Sunday, January 31, 2010

Two Female Physicians Follow the late Howard Zinn’s Advice… and Are Arrested



1. Doctor Chicks in Lockup!

2. Giant Passes

3. President Obama Finds His Campaign Groove

4. Your Comments: The State Of The Union Address

5. Your Questions: What’s Up With HCR?

6. And yet crowds of people continue to rally in support of HCR….



1. Doctor Chicks In Lockup!

Well, almost. “C” sent me this video of Dr. Carol Paris and Dr. Margaret Flowers of PNHP right before they were briefly arrested last Friday. The reason: for refusing to move their "Medicare For All" banner away from the hotel where President Obama was set to spar with the GOP in the now-historic televised address.

If you think all this single payer activism is crazy, guess again: this week, the California State Senate passed single payer legislation, SB 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act. It will now move to the State Assembly for discussion. After that, it will go to the Assembly Health and Assembly Appropriations Committees before a floor vote. Give credit where it’s due, and if you want to get involved in helping this move forward, please visit the great and patient folk at “Single Payer Now” – their website is: http://singlepayernow.net/




2. Giant Passes

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Image above: 2nd lieutenant Howard Zinn in 1945, the flesh-and-blood counterpart to Heller's Captain Yossarian.



I wonder if half of us would even have tried becoming politically active if it weren’t for men like the late historian Howard Zinn, who tirelessly championed the idea that change comes from the bottom up – even against overwhelming odds. As someone who once took issue with some of Zinn’s claims in the much-loved A Peoples’ History of the United States, I was surprised to find myself so saddened by the 87-year-old historian’s death, and shamed by Bob Herbert’s comment on Zinn in the Times. Herbert’s column concludes:

“Mr. Zinn was in Santa Monica this week, resting up after a grueling year of work and travel, when he suffered a heart attack and died on Wednesday…. That he was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.”


And from the Times obituary:

“He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943, eager to fight the fascists, and became a bombardier in a B-17. He watched his bombs rain down and, when he returned to New York, deposited his medals in an envelope and wrote: ‘Never Again.’

‘I would not deny that war had a certain moral core, but that made it easier for Americans to treat all subsequent wars with a kind of glow,’ Mr. Zinn said. ‘Every enemy becomes Hitler.’ …Mr. Zinn served on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and marched for civil rights with his students, which angered Spelman’s president. ‘I was fired for insubordination,’ he recalled. ‘Which happened to be true.’

Now that's another guy who might have earned the Nobel Peace Prize.




3. President Finds Campaign Groove:

No doubt the Republicans regret having invited President Obama to rap their knuckles with a ruler at the Congressional GOP’s televised annual lobbyist-sponsored party this past Friday. It was great (and I mean GREAT!) to see the President reprimand them.

And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder… if he had just schooled the Senate’s blue dog Democrats in the same manner last summer, perhaps we’d have health care reform by now.

Regardless of how emotionally gratifying it was to see the President read the riot act to archetypal jerks within the GOP, let’s distinguish great television from great leadership – we still have a long road to travel. After all the televised pyrotechnics, a reality check: health care remained on ice; Geithner, Summers and Rahm remained protected and on the payroll; arsonist-turned-heroic-fireman Bernanke was re-appointed to the Fed; and the pointless Afghan escalation continues to put us further into debt to China. They say we've been through worse - here's to pulling our country out of the muck!




4. Your Comments: On the President’s State Of The Union Address

“President Obama is so easy on the eyes and the ears that I am lulled into a blissful attitude of calm for about 24 hours. Once the sedative wears off, my brain begins to recalibrate and what I heard was that we are having a health care reform "time-out" but we haven't been told how long this "time-out" might last (until after November elections?)

“Jobs and the economy are Numero Uno, the country is broke, we're bringing troops home from Iraq in August, the war in Afghanistan will go on and blah-blah-blah. Little bits and bites are offered up as tax credits that won't do much for anyone.

“I have the feeling that Obama wishes he had never opened his mouth on health care reform, period, and especially not to have demanded a timetable in the first place.... I have a horrible hunch that Obama knows the country cannot afford the reforms we need and he is somehow involved in the "slow-down" effort. Just a sinking feeling and I hope to God I am wrong.

“So, what to do? Keep the pressure on. Keep writing letters -- snail mail is very productive because someone has to open the mail and they are charged with responding to a hard copy letter. E-mails get lost. Calls and letters are critical.”



5. What’s Up With HCR (this week’s version):

According to TPM, HCR is simultaneously “on life support” and “on the back burner.”




6. And Yet, Crowds of People Continue to Gather in Support of HCR…

Feinstein 1200’er Jeff helped to organize a MoveOn rally last Tuesday night (sorry I couldn’t go – I’d already paid to see Eliot Spitzer at the Commonwealth Club!) I was amazed to learn later how many people Jeff and the other organizers gathered on a dark and somewhat rainy night. If only our U.S. Senate was as on-the-ball as some of the professionals I’ve met who are now working with MoveOn.org. (P.S. Separate thanks to Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health who serendipitously connected me up to an AP reporter to send to the rally.)

“…we had between 200 and 300 people out there, plus at least three reporters. This was despite the fact that (as I learned later) there was a competing demo across town: the SF school district is apparently planning to lay-off ~400 teachers, so many people were there protesting the layoffs.

“Another good thing was that several MoveOn members, including me, had brought extra signs for people to carry; one fellow brought dozens. The MoveOn organizer led the group on the song ‘Where Have All the Democrats Gone?’, then participants stepped up to the megaphone to tell their healthcare horror-stories.”

So health care reform may be both “on life support” and “on the back burner” to the administration, but to ordinary people, it’s still a very pressing issue. More tomorrow.



Thanks for hanging in there,

Eva


Monday, January 25, 2010

Not So Fast, There!


1. Don’t Forget Tomorrow’s Rally.


2. Special Monday Update from Professor Leveen


3. An F1200’er writes in: “Not so fast there, Eva!”


4. Why This Week Matters for Single Payer in California


5. Leveen’s detailed answer on the National Insurance Exchange



1. Don’t Forget Tomorrow’s Rally.

You keep writing in about how angry you are about the Democratic Party’s disappointing leadership. Well, MoveOn.org is making it easy for you to bring that point home tomorrow. Remind your Democratic representatives just WHO it is who put them in office: YOU!

Put on your Sunday best (or seriously, just show up) and thereby send a message to those Democratic leaders you keep telling me you’re so mad at. The San Francisco event is tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Montgomery BART station and is titled “Where Have All The Democrats Gone?” Here’s the rally link.



2. Special Monday Update from Professor Leveen:

Some of you have asked why I keep referring to Professor Deborah Leveen. Who is she? As I’ve written before, Leveen is a retired Emeritus professor from SFSU who taught health policy for over 25 years. She’s worked on California’s single payer effort since Prop 186 in 1994, and has been involved in analysis and advocacy regarding the national health effort for the past two years.

I first heard Leveen speak at a League of Women Voters event last fall. I’ve been impressed by her fierce intelligence, and her unfailing efforts (in the face of great discouragement) to keep pushing for reform. I disagree with her on many points, especially the value of the Senate bill, but I value her input and outlook.


Today, Leveen wrote in about three issues:


a. Leveen wanted to forward a link to this letter from 47 top health policy experts urging passage of the Senate bill and using the reconciliation process, requiring only 51 votes, to pass a second bill addressing as many of the key concerns from House members as can be agreed to. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/01/22/health/adopt_senate_bill_final.2.pdf


b. Leveen urges you to use the next 48 hours to contact Reid and Pelosi, because they are now in negotiations. Leveen cites a New York Times article that claims Feinstein’s office is receiving 4:1 calls against the senate bill, so if you want to change that ratio, start dialing. She suggests that you include the link to the health policy experts’ letter. (Editor’s Note: I have to wonder what part of that high “anti” ratio is due to former HCR supporters who are now so distrustful of the White House and Congress’ ability to achieve anything through reconciliation that they’re now calling in against the “senate bill + reconciliation” idea.)


c. Leveen wanted to answer one of your questions about the definition of the national insurance exchange. It’s a detailed answer (Leveen is no slouch!), so I’ve included it at the end of the newsletter.



3. An F1200’er writes in: Not So Fast, Eva!

An F1200’er writes in response to my suggestion that we need to move on from health care reform, now that it looks like the Senate bill is very likely dead:


I'm sorry, but I became one of the "Feinstein 1200" because I thought Obama and the Democrats actually believed this was an important issue, even a priority issue--despite the hard economic times. Now I discover it was just something to pass the time, to be dropped when it became inexpedient. It sure (doesn’t) make me want to devote my time and energy to Democratic causes to know that politicians in Washington can get me mobilized and engaged on a supposedly critical issue and then just flip a switch and drop the whole thing the moment it no longer suits their political calculations. So, no thanks, I won't be jumping on any more bandwagons for a while.”


Who can blame you? I myself spent a sick amount of time and my own money trying to support a health care reform plan, which the President said he himself supported, even as he was sealing the sorry fate of the public option in a secret deal with insurers. But despite the hopes of longtime advocates like Leveen, the Senate bill appears to be dead on the operating table.

Later, the same F1200’er wrote back:


It's one thing to lose. It's another to forfeit the game with a 59-seat majority. I believe the Feinstein 1200 should be expressing outrage right now at Obama and the Democrats, and I doubt I'm alone in feeling that way.”

(Editor’s Note: It's more like a 58-seat majority. And no, you’re not alone, judging by the email I receive.)
They need to know there will be a price to pay for abandoning their base. What I have done, besides contacting my Congresswoman, is to unsubscribe to the OFA e-mail list. They give you an opportunity to explain your reason for unsubscribing, which I have done. Others may be uncomfortable about unsubscribing, but there are certainly other ways for them to convey their feelings.”


Here’s the DC contact information Deborah Leveen included. Depending on where you stand, it’s up to you to urge them to:


a) support the Senate bill + reconciliation package as Leveen suggested (don’t forget the link to the letter she included), or


b) proceed, without passing “Go”, to the next legislative proposal (likely jobs and some diluted version of bank reform), or


c) let them know “there will be a price to pay for abandoning their base.


If you actually get their staff on the phone, why not go for broke and tell them all three? The last two are virtually guaranteed.


President Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: http://www.speaker.gov/

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/

Key committee chairs:

House Ways and Means: Charles Rangel. http://rangel.house.gov

Subcommittee on Health: Pete Stark. http://stark.house.gov

House Education and Labor: George Miller. http://miller.house.gov

House Energy and Commerce: Henry Waxman. http://www.waxman.house.gov/

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions: Tom Harkin. http://harkin.senate.gov/

Senate Finance: Everybody's Favorite - Max Baucus. http://baucus.senate.gov

Senators:

Diane Feinstein: http://feinstein.senate.gov/

Barbara Boxer: http://boxer.senate.gov/

Local representatives: Barbara Lee: http://lee.house.gov/



4. SB 810 will be voted on this week.

Information from Don Bechler. It’s kind of amazing that it’s up for a vote this week, with so much else going on. Worth it to get involved with Bechler’s group – even if you’re not interested in Single Payer, they get some interesting speakers at their events.

“Senate Bill 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act, is scheduled to be voted upon in California’s State Senate during the week of January 25 – 29. This bill would replace private health insurers with a state-run, single payer system that would a) cover everyone, b) eliminate co-pays and "pre-existing condition" exceptions, and c) save money and cut bureaucracy.

“Sixteen of the 40 State Senators are already co-authors of SB 810. The are Alquist (D-13), Cedillo (D-22), Corbett (D-10), DeSaulnier (D-07), Florez (D-16), Hancock (D-09), Leno (D-3), Lowenthal (27), Oropeza (28), Padilla (D-20), Pavley (D-23), Price (26), Romero (D-24), Steinberg (D-6), Wiggins (D-2), and Yee (D-8).

“Please call your State Senator to vote yes. If your senator is a co-author, thank them for their support and ask them to work hard to pass SB 810. If your senator is not a co-author, please ask them to vote yes on SB 810 and to become a co-author. SB 810 delivers healthcare to everyone, is comprehensive, saves billions of dollars, and is publicly accountable.

“Your state senator and contact information can be found here.

Please call Don Bechler at 415-810-5826 or email dbechler@value.net to let us know how your senator responded.”



5. Deborah Leveen’s answer to your question, What Is the National Insurance Exchange?

We went over this at the seminar months ago, but who can blame you for forgetting? Here is Leveen’s explanation.


“The national insurance exchange included in the House bill represents a vast improvement over the current individual insurance market.

It will have the authority to negotiate contracts with health plans and reject excessive premium increases, and to enforce the new insurance reforms (guaranteed issue, no denials of pre-existing conditions, no premium rating based on health status or gender, etc). As a national exchange, it will represent an enormous pool of customers and thus constitute a market which insurers cannot ignore: it will therefore have substantial bargaining clout with them. The Exchange is also expected to generate price competition among insurers, as they compete for this new market.

“The House bill also includes a new public plan within the Exchange, which will obviously have lower overhead costs than the private plans in the Exchange, generating even more price competition with private plans.

“The Senate bill is not as strong: indeed I would hope that the top two items achieved through a reconciliation bill, in which the House won improvements to the Senate bill, would be higher subsidies (affordability is my top concern--and that of much of the leadership) and a national Exchange--I would hope that a strong argument could be made that it would save money and thus have the budgetary impact required for its inclusion in a reconciliation bill. (Certainly one national exchange would cost far less to administer than 50+ state exchanges, and I assume we would find CBO support for the argument that it would be able to produce lower premiums than the state-based exchanges.)

“Diane Feinstein has really been out front in many ways on health reform. She has proposed a medical loss ratio of 90%--limiting insurer spending on overhead and profits to 10%--vs the current bills requirements of 80-85%. She submitted an amendment proposing a national rate setting authority. I know she was recently quoted as suggesting maybe we need to back off: it was also reported a week ago in the New York Times that her office is getting calls on a 4:1 basis AGAINST reform: we have to remedy that!

“You can check her website for her statements on health reform: they surprised me. Here are two of the key links:

1) Her statement on the Senate bill.

2) An earlier statement from the Senator: “My Current Thoughts on Health Reform. October 9, 2009."


Thanks for hanging in there,

Eva


Sunday, January 24, 2010

Is The Senate Bill Dead?

If you were locked in a closet all week, or if you have sensibly given up on politics and moved on with your life, you may not have noticed that the Senate Health Care Reform bill now appears dead in the water because the House can’t summon enough votes for a bill that so many Americans still don’t understand. And the President appears to have officially turned his back on his own proposed legislation. But sometime next week the Senate bill could be revived.


No one can agree on what could be achieved through reconciliation, even though Ezra Klein has made some interesting suggestions, as explained in the last newsletter.


But in the meantime, there are, frighteningly, higher priority issues for which many of us have been separately advocating since March, and which the President finally appears to be warming up to. (More on that below.)


The reason this newsletter isn’t going into all the back and forth on what might happen now: The direction for Congress and the White House is probably going to change several times before and after the State of the Union speech on Wednesday. Hold onto your hats. Why is there so much back-and-forth? Trust me, you don't want to know.


In the meantime, we’ve included your comments and Professor Deborah Leveen’s detailed note on what she’d like to see happen with HCR.


1. Top Comment of the Week: A Nurse on Medical Relief

2. Your Comments: Doc and others weigh in on SCOTUS Decision in “Citizens United”

3. What Would JFK Have Done?

4. Your Comments: Important Single Payer Action This Week

5. Why I’ll Take Another Chance On Obama

6. Eliot Spitzer in San Francisco!

7.Your Comments: Deborah Leveen on Where Do We Go From Here?

8. Last-minute Update from L. at MoveOn.org


1. Comment of the Week: A Nurse’s Reference Point on Medical Relief in another former French Colony

“Thank you so much for making me aware of Partners In Health! I sent a donation immediately and am on my way to the bookstore to purchase Mountains Beyond Mountains. Many years ago, I spent a year working as a nurse in Guinea, West Africa, which had been a French colony. I always say, when telling people about my time and experiences there, that I left half (if not more) of my heart there when the ship sailed away and all of our Guinean friends were waiving farewell from the dock, many of whom would not survive when all of the medicines and supplies we left behind for them were gone. As I watch the heart-wrenching coverage of the Haitian tragedy, I wish I were young again as I would give anything to be among those able to be there and helping in person.”

It’s really a treat to be involved with people like you. Thank you.


2. Your Comments: SCOTUS Decision on Citizens United

I was quite moved by the article that many of you sent on the response of “Granny D.” to last week’s Surpreme Court decision. For those who don’t know, Granny D. is the centenarian who, at age 90, walked across the country in support of campaign finance reform. As Granny explains it:

“The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.”


A Times Editorial, “The Court’s Blow to Democracy” also explains what a sick decision this was.


One of our docs wrote in:

“The Supreme Court's decision this week, giving corporations "super citizenship" and relegating us to second class citizens is a tragedy. It is time for us to stop the corporate takeover of the USA. This decision will even give foreign owned corporations unfettered influence on our electoral process.

“Please pay close attention to this mater, whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent. We were all sold out by this terrible decision. Fight back!”


Jeff described it as: “The beginning of the end of the American Experiment in Democracy.”


Another wrote in:

“Have you ever watched a photographer reload his film inside a black bag? It's ancient technology, but it's still practiced. When working with unexposed film, one must protect it from the light. Thus photographers must learn how to do this by touch inside an opaque bag.

“The five judges who subverted our democracy to corporate interests today operated with similar disregard for the value of sunshine, allowing a concept to take the place of the vital interest of us citizens and our commonweal. Woe is us.”


I say “woe is us” if we can’t organize a million-person march on Washington this Spring to protest this decision. Non-partisan note: One of my conservative friends wrote that he was upset, but not at all surprised about this. “That’s what I was trying to tell you back when they decided Kelo v. City of New London! You brushed it off! The Supremes don't care about ordinary citizens.”


But with the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court has morphed into science fiction. Yet another U.S. decision that corporations are magically welcome to the rights of citizens. Corporations equivalent to human beings? Sci-fi territory.


3. What Would JFK Have Done?

Frank Rich reminds us that it wasn’t just FDR, Truman and LBJ who had to fight hard for their legislative agendas:

“Kennedy didn’t settle for the generic populist rhetoric of Obama’s latest threats to “fight” unspecified bankers some indeterminate day. He instead took the strong action of dressing down U.S. Steel by name. As Richard Reeves writes in his book “President Kennedy,” reporters were left “literally gasping.” The young president called out big steel for threatening “economic recovery and stability” while Americans risked their lives in Southeast Asia. J.F.K. threatened to sic his brother’s Justice Department on corporate records and then held firm as his opponents likened his flex of muscle to the power grabs of Hitler and Mussolini. (Sound familiar?) U.S. Steel capitulated in two days. The Times soon reported on its front page that Kennedy was at “a high point in popular support.” Can anyone picture Obama exerting such take-no-prisoners leadership to challenge those who threaten our own economic recovery and stability at a time of deep recession and war? That we can’t is a powerful indicator of why what happened in Massachusetts will not stay in Massachusetts if this White House fails to reboot.”

And historian Garry Wills suggests that Obama is ashamed of his homely friends who voted him in (them's would be us!)

“…he will not fight, though the American people love a fighter—Teddy Roosevelt going after the trusts, Franklin Roosevelt mocking the “malefactors of great wealth,” Harry Truman for “giving ‘em hell,” attacking the Do-Nothing Congress and his media foes. Whatever their other faults, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were applauded when they proved to be fighters. Bush was never apologetic about playing to his base, while Obama has acted as if he were ashamed of his. They are repaying him in kind.”


4. Your Comments: On Single Payer

Don Bechler wrote in about how important this week is to a chance for state-wide single payer system in California – please go straight to his website for more info.

http://singlepayernow.net/


5. Why I’ll Take Another Chance on Obama:

I’ve been one of President Obama’s most vocal critics, but not without loyalty to the vows he made to all of us - progressive and conservative - during the campaign. (Full disclosure: I have a significant number of moderately conservative friends who voted for Obama, and who also had hope... until the AIG counterparty list was released last spring.)


In the wake of the Coakley loss, President Obama has been forced to face the music. Will he abandon the health care reform effort now? Frankly, as an uninsured American who thought the Senate bill was nothing but an expanded regulatory capture, I’m not exactly heartbroken to learn that the House doesn’t want to vote for it. Sure, we lost a year and the public option because there was a gross leadership vacuum in the White House, and because the Senate is so fantastically corrupt. But I’m ready to move on to higher priority issues, which the President seems finally ready to recognize.


Jobs.

Ever wonder why the tea parties are so loud and crowded? Idle hands are the tea parties’ workshop. Get them to work rebuilding this broken country. Many on our side could use jobs, too.


Bank Reform.

Why is bank reform important than health care reform? As Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist of the IMF has warned for over a year, if you let the banks, (which are post-bailout bigger than ever and taking even more risk than ever), crash once more, there will be no one left to bail us out. Thus, health care reform will be a moot point. That is how a former banking sector worker like myself found herself organizing a large “progressive” anti-bank-bailout rally last spring. (Deep thanks to the 250 left-leaning hippies and the baker's dozen of libertarians who showed up! Now THAT's bipartisanship, but not one that the President has shown any interest in.)


Eventually, my concerns about Tim Geithner were confirmed by even The Wall Street Journal.


I am now cautiously optimistic that Obama has released the banking reform giant Paul Volcker from the attic where Tim Geithner and Larry Summers had hidden him. Let him do his work – it won’t be easy or fun, but this mess needs to be resolved.


And the American people – right and left - are overwhelmingly in favor of bank reform.


In a decent world, there would be a real shake-up at the White House in the aftermath of the Coakley defeat. Former Goldman Sachs consultant Rahm Emanuel, who has proven entirely incompetent at the job he was hired to do, would be fired from his Chief of Staff position. Tim Geithner and Larry Summers would be eased out the door, replaced by Simon Johnson. Good folk like Elizabeth Warren and Sheila Bair and Bill Black would be given more power to protect this country from regulatory capture.


I'll wait to see what Obama says in Wednesday’s State of the Union.


6. Eliot Spitzer:

I have ONE extra $20 ticket for bankster-bustin' Eliot Spitzer's sold-out appearance at The CommonWealth Club this Tuesday evening.


7. Deborah Leveen’s comment, from her letter to Senator Feinstein:

"I know how difficult it will be to develop and agree upon “a way forward” at this point. However I believe the option of having the House pass the Senate legislation (HR 3952) coupled with a simultaneous “corrections bill” using the reconciliation process, it should be possible to win some of the House provisions which I believe are much stronger than the Senate bill and which I believe a majority of Senators may be willing to support. Below I’ve listed what I see as the key provisions: I believe they will bring greater affordability, better coverage, and much more effective insurance regulation (another provision which for you have provided strong support2). And I believe a stronger bill, which delivers clear benefits to all Americans, will win stronger public support, putting us in a much better position to counteract the kind of backlash expressed in the Massachusetts election.

"The key provisions I would argue to include from the House bill in the final legislation—in a “corrections” bill if that is the way forward—are the following:

"1) Higher subsidies for low-income groups: Since 2/3 of the uninsured have incomes below twice the poverty level (Kaiser Family Foundation), those higher subsidies are much more cost-effective than higher subsidies at the higher income level.

"2) A national health insurance exchange! Only a national exchange will have the clout needed to implement strong new insurance regulations—including rejection of excessive premium increases—and the market share to compel insurer participation.

"3) A national public plan within the national exchange: The best way to offer cost-effective coverage and to generate the price competition necessary to lowering insurance premiums.

"4) System-wide insurance reforms: The Senate bill allows too many exclusions from its insurance reforms; the House bill simply says all plans must meet the new requirements—including benefits standards—within five years. That guarantees real protection to all Americans. (And it’s certainly simpler to explain to the public!)

"5) A real employer mandate. “Play or pay” for all employers. It ensures better coverage for workers, raises more revenue, and creates structural incentives for employers to seek lower insurance premiums and support stronger cost containment measures.

"6) Fair financing: the House income tax surcharge is fairer and far more effective in raising revenue than the Senate excise tax.

"7) Reproductive rights: The Hyde amendment is bad enough: we can’t make it worse.

"8) Immediate progress! We must do more sooner to demonstrate to the public the real benefits of health reform. Your December 23 statement emphasizes many of the immediate reforms: we all need to do more to publicize them. And given yesterday’s election, I think we need to try to provide even more provisions that will produce immediate results.

"Finally, I support the inclusion of the Senate bill’s Independent Payment Advisory Commission in the final bill: it is a first step toward the kind of global budget caps which are essential to long term cost control."

Deborah LeVeen, PhD


8. Last-minute update from L. at MoveOn.org: Eva, there are now 139 rallies planned for MoveOn -- 254 folks are registered to appear on street level of Feinstein's office this Tuesday. Check out the link.


Thanks to everyone for hanging in there.