The bravest man in Washington, D. C., Rep Joseph Coa (R-La.)

House health bill passes 220-215; 39 Dems and one GOP defect

And here we thought no one could take Charlton Heston’s place!

Excellent!

 

#27 incase you lost count!

Thank you Teabaggers!

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Wed, November 04, 2009 — 12:27 AM ET
—–
Conservative Concedes in Upstate Congressional Race
A staunch conservative conceded defeat to a moderate Democrat
early Wednesday morning in a hard-fought contest for New York
State’s northernmost Congressional seat, a race that exposed
divisions among Republicans over how far outside the party’s
base they should reach as they look to rebuild.
With 88 percent of precincts reporting, the Democrat, Bill
Owens, was leading with 49 percent of the vote, while the
Conservative Party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman, had 45.5
percent.

Put up or shut up week

Ready or not, House Democratic leaders say they are pushing for a healthcare vote this week.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is poised to send a bill to the floor Monday in its final form, setting up a vote as early as Thursday.

Pelosi preps for healthcare plunge

A real Speaker of the House ~BrianInNYC

As this week draws to a close I thought it appropriate to take a moment and acknowledge the efforts of the speaker in crafting health care reform.  From everything I’ve read the House bill seems to be very well crafted and will greatly improve the lives of 10s millions of American, including myself!  For more info on the bill I suggest you go over to True/Slant and check out Rick Unger’s break down of the bill (I’ll post the links at the end of this)

I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I’m a big fan of Nancy Pelosi, it’s been a very  long time since we’ve had truly powerful Speak of the House and I think we as nation have suffered for it.  Even when the president and the speaker are of the same party a powerful speaker serves as counter to presidential power.  Being the president’s lap dog never serves the republic well, I don’t think history will have a lot to say about Dennis Hastert, one way or another.  The different personalities of each party might have a lot to do with why so few Republican speakers go on to become political legends as Tip O’Neill and Sam Rayburn did, after all it’s take a lot of talent to corral a herd of cats!   Republicans tend to walk in lock step we Dems rarely do.

I think this week we got to see just how effective a Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has become.

House health care reform bill – Division A Title II in a ‘nutshell’

House health care bill in a ‘nutshell’ – the creation of the Health Insurance Exchange

A Case for Single Payer

If there’s two things we Americans like to preserve it’s our money and our health.  This year over 100 banks have gone belly up, yet no depositor has lost any of their savings.  Not one.  This is due to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.  The FDIC is a single payer system whose  premiums are paid by member banks.

To those who think that insurers of banks should be open to all only need to be reminded of AIG, their insurance acumen, their profit motive, and their bailout by U.S. taxpayers.

The single payer model doesn’t work well for many insurance types, e.g., auto, homeowners, life, etc.   But it has worked well for banking in the U.S. and it has worked well in other countries for health insurance.