slinkerwink

The latest word out of the Hill after the talks broke down so famously between Chairman Waxman and the Blue Dogs, is that the tentative agreements are back on, and that the mark-ups of H.R. 3200, the health care bill, will resume on Monday.

Rick Scott’s organization, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, is a very well-funded organization, and they’re happy right now about what Senator Reid has said about delaying the passage of health care reform.

I’ve had enough of this dithering from Congress. Will you please join me in signing the petition and asking the House to stay in session to pass health care instead of going on vacation?

Crazy right-winger Michele Bachmann from Minnesota, in her floor speech, issued a litany of talking points against the public option, and said that the public option would be far cheaper than private insurance. And that’s a bad thing? Apparently it’s a bad thing for Michele Bachmann and her legion of crazy fans.

So, why is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus ready to go on vacation and allow this bill to be held hostage by the Blue Dogs? Please call her office at 202-225-516, and report back with answers if you can.

“When I’m invited in to meet with the Speaker or the president,” he said, “I go into those meetings thinking that I don’t need to come around to their opinion — they need to come around.”

Last night, Speaker Pelosi wrote a blog post on her website about the House health care bill from the Tri-Committee staff that showed it as being deficit neutral and that it would yield a $6 billion surplus. This is huge news because it cuts off arguments from so-called “fiscal conservatives” like moderate Democrats, Republicans, and Blue Dog Democrats that the current House health bill isn’t deficit-neutral.

The last House committee to pass the Tri-Committee health care bill out of its committee is the Energy and Commerce Committee. The reason why Rep. Waxman on that committee is having trouble passing health care reform is because of the Blue Dog Democrats. Of the three House committees working on health care reform bill, Energy and Commerce is the one that happens to have the most Blue Dog Democrats on it. So it’s them that’s blocking progress on the House side when it comes to health care reform.

The labor union AFSCME and one of the nation’s largest health advocacy organizations, HCAN, went up with a huge $800,000 ad buy in eight states urging Blue Dog Democrats to support the passage of health care reform in the House of Representatives.

The Blue Dog Democrats that voted against health care reform in the Education and Labor Committee and the Ways and Means Committee over the past two days were Ross, Tanner, and Altmire.

Wow. Here’s the weekly address from President Obama at the White House, which was released early. In the weekly address, President Obama set out the parameters of the health care debate, explained what the opponents of health care reform were doing, and drew a line in the sand around the essential elements of health care reform.