were Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel, who would you vote for?

Hill (D): 41%
Sordel (R): 49%

So, essentially, Jane Hamsher just spent a bunch of money to mislead voters, under-represent young people, and find out that the presence of the mandate makes no difference whatsoever in terms of a Democrat's position in conservative districts.  Congratulations, I guess.

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Lawrence O'Donnell, pundit and contributor to the Huffington Post and former Senate Democratic stuffer is very fond of touting his Senate creds and telling everyone about where Congress is and what the Senate does and what has no chance of.  On Friday, O'Donnell guest hosted The Ed Show on MSNBC and in that show, he went on a great diatribe showing his mastery of legislative procedure and accused Congressional Democrats of wanting to kill their own health care bill.  Thankfully, Congressman Elijah Cummings set him straight:



But how do you know who to believe?  Well, I will give you one advice: don't believe Lawrence O'Donnell.  He has gone on TV before, spouted out his great knowledge of the Senate procedures and eaten crow forthwith.  Not that he ever admits to being wrong.  Unfortunately for him, though, MSNBC makes transcripts of its shows available.  Guest hosting for Keith Olberman on MSNBC, O'Donnell freaked out on December 11, 2009, after, of course, the usual chest-thumping about him being an ex-staffer of the Senate.

O‘DONNELL:  Thirteen -- 13 shopping days until Christmas.  There is no chance that the United States Senate is going to deliver you a bill before Christmas...

Here's what happened on Christmas eve morning in the Senate:



Will this teach Lawrence O'Donnell not to make a fool out of himself by taking his Senate staffer experience chest-thumping for a spin ever again?  Probably not.  But I hope it will teach you not to trust the garbage that comes out of that man's mouth about what is and isn't possible in terms of moving bills in Congress.

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I used to be a big fan of Darcy Burner.  She ran two fearless campaigns for Congress up in Washington state, and even though she lost both campaigns, she was someone progressives could be proud of.  But after her failed runs for Congress, she founded ProgessiveCongress.org, a 501(c)(3) a non-partisan non-profit (basically this means that her organization is not allowed to lobby a whole lot).  So of course, like most political 501(c)(3)s, her organization has a parallel 501(c)(4) so that it can lobby and engage in political activity to its heart's content, the Progressive Congress Action Fund.  She recently hired two bloggers from Daily Kos and started a new-fangled project, Fix It And Pass It (dot org).  It wants to have 1 million people calling Congress on February 24 and 25, ostensibly calling the House first asking them to hold the Senate health bill hostage¹ to a reconciliation fix.  I happen to think they should pass the Senate bill as is, and then follow up with a reconciliation bill afterwords to fix the rough edges.

But that's not really the issue I'm trying to present here.  The FixItAndPassIt.org site is essentially three things: an invite to join the aforementioned Facebook group, a Donate page, and a bunch of links leading back to the Progressive Congress website, the 501(c)(3).  Generally, the funds for that and the funds for these lobbying efforts (i.e. (c)(4) efforts) ought to be separated.  Their 'About Us' page links back to the explicitly non-partisan Progressive Congress.  Given that this calling effort is targeted to Democrats only, whatever else it is, it is not non-partisan.  There also ought be a firewall between the funds because it pertains to the donors.  Donations to the non-partisan 501(c)(3), Progressive Congress, are tax deductible.  Donations to the lobbying group, Progressive Congress Action Fund, are not tax deductible.  If someone goes to Fix It And Pass It website, clicks on 'about us', then clicks the donate button from that page, their money could not be used to fund this project.  This whole mixing and overlapping of the two organizations and presenting them as one (whether intentionally or as the result of pure sloppiness) is rather dangerous organizationally.  It  makes the operation look unprofessional at best and an attempt to put together a site in a hurry so money can start being collected at worst.

I am sure these people - Darcy Burner, Noelle Bell and Eve Gittelson all believe in what they are doing.  After all, who doesn't want health care reform?  However, I will point out that one of the key contributors to the "Fix It And [then] Pass It" project, Eve Gittelson, believes that President Obama does not care about the 45,000 people dying each year due to the lack of health insurance every year.  Gittelson agrees with a poster on her Facebook group devoted to this purpose saying this.

Be that as it may, people are being asked to give money to a project sponsored by a public entity, and no one knows who sits on the Board of that entity (the Action Fund, not the non-partisan non-profit).  The associated non-partisan non-profit has on the Board highly regarded people like the co-founders of MoveOn.org and the publisher of Daily Kos.  But we have next to no information about the Progressive Congress Action Fund, the organization created for political and lobbying involvement.  We know Darcy Burner is its Executive Director and two bloggers are 'key contributors' to the most recent project.  But that's it.  So I have taken the initiative to call the number listed in the press release announcing this project:

Doug Gordon (202) 494-5141

I left a message with my number and my email address in which I listed my concerns as above, asking the specific questions:

1. Would donations to the non-partisan C3, Progressive Congress (NOT the Action fund) be used for FixItAndPassIt.org efforts?
2. Does the non-partisan non-profit and the Action Fund have the same Board of Directors?  If not, who are in the Board of Directors for the Action Fund (the 501(c)(4))?

I have not yet received a reply from Doug.  If and when I do, I will let everyone know.  If you would like to make your own calls, the number is above.  If you would like to read up on the differences between a 501(c)(3) non partisan organization and a 501(c)(4) political and lobbying organization, you can get a quick refresher here.

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Otto Lee, a member of the Sunnyvale City Council, its former mayor, and most importantly my friend, has been serving in Iraq for the past year.  Otto is a Navy reservist.  We are all so glad that he made it home safely.  Of course, his first order of business put a smile on my face.

After his plane landed back at home last week, Lee couldn't wait to have dinner with his family.

"A home-cooked meal, especially a home-cooked Chinese meal, was something that you don't get in Iraq," Lee said. He described the meal as "the best thing I've tasted in awhile."

Indeed.  Welcome home, Otto!

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I am going to try and make this a regular, if not daily feature. A reading list. News items, some in-depth reading and opinion pieces will mostly what this will consist of. So without further ado, here's today's:

• The President's Economic Report
• Senate unveils its jobs proposal (here's the text of the draft bill).
• For comparison and good measure, also read about the House bill passed back in December (and the text of the House-passed bill itself).
• On the question of service in the military, overwhelming support for letting gays serve openly, but not "homosexuals." Wording matters. I will update with links to the actual numbers when it becomes available.
• Iran amps up rhetoric on nuclear issue.

That's all for today. Happy reading!

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The AP is reporting that President Obama, in a message to Congress, has said that the economy will add 95,000 jobs on average every month this year, while personal savings will remain high as credit remains tight.  That's moderately good news.  95,000 jobs a month - if the President is talking about 95,000 for the remaining 11 months of 2010, we are talking about a little over a million jobs.  If the President is talking about 95,000 jobs on average for the entirety of 2010, including last month, then we're talking about 1.14 million new jobs.

No jobs news that pertains to additional jobs being created right now can be bad news.  However, this will still be a modest pace of recovery.  To put things into perspective, in 2009 alone, 4.78 million jobs were lost.  Considering what the economy went through, thanks to conservative policies, however, the new ray of hope couldn't come at a better time.  Nonetheless, it is still going to be a very long, tough slug:

Indeed, even adding an average of 95,000 jobs each month, unemployment is likely to remain around 10 percent through this year and not fall below 6 percent until 2015. And while Americans are likely to save more for big-ticket items such as homes or cars, it means a slower recovery for a nation that has lost 8.4 million net jobs since this recession began in December 2007.

So are these projections of 95,000 jobs a month realistic, or is it some pie in the sky thing that really won't pan out?  Well, independent economists seem to agree with the numbers:

Mark Zandi, founder of Moody's Economy.com and a frequent adviser to lawmakers, said the White House economic projections track his own. A jobs bill worth $100 billion to $150 billion, he said, would accelerate a decrease in unemployment.

I might mention that Mark Zandi was an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, and isn't exactly a liberal economist.  But about that jobs bill thing, dear US Senate, we can use a little help here?  Personally I believe just as the jobs decline was much sharper than most expected in the last recession, with the current economic bounce back and expansion, jobs recovery can also rise much more sharply than estimates.  But not without strong Congressional action to create more jobs.  Not conservative, penny pinching action.  Bold, targeted spending action.  The Senate is on its way to offset nearly all of these 95,000 jobs a month this year by refusing to deliver aid to the states in its jobs bill.  In the absence of federal aid, states may have to cut 900,000 jobs this year.  The Senate needs to act in much bigger and much bolder ways.

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It was pretty good to see the President take the helm of the White House press briefing podium yesterday, and he laid out his agenda, and the way forward to move forward together in Washington.  He will continue to seek the best ideas, but the Republicans should understand that bipartisanship is not them getting their way or highway.

Here, watch the whole press conference.



I love this phrase: Math is not partisan. But Mr. President, Karl Rove has his own math, err, the math.  The president also called the GOP out on its Delay and Obstruct strategy.

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In the past year, thanks largely to the Recovery Act and other help from Congress in terms of direct infrastructure and other spending, targeted tax cuts and humongous aide to the states, the economy avoided a complete collapse and a second Great Depression.  Thanks largely to that kind of spending, the job loss picture turned around to look like this:

 

So of course, the United States Senate, masters of mediocrity, decides it's time to slow things down a bit.  Senate Democrats released a draft plan of their new jobs bill today, and it is rather disappointing.  It is missing some pretty critical and important stuff.  CNN reports on the genius Senate bill:

No help for the states.  Come again?  Yes, the Senate bill - the bill originating in the legislative body whose name literally means 'the house of the States' - does not have any help for the cash strapped states that now face a combined $180 billion budget shortfall this coming fiscal year.  What could that mean?  The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that state governors' new budgets without additional federal aid could result in the loss of 900,000 jobs.  Why are we beginning a jobs bill with the brilliant idea not to save the jobs of teachers, police officers, firefigthers and other essential state workers?  The House-passed bill, in contrast, has $27 billion in aid for states, and it is redirected from TARP funds, either remaining or repaid.

No direct infrastructure spending.  Our bridges are crumbling and our infrastructure is in need of major overhaul.  To bring traffic under control and to increase the energy efficiency of America, we need investment in mass transit and new highway construction.  To boost the economy, we need jobs.  It seems to me like these things come together like peas in a pod.  Put money into infrastructure, build more highways, invest in mass transit, reduce traffic congestion and reduce pollution, and create jobs in the process.  What exactly is the problem?  The House bill invests $35 billion in infrastructure.  Once again, it is redirected from the bank bailout (TARP) funds, and not new spending.  What's the problem?

Well, the problem, seems to be the Republicans' 41-59 majority in the Senate resulting from newly minted President of the United States Freshman Senator from Massachusetts Scott Brown.

Republicans, however, have said they oppose shifting TARP money to job creation. They also have said they don't think infrastructure spending creates jobs, in direct contrast to congressional Democrats and the White House.

I seem to remember Republicans crowing about how money was going to TARP and not job creation last year.  Now that we're taking some of that money after an unexpectedly high rate of TARP fund repayments from banks, and want to shift it to job creation, they have a problem with that.  I also have a question for Republicans who don't think infrastructure spending creates jobs.  Who do you think is going to haul the concrete to fix the highways and build new ones?  Construction workers.  Sounds like jobs to me.  Who do you think are going to design the new mass transit vehicles, pathways and the new bridges?  Engineers.  Sounds like jobs to me.  In fact, every $ 1 billion in direct infrastructure investment creates 18,000 jobs.  So had Senate gone the way of the House and appropriated $35 billion for direct infrastructure spending, it could have created 630,000 additional jobs.

So what is in there?  Here's the only really new, decent idea in the Senate bill, and surprisingly enough for a decent idea, it is reported to have bipartisan appeal.  It has a payroll tax credit for employers who hire employees who have been laid off for at least 60 days, in place of the President's preferred $5,000 per new job credit.  That modest, $10 billion plan is expected to create as many as 270,000 jobs over the next year and a half, according to the Boston Globe.

The Senate bill also extends unemployment and COBRA benefits for three additional months.  That will keep some money and health insurance in place for approximately 1.2 million people.  Good thing, but these are not new jobs.

All good things, but there are still no numbers on how many jobs would be created by them.  But because the Senate is full of masters of mediocrity, they are also running around finishing last year's business:

The rest of the measure contains mostly last year’s unfinished business, including renewal of business tax breaks that have expired, an extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies, and a delay in a cut in Medicare payments for doctors.

Great.  It all needs doing.  The House bill has all of this stuff, too (actually the House bill extends COBRA for 15 months).

Don't get me wrong, I am glad the Senate is finally crunching something out on jobs before we are all dead.   While I am always a proponent of taking whatever we can get, this is far too little.  It is already running over a million and a half jobs short of the House bill.  And right now is not the time to think about ways to create the least amount of jobs.  Now is the time to aggressively and directly invest taxpayer dollars into the economy and give it a jolt.  For Pete's sake, we are moving in the right direction.  Our GDP numbers are turning around - we had the best economic growth in six years, and more impressively, a one-year net turn around of 12 percentage points in GDP growth (negative 6.4% in the first quarter of 2009 to positive 5.7% in the last quarter):



The state job cuts alone will wipe a full percentage point off the GDP.  Let's not go around balancing the budget on the backs of people who need jobs.  Let's not go around stifling economic and job growth at this crucial point in time, when economic and job growth are exactly what is needed to bring the deficit under control.

The Senate jobs needs less modesty.  A lot less.  It needs more cash.  A lot more.  And that should be pushed through, if need be, through reconciliation.  The jobs bill is an entirely budgetary matter - having to do only with revenue and spending (who gets tax credits, whose tax loophole is closed, how much money the federal government gives to states, etc.).  If anything at all can be passed through reconciliation, this can.

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Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America
Burlington, VT

Hi Jim,

You might remember meeting me once or twice.  I have been a member of Democracy For America since its founding in 2004.  I interned for Gov. Howard Dean's campaign in New Hampshire in 2003-04.  I am an active member and hold a leadership position in the my local DFA group (but I do not write this letter as a representative of any group).  I was a DFA Netroots Nation scholar in 2009.

I'm writing as a rather concerned DFA member about DFA's possible involvement in Noelle (slinkerwink) and Eve's (nyceve) Facebook group to organize a million calls to Capitol Hill on February 24 and 25 demanding reconciliation in the senate first before the House passes the Senate bill.  I think there are two dangers associated with it.

First and foremost, nearly nobody calling will have a clear idea about what may or may not be included in reconciliation.  The people pushing for the calls - at least one of them - is doing so on her other Facebook group demanding "Public option now."  It is not a realistic expectation to have the public option in reconciliation at this point.  In fact, Speaker Pelosi, her legislative director, and Tom Harkin have all made crystal clear what narrow provisions can be and will be included in a reconciliation package:increase the threshold on the Cadillac tax, include more affordability credits, close the donut hole in the Medicare Part D drug benefit, and eliminate the Cornhusker Kickback.  While all good ideas, I, frankly, do not think that those alone are reason to hold the Senate bill hostage in the House.

If DFA joins this campaign for a million calls, I want DFA to be very, very clear on what people are calling for - or holding the Senate bill hostage for - and that it isn't the public option.

Thanks for all you do.

Note to my reader: This is a modified version of an email I sent to Jim Dean via the DFA web site.  I love DFA, and I am posting this as an open letter because of my affection for DFA, not in spite of it.

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I generally don't comment a whole lot on terrorism policy; it's not an area of expertise for me.  But I am so tired of this Republican bullshit about how the Christmas day underpants bomber should not have been read his Miranda rights by the FBI in the course of interrogation.  Here is the Miranda warning given to every alleged criminal - from a serial killer to a shoplifter.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?

Never mind that this particular attacker did talk and is talking.  The argument goes that you can't give terrorists these same warning, because for some reason, terrorists in US custody should not be given the rights of a criminal defendant because we really, really hate them.  Wait, no, that's not it.  We don't want to give them the rights of a common criminal because this isn't a matter of law enforcement.  This is war.  And they are enemies of the United States in a war.  I see.  So I presume our Republican chickenhawks are fine with holding them as prisoners of war, following the Geneva Conventions, in which case,

Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners and states that a prisoner can only be required to give their name, date of birth, rank and service number (if applicable).

Which, also, essentially Mirandizes them.  No, say the Republicans, and some Democrats.  They are "enemy combatants," who don't have any rights and can be waterboarded.

Sure.  That makes perfect sense, if your goal is to take out your anger on them instead of preventing the next attack on the United States.  If you want them to cooperate, however, introduce them to something they have not seen: the rule of law.  Those who have information on the next attack are not going to cough it all up if you simply don't read them their rights.  Everyone in custody should be read their rights.  Because everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law.  Our legal system is capable of breaking the most hardened criminals, including terrorists.  You can ask me, should we read Osama Bin Laden his Miranda rights if we pick him up in the mountains of Pakistan?  Yes, he should be.  Then he should be given a lawyer - yes, let's let him "lawyer up."  Then let's try him, convict him, and let him meet his maker.  Let him meet American justice.  What are you afraid of - that our Justice Department is too incompetent to convict him?  Alternatively, try him as a war criminal in Hague.  But if we are to live in a society governed by law, we must rein in our urge to simply take out back and shoot even the most heinous of terrorists.

We are Americans.  America is not easy, and it doesn't lend to your lowest common instincts.  If you want your rights to mean anything, everyone else must have them too.  If we want to keep our claim to the Statue of Liberty, we have to do the hard things and the right things - not the easy things.

It all stems from this weird notion: they shouldn't have the same rights I do under criminal law or even laws of war!  Guess what, Sherlock.  Yes, they should.

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I read on the Daily Kos rec-list today the diary about how the Speaker's legislative director has now said that passing a reconciliation 'fix' through the Senate first is the only way to move forward on health care reform.  And to be sure, Wendell Primus, Speaker Pelosi's legislative director, said exactly that:

There is only one way to get it done at this stage of the game and that’s a process that the Speaker has outlined,”[...]

“The House would have to take up that first because it would involve revenue changes and then the Senate would pass it and then I think hopefully with the passing of that legislation, the House, only then would take up the Senate bill and pass it.”

Speaker Pelosi is creating the best pressure she can on the Senate, it seems to me.  However, Mr. Primus also educated us on what, precisely, would be included in such a reconciliation package:

Primus predicted that the reconciliation package of fixes would have to increase the threshold on the Cadillac tax, include more affordability credits, close the donut hole in the Medicare Part D drug benefit, and eliminate the Cornhusker Kickback.

Other Congressional aides agreed with Primus’ assessment and argued that it would be almost impossible to put together a smaller package that achieves any of the Democrats’ objectives because many provisions are interconnected.

So before you go running around jubilant about the Speaker's Legislative Director demanding reconciliation first, do note precisely what he demands in such a reconciliation package.  What does he leave out?  I will give you a hint:

PUBLIC OPTION

This is, of course, not a surprise to anyone who has been honestly and factually following the debate.  Speaker Pelosi herself put an end to the speculation about a public option in reconciliation about a week ago.  There may be 51 votes in the Senate for the public option, but there aren't 51 votes in the Senate for passing a public option under reconciliation.  Also, I will note that the list of fixes that Primus lays out are rather familiar.  That is, in fact, the same list that Sen. Tom Harkin, the Chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, said was negotiated and agreed upon by the White House and the House and Senate Democratic leaderships before Scott Brown gave Republicans their 41st vote.

Harkin said “we had an agreement, with the House, the White House and the Senate. We sent it to [the Congressional Budget Office] to get scored and then Tuesday happened and we didn’t get it back.” He said negotiators had an agreement in hand on Friday, Jan. 15.

Harkin made clear that negotiators had reached a final deal on the entire bill, not just the excise plans, which had been reported the previous day, Jan. 14.

Harkin said the deal covered the prescription-drug “donut hole,” the level of federal insurance subsidies, national insurance exchanges and federal Medicaid assistance to states.

Indeed, Speaker Pelosi agrees, and her Legislative Director has now reiterated it.  Once again, this confirms that the public option will NOT be in reconciliation, and that it's dead for the current debate.

That list of what would be in reconciliation has been the list for a while, even if people encouraging you to join facebook to call are still doling out the idea that the public option is viable in reconciliation (example, and the diary author's other Facebook group, 'PublicOptionNow' it pushing this 'Millioin Calls' deal on its wall).

So if and when you join this group or sign up to make these 'Reconcile First' calls, please be crystal clear that what you are fighting for in this instance is not the public option.  The Chief Outrage^TM of "forcing people to buy private insurance" (ok it's actually far more nuanced than that, but the people opposing the Senate bill aren't telling you that) will be in the final bill no matter what.

Lastly, the Speaker's aide also admits that passing the reconciliation fix without passing the underlying bill (the Senate bill) first is in fact, in his words, a "trick."

“The trick in all of this is that the President would have to sign the Senate bill first and then the reconciliation bill would be signed second and the parts of the reconciliation bill that trump the relevant portions of the first signed bill.”

So to Mr. Primus, I have a question.  Why, might I ask, are you playing tricks with the procedure? If the President has to sign the Senate bill first, as you acknowledge, why not pass the Senate bill first? What the hell kind of a game is it to have Congress pass bills in the reverse order that the President has to sign it? That is ridiculous, and it sets a dangerous precedent.  What happens if a future president decides to screw with a future Congress and in a future bill of this type, signs the “fix” and then the underlying bill or just flat out vetoes the underlying bill?  What happens then?  You will have a freaking process nightmare on your hands.  I don't think this is good for the institutions of Congress or the Presidency.

There has been some questions about why I am doing this, if I am truly a supporter of the public option.  The answer is simple.  This isn't about the public option anymore.  The public option had become ideological long ago (and had my ideological support), and it, unfortunately is now gone and not coming back.  This isn't about the public option.  This is about what I feel is a potential for misleading a group of activists to feel like they are making calls for something when they make phone calls to Congress for 'reconciliation first.'  I am an activist.  I love activism.  But when I make calls and say words like 'reconciliation bill' I want to know what exactly is in such a reconciliation bill - and what must be in it to be acceptable to me.  That's why I want everyone to know exactly what they are supporting when they call Congress and say 'reconcile first', and it ain't the public option.  I want people to know what they are holding the Senate bill hostage to, and it ain't the public option.

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I have said that the Senate health bill caps out-of-pocket expenses in the individual market at 10% of income or $5,950 for individual plans, whichever is less.  It came to my attention that while not far from the truth, it is not entirely the case, although there are absolute caps of $5,950 for individual and $11,900 for family plans for those with income over 400% of the Federal Poverty Level.  I will explain in a minute what had me confused, but let me actually set the record straight on the numbers first.

Here are the actual out of pocket limits, straight from the horse's mouth (Senate Democratic Policy Committee analysis of bill as passed):

Sec. 1402. Reduced cost-sharing for individuals enrolling in qualified health plans. The standard out-of-pocket maximum limits ($5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families) would be reduced to one-third for those between 100-200 percent of poverty, one-half for those between 200-300 percent of poverty, and to two-thirds for those between 300-400 percent of poverty. The plan’s share of total allowed costs of benefits would be increased to 90 percent for those between 100-150 percent of poverty (i.e., the individual’s liability is limited to 10 percent on average) and to 80 percent for those between 150-200 percent of poverty (i.e., the individual’s liability is limited to 20 percent on average). The cost-sharing assistance does not take into account benefits mandated by States.

Now, keeping in mind that Medicaid will cover people up to 133% of poverty under the Senate bill, here are actual individual caps (family in parentheses) in the individual market (for small groups market, deductibles are capped at $2,000 for individual and $4,000 for family plans).  I have used the midpoint in each of 100-200%, 200-300% and 300-400% of Federal Poverty Level.  Above 400% of FPL, of course, the limits are $5,950 or $11,900.  So for the last number, I have used 450% of FPL, which does not have subsidies, just to be consistent with a 100-point jump in the rest of the table.

% of FPL	150	250	350	450
Income (first line = individual, second line = family of 4)	$16,245 $33,075	$27,075 $55,125	$37,905 $77,175	$48,375 $99,225
Out-of-pocket cap (first line = individual, second line = family of 4)	$1,983 $3,967	$2,975 $5,950	$3,967 $7,933	$5,950 $11,900
Out-of-pocket cap as percentage of income	12%	11%	10%	12%
Premium cap* as percentage of income	4.6%	8.1%	9.8%	N/A
Worst case scenario cost as percentage of income	17%	19%	20%	N/A

Dollar amounts rounded to the nearest dollar, percentages rounded to two significant figures.
For FPL, the Federal Poverty Guidelines from 2009 were used.

*Premium caps taken from both this table prepared by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and from Kaiser Family Foundation's subsidy calculator.  If you choose the Senate-passed bill on the KFF calculator, and try out numbers, one of the lines you see will be "Cap on premium as % of income."

As you can see, roughly, it does not change the bigger picture a whole lot.  Keep in mind that "worst case scenarios" are only reached for someone in a year for which they have to get a lot of care beyond preventive and routine care, since preventive care will cost nothing after your premiums.  At the end of the day, it still establishes caps where there are none under the status quo, dramatically expands coverage, and saves lives.  In addition, there are a couple important thing that might get lost in the above four sections that no one should forget:

First, the above table does not change, and is not related to the fact that one is not subject to the individual mandate to obtain insurance under the Senate bill if one does cannot find comprehensive coverage for under 8% of income in their portion of premiums.

Second, insurance companies are not allowed to discriminate based on income.  That means, for example, that if an insurance company wants to make sure a 40-year old healthy non-smoking individual making 450% of FPL, or $48,375 a year and buying in the individual market is subject to the legal mandate to buy coverage (which has a threshold of 8% of income), they have to offer that individual a policy with an annual premium of roughly $3,900.  That means they have to offer the same policy to every 40-year-old non-smoker in the exchanges.  The Kaiser subsidy calculator will tell you how much your premium will be and how much of it you will pay and how much the subsidies will be, if any.

I have been getting the misconception from this article on Bloomberg, which states,

[The Senate bill] would increase to 10 percent the threshold for deducting out-of-pocket medical expenses for most people in 2013.

I took the "10 percent threshold for deducting" to mean 10 percent deductible.  I apologize for the confusion.  It turns out that what they meant was this: the Wall Street Journal explains it better:

In the past, relatively few people have been eligible to take the deduction because it allows no write-off for expenses equal to the first 7.5% of adjusted gross income. (The Senate Finance Committee has voted to raise this hurdle to 10% next year.)

I want to thank the commenter jim bow on a Daily Kos thread for pointing this out.  I have updated all the posts I can find about this, and continue to believe that the Senate bill is still a pretty good bill.

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