Good morning.
Be sure to check out Howard Dean's op ed in the Washington Post this morning. He explains in detail whey he thinks the terribly flawed Senate bill should be killed, and Congress should start over.
We should get the long-awaited CBO score on the Senate health care bill today. That will set the process moving for a cloture vote. No one seems sure that the 60 votes are there. The anti-choice National Right to Life Committee is apparently now in charge of whether the health care bill survives in the Senate. And Democratic Senator Sanders of VT said that at this point, he's not voting for the bill (for all the right reasons). And, lest we forget, the GOP Senators are doing everything to prevent votes.
But, what we are learning isn't exactly encouraging. On Keith Olbermann last night, former insurance company exec Wendell Potter of CIGNA explained how the insurance company will get around restrictions:
[T]hey would be enabled to charge people who have certain "health factors," as it's called in this bill, up to 50% more, if you've got high blood pressure, or high cholesterol really. So that is just one way to get around doing that.That's just one way. Insurers will come up with more ways to screw people. Why not? The insurance industry owns the GOP, but has been coddled and protected by U.S. Senators and the Obama administration. I knew it was bad when Ben Smith posted the "We WIN" email last week. They do think they've won.
And, the President leaves for Copenhagen tonight.
Let's get threading...
