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The rural health care issue and Pennsylvania

  By Health Care

The Blue Dog leader on Health Care is Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas. He has been arguing that we need to increase Medicare reimbursement rates in rural areas because they are lower in those areas and have to be raised in order to attract good doctors and to keep hospitals open. We share those concern. But like the Blue Dog idea of negotiating reimbursement rates in the public health insurance plan instead of setting them at Medicare rates plus 5%, Rep. Ross’s solution will raise premiums in the public health insurance plan, not just in rural areas but across the country. It will also cripple the public plan and reduce competition for private insurance, which will also raise premiums. And, because higher subsidies will be required for these higher premiums, the cost to the Federal government and, ultimately, taxpayers will be greater. And, at any, rate it’s not totally clear… Continue reading

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Blue Dogs: running with the wrong pack

  By Health Care

Five members of Congress from Pennsylvania—Representatives Jason Altmire, Chris Carney, Kathy Dahlkemper, Tim Holden, and Patrick Murphy—are part of the Blue Dog Coalition, whose demands for changes in the Health Care reform bill before the House of Representatives has gained a great of attention in the last week or so. While at least one of those demands might actually improve the bill, others are deadly to the health care reforms we so badly need around the country. Indeed those demands are so deadly for reforms that will very much benefit Pennsylvanians, that it’s time for us start asking our Pennsylvania Blue Dogs, why are you running with this wrong pack? Continue reading

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It’s got to be love: twenty-five favorite songs

  By Music

We saw a revival of Guys and Dolls last week in New York. While we heard “If I were a bell.” I whispered to my daughter that “This is one of my ten favorite songs.” I immediately knew that was a rash statement. My daughter being my daughter, she of course, asked what the other nine were. So in moments snatched here or there over the last few months, when I was too exhausted to do anything productive, I’ve made a list. There was no way to get the list down to ten. So I settled for twenty five. And even then, I have a waiting list of another twenty. Continue reading

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Escaping gravity: some reflections on organizing

  By A political memoir, Political Organizing

To see a world in a grain of sand…And eternity in an hour. Blake Caress the details. Nabokov Organizing is hard, often frustrating work. It takes an enormous amount of energy to get people to fit their personal vision into a collective effort and even more to help them focus on what matters as opposed to what doesn’t. In doing this work you have to deal with every sort of personal quirk and idiosyncrasy found in a, hopefully, large group of people. Of course, as an organizer you are also part of an broad effort to make life better for people. And if you are organizing in a democratic fashion, your goal is to empower people, to lift them and their ideals up, and give them a vision of a better world that they themselves have created. Doing that kind of work is inspiring. But sometimes the disconnect between our… Continue reading

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Why Red, Yellow, and Blue Dogs are all going to support Health Care Reform.

  By Health Care, US

Everyone who favors health care reform, including me, is worried about the Blue Dog Democrats. As the state director of Health Care For America Now in PA, I’m concerned about the five blue dog Democrats in Pennsylvania and our staff, volunteers and I are working as hard as we can to keep all of them on the straight and narrow. We have a long week ahead of us dealing with the Blue Dogs. But I think we are going to win, for two reasons. One is the enormous pressure we are going to bring on Blue Dogs, from our coalition partners and the activists we identified. I’m building and talking and writing about that pressure fifteen hours a day, so I won’t say that much about it here. Instead I want to consider a second reason: given the political logic of the moment, while a lot of the Blue Dogs… Continue reading

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The question remains, which side are you on?

  By Health Care, Politics, US

We are reaching a critical moment in the effort to reform health care in America this year, a moment in which we will find out who is serious about addressing the health care crisis we have we have in this country and who is not. Everyone knows problem: health insurance for the middle class is becoming more and more uncertain for two reasons. The first is that that the costs of health insurance are rising far faster than wages. Health insurance premiums have doubled over the last 9 years, going up three times faster than wages. As costs rise, health care becomes unaffordable for individuals and businesses drop health care coverage for their employees, The second reason is that insurance companies deny people coverage and care. In the fine print of insurance policies are provisions that limit lifetime benefits that enable insurance companies to decide that a treatment we need… Continue reading

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Small Business and Health Care Reform

  By Health Care

NOBODY will benefit more from the health care reform bill, HR 3200, now making its way through the House of Representatives than the commonwealth’s small businesses. Yet some of the official lobbyists for small business, such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses, are fighting to block it. The NFIB doesn’t actually represent most small businesses in the country. And what’s worse—this is the dirty little secret of health-care lobbying— the leaders of this and other business advocacy organizations are fighting insurance reform out of their own self-interest, not out of a concern for their own members. Continue reading