19 November 2009 
Six weeks ago eight Senate Democrats sent Leader Reid a letter with a “plan for greater transparency.” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) also issued a press release:
Citing the right of Arkansans to know in advance what health care changes that Senators will be voting on later this month, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) today led a group of Democratic Senators in pressuring Senate leaders for greater transparency in the health insurance reform debate.
Here is the sentence relevant to the upcoming cloture vote:
The legislative text and complete budget scores from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of the health care legislation considered on the Senate floor should be made available on a website the public can access for at least 72 hours prior to the first vote to proceed to the legislation.
The bill text was posted Wednesday evening. The CBO score was available late last night (I first saw an emailed copy just after 11 PM EST.)
Following the Lincoln 72-hour rule, that means the cloture vote on the motion to proceed should not occur until late Saturday night.
It will be interesting to see how those eight Senators prioritize sticking to the letter of their plan, versus inconveniencing their colleagues and making them stay late Saturday night.
The eight Senators are:
- Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN)
- Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
- Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
- Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
- Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR)
- Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)
Keith,
Your site is fantastic; as good as any and better than most. Thank you…
I've heard on Bloomberg Radio, that Olympia Snowe (R?-ME) is starting to look like she'll support the cloture motion to proceed.
It also looks as if one of the Democrats we hoped might participate in a firewall, Mary Landrieu (D-LA), might be influenced by Setion 206 0f the Senate bill: SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.
ht: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-…
Any news on your end?
One Page solution to Health Care.
Goal: To create a National Healthcare System that is all inclusive and has the least amount of intrusion into private lives and businesses.
1) Create a Federal Hospital and Clinic System that mimics the representation of our current government.
a) Two Federal Hospitals for each state to deal with advanced surgeries and advanced healthcare issues.
b) One Federal Clinic per congressional district to cover everday health care issues such as check ups colds and flus etc etc.
2) No US Citizen will be denied Healthcare for any reason at these sites. Citizenship must be verified.
3) Four Federal Medical Schools will provide Docotrs to service these Hospitals and Clinics. In return for educating these new medical students, each graduate must in return serve 4-6 years at either the hospitals or the clinics.This is similar to the current GI Bill.
4) Allow Health Insurance policy's to compete in all US states.
5) Create a National system for keeping and accessing electronic medical records for every US citizen.
6) Tort Reform.
7) Medical savings accounts
Problem Solved
Benefits of the plan:
1) Insurance company's do not come between you and your healthcare.
2) Your Health Insurance becomes a mattter of convienience rather than a necessity.
3) People will use there Health Insurance only when needed reducing frivilous costs thus premiums.
4) All US citizens will have access to healthcare.
5) The program is simultaneously all inclusive and limited in nature, in that there are a limited number of facilities to dispense the al inclusive free access to healthcare.
6) Prexisting conditions are not a factor for healthcare.
7) HelathInsurance company's are not involved in the cost/reimbursements of the healthcare allowing the Federal Hospitals and Clinics cut costs drastically by only dealing with medical supply company's.
8) No goverment involvement in dictating or defining healthy lifestyles in order to get healthcare coverage.
Chad,
There's a few small problems with your proposal. It will cost a lot more than the current system and the government (meaning us) will be responsible for all of the costs.
First, on costs. You seem to believe that having established a system that rations care through capacity (your point 5 in benefits), that Congress will stick with that rationing plan. Is this something you believe or have you not thought through the dynamics? The first time there's a big media report that someone "died because of lack of access to healthcare", Congress will quickly act to make sure that there is more capacity in the system. Take something as non lifethreatening as digital television. Did you catch the hundreds of millions of dollars in the stimulus bill for digital conversion beyond the hundreds of millions already spent? There is no way on God's green Earth that rationing by capacity by the government is a feasible solution.
You want to reduce the price of healthcare to zero through government clinics and simulteously argue that people will use less health care? Most economists would argue that quantity demanded increases when price declines.
As the business grows, replica watch has also jumped into an international brand. It is worth mentioning that, replica watches is the ancestor of today's brand-oriented, in order to protect the quality and brand name will be printed on their products, the history of fashion in the world, is the first one first.