Today should be a good day. It should be a day when Democrats and decent people celebrate the passage of health care reform out of the House of Representatives. But unfortunately, the usual suspects have decided that health care can’t be reformed if said reform leads to women having control of their uteri. So Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., will be pushing — and likely passing — an amendment that would actually manage to reduce the already tenuous access Americans currently have to abortion.

The amendment likely has the votes, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has evidently decided not to stand in the way of a vote, in order to avoid any further delay in getting the bill voted off the floor. And I can understand that, and even support it as strategy; the bill passing the House today is not the final bill. It will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s bill (if one ever passes) in a conference committee, and the bill that comes out of conference could favor the language of either, both, or neither, depending. Pelosi will appoint the House conferees; presumably Bart Stupak will not be one of them.

So yeah, some bad language is okay at this stage of the game because it’s still a work in progress. But I tend to agree with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., about the endgame here:

The Illinois Democrat said she’ll vote for passage today regardless of whether Stupak’s amendment is included, but would oppose a final bill if the amendment makes it through conference committe.

“If that language were in the final final bill, I certainly couldn’t support it,” Schakowsky said.

That, I think, is the important thing for Democrats to understand, because if that language is in the final bill, I can’t support it, either.

The Stupak Amendment is a bitter pill to swallow, but as of today, it’s a purely symbolic one. Yes, it sucks that a majority of members in the House believe that a person’s right to choose can be chucked aside at will. But the vote today won’t ultimately chuck that right aside. It’s the vote on the final bill that comes out of conference that matters.

If the Stupak language survives the conference committee, it is incumbent on those of us who support reproductive rights to pull our support, and actively campaign for defeat of the bill. For today, I’ll grit my teeth and make note of which Democrats to lean on when the vote for final passage comes. But that’s for today. Tomorrow starts the fight to make sure that the bill that ultimately is passed is a bill that supporters of reproductive rights can support.

First of all, please check this list of Representatives at RH Reality check. If one of them is your representative, please give them a call right now. They’ll be voting at any time now, so don’t wait.

The news:

House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to settle an impasse over abortion by letting the entire House vote on a proposed solution, a risky decision that could determine the fate of their trillion-dollar overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Under the agreement, anti-abortion Democrats will be permitted to offer an amendment on the House floor to the health-care overhaul bill. The amendment would prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services, congressional sources said. It would also block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.

The deal clears the way for the dozens of Democratic lawmakers who oppose abortion to lend their support to the health care package, the most dramatic expansion of health coverage in more than 40 years. It also satisfies the demands of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had threatened to oppose the House bill.

If the amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) passes, said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the bishops conference, “we become enthusiastic advocates for moving forward with health care reform.”

The amendment is expected to pass with the combined support of more than 40 anti-abortion Democrats and virtually every House Republican. That likelihood meant that leaders of the much larger group of Democrats who support abortion rights were not happy to learn of the deal.

“There will be no abortion, not just with public funds, but with private funds under the public option, and that’s not acceptable,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

House leaders met with that bloc of Democrats late Friday to try to quell their frustration., but the agreement makes clear that they believe abortion-rights Democrats will find it difficult to vote against the health-care bill even with such a restriction attached to it.

According to Politico, “Female Democrats on the Rules Committee, including Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, left the room during consideration of the Stupak amendment and didn’t cast a vote.”

Keep in mind, even before this amendment, the House bill restricted abortion coverage. But it didn’t do enough to punish poor women, so that wasn’t good enough for either the Blue Dogs, the Republicans, or the Catholic Church.

Ezra writes:

If this amendment passes, it will mean that virtually all women with insurance through the exchange who find themselves in the unwanted and unexpected position of needing to terminate a pregnancy will not have coverage for the procedure. Abortion coverage will not be outlawed in this country. It will simply be tiered, reserved for those rich enough to afford insurance themselves or lucky enough to receive from their employers.

From USA Today (via Jack and Jill Politics):

Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.

From Democrasheild:

If the Stupak amendment passes, uninsured women who get health care through the public option will have to pay out-of-pocket to get an abortion. And even if a woman uses her own money to buy an insurance plan from a private company through the exchange, she won’t be able to get a plan that covers abortion. [...]

The “exchanges” discussed there are health insurance exchanges, which are marketplaces where people will be able to purchase insurance. Since insurance companies will have to compete against one another and the public option. the exchanges will provide better insurance plans at lower costs. They’re designed to help those who don’t have insurance or who have inadequate insurance but can’t afford better.

Because many small employers are expected to switch to using the exchanges, this means that women who currently have abortion coverage through their small employer, will have their coverage replaced with insurance that doesn’t cover abortion.

Ezra also points out, even if (as now seems likely) this amendment is part of the bill the House passes, that doesn’t guarantee it’ll be in the final legislation: “Even if it muscles into the House bill, it will also have to pass in the Senate, and then survive conference, before it becomes law.” That seems like a pretty thin reed of hope to me, but better than no hope at all.

I’ve been trying to find out if the Stupak Amendment contains exceptions for abortions necessary to prevent immediate threats to the life or health of the woman. I haven’t been able to find out, so far.

[Visual description:
Panel one: Dude wearing "Uncle Sam" hat and a Hawaiian shirt is walking alongside a cliff, with John Keynes, who has a big mustache.
HAT DUDE: Keynes, you are old-fashioned and useless. Modern economics has transcended you.
Panel 2: Hat Dude teeters on the edge of falling off the cliff.
HAT DUDE: Oh Dear! I am plummeting over a cliff! SAVE ME KEYNES!
Panel 3: Keynes has caught hat dude by the wrist and is pulling him to safety.
KEYNES: It's okay... I've got you!
HAT DUDE: Thank you, Keynes!
Panel 4: The duo resumes their walk.
HAT DUDE: As I was saying, Keynes, you're of no use at all! ]

A cartoon that was inspired by Paul Krugman’s article “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” Click on the cartoon to see a bigger version.

What do folks think of the latest suggested compromise for the public option?

This idea — which has a lot of liberals excited — would create a Federal public option. But it would also allow any individual state government to decline making the public option available to their citizens.

The hope is that conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, who oppose a public option, would be willing to vote for this, since it essentially punts the public option decision to state legislatures. (Both Nelson and Lieberman have said this idea is “worth looking at,” which isn’t a commitment, but it is the most positive comment they’ve said about any public option proposal so far). At the same time, more liberal senators would (one hopes) be able to get a reasonably strong public option for their own constituents.

What’s nice about this policy, I think, is that it’s easily adjustable. If the public option turns out to be a disaster, this would make it relatively easy for states to drop it. But if it is in fact successful, then it would be easy for states without it to change their mind.

Of course, the devil is in the details, and this proposal is so new that there aren’t any details to look at yet. And the conservative Democrats may yet decide to oppose it, or water it down to the point of uselessness.

Another idea being floated that’s gaining a lot of interest — and could possibly get some Republican votes — is a two-year tax break to companies that either hire new workers or bump up their part-time workers to full-time. There seems to be a fair amount of economic evidence that this policy could jump-start hiring, so I’m for it.

On an email discussion group, a right-wing friend of mine gloated that youth unemployment in the US is currently at 52.2%. Glenn Reynolds reported the same statistic, and so have many other right-wing bloggers. They’re all relying on the same source, the New York Post’s Richard Wilner, who wrote:

The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept.

Wilner is wrong. Wilner claimed his statistic was for those aged 16 to 24. According to the Labor Department, unemployment for young Americans aged 16 to 24 is 18.5%. (That’s the highest they’ve ever seen “in July”.)

One of Glenn’s readers wrote to tell him that current youth unemployment is 25%, not 52.2%. (Glenn’s reader was a little off-base. It’s 25% for folks in the 16-19 age group; it’s 18.5% for those in the 16-24 age group Wilner was talking about.) Glenn responded by asking “Anybody have an idea what’s going on?”

I have an idea. From the Labor Department’s press release:

The employment-population ratio for young men was 52.2 percent in July 2009, down from 57.9 percent in July 2008. The employment-population ratios for women (50.5 percent), whites (55.2 percent), blacks (36.4 percent), Asians (41.3 percent), and Hispanics (46.5 percent) in July 2009 also were lower than a year earlier.

So I’m pretty sure that what happened is that Wilner is so ignorant that he doesn’t know the difference between the “unemployment rate” — the percent of people who are looking for work without success — and the “employment-population ratio,” which is the percent of people who have a job.

It’s okay not to know that difference. Lots of smart people don’t. But if you’re going to write a column read by hundreds of thousands of people, it would be helpful to have a clue what you’re talking about.

(One last point: The economic situation sucks, especially for employment. We shouldn’t lose sight of that reality as the partisan bickering goes on. 18.5% is tragically bad, and it’ll probably get worse before it gets better.)

(Edited to reword definition of unemployment.]

Well, not quite, but it was an awesome comeback, imo. From Talking Points Memo:

Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)

“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”

The amendment was defeated, nine to 14.

Senator Kyl, by the way, is firmly anti-abortion, with a 100% perfect voting record according to the NRLC and a 0% voting record according to NARAL. So he thinks the government should force unwilling pregnant women to give birth, but objects to requiring insurance companies to pay for maternity care. Because that might make Kyl’s annual insurance premiums a few dollars higher.

The word “asshat” is so inadequate.

Now, I’m a heterosexual man. And as such, I will freely confess that I like breasts. They’re definitely in my top five body parts human beings have, even though only about 50 percent of human beings have them.¹

That said, the thing about breasts that I generally like the most is that they’re usually attached to living, breathing women, and I like women, because, you know, they’re people. Many of them are people I like, and consider friends. All of them are worth far more than the breasts attached to them; that should go without saying.

Because women have breasts, they can get breast cancer. That’s a bad thing. Happily, there are a number of organizations out there working to combat this disease, and that’s great, because finding treatments for breast cancer will keep women alive. And since I have a number of women who are friends and family of mine who I’d like to stay alive for as long as possible, I’m foursquare in favor of doing things to improve their health.

That concern, I should note, is completely distinct from whether I want there to be lots of cancer-free breasts for me to stare at. Because, you know, if breast cancer was a disease that simply deflated breasts and had no other effects whatsoever, I’d say it was a pretty meaningless thing to cure. Indeed, given that one of the more common cures for breast cancer is a radical mastectomy, current breast cancer treatments are properly focused on protecting women at the expense of their breasts. And I’m all for that, because the loss of a breast or two is infinitely less tragic than the loss of a human.

Evidently, though, I’m crazy to think this way. Really, the important thing is the breasts. Canada’s ReThink Breast Cancer says so, and who am I to argue?

Now, the dumbest thing about this ad — other than that it mysteriously features a group of stereotypically Soviet submariners from bad movies of yore — is that the focus of the ad is squarely on saving “boobs.” Because, you know, men (and women, I guess, but mostly men) like “boobs.”

Well, sorry, but I’m not so worried about that. Yes, if by happy accident breast cancer treatments manage to reduce the number of mastectomies, that’s great — but it’s great because mastectomies are painful, difficult surgeries that put women through a great deal of pain and suffering.

I don’t care about breasts.² Oh, I like them fine, but I’m not that worried about them. The women they’re attached to are what concern me, them and their friends and their families. Unlike the insinuation of the ad, I actually care about women beyond whether they’re attractive enough for me to ogle. And I daresay that this does not differentiate me from the vast majority of men in the world.

Believe it or not, but men are capable of empathy. We are capable of feelings other than lust and rage. And we are capable of realizing that the reason breast cancer research needs funding is because it will keep more women alive longer. And that is unquestionably a good thing.

I’m insulted by this ad. Because I don’t need to “rethink” my attitude toward breast cancer. Just as we don’t need an ad urging that we must save the penises by researching prostate cancer, we don’t need an ad telling us that curing breast cancer will save breasts. If it saves women, that’s quite enough, thanks.

(Via Judy Berman)

1. Some women don’t have them, some men do. Hence, roughly 50%. (back)
2. Using the word “boobs” makes you sound like an 11-year-old. (back)

One of the interesting things on the teevee tonight has been the shock and surprise from some on the left that Minnesota’s own Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty doesn’t really seem to be a moderate after all.

For those of you normal people who don’t track the comings and goings of Minnesota’s 39th governor, Tim Pawlenty visited the Value Voters Summit this past weekend, where he got to speak to the hardest of the hard-line wingers, the people who actually nodded when the chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., explained that heterosexual pornography causes teens to become homosexual because it “turns your sexual drive inwards,” a ludicrous statement which, if true, would mean that Tucker Max is the most homosexual human being in the history of history.

Gov. Pawlenty went to the summit, and those who’ve only gotten to know him through sound bites and a few interviews on MSNBC probably expected he’d give a bland, lukewarm speech, heavy on economics, light on red meat.

Those of us from Minnesota knew better. We remembered his acceptance speech from the 2006 GOP state convention, where he declared, “I can tell you what your worst nightmare is. It’s one of the big-spendin’, tax-raisin’, abortion-promotin’, gay marriage-embracin’, more welfare-without-accountability lovin’, school reform-resistin’, illegal immigration-supportin’ Democrats for governor who think Hillary Clinton should be president of the United States.” We are well aware that Pawlenty fits nicely into the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-education Republican Party of 2010. And we knew that Pawlenty would be only to happy to tell his fellow true believers exactly what they wanted to hear.

He did not disappoint. After his usual cringe-worthy joke (something about Brett Favre not being a “clunker”), Pawlenty told everyone exactly what he believed.

On Separation of Church and State:

Now, as you know, you’re gathered here because you share a belief in those values. Those values are under attack. These are not just conservative values. Our values our American values. (Applause.) They are not rooted in pop psychology, they’re not rooted in feelings, they’re not rooted in emotion. They are rooted in the wisdom and experience of our founding fathers and the faith and the wisdom that they brought forward in the defining moments of this nation. And so we need to remind each other – (audio break).

(Applause.)

Our Judeo-Christian values are important, they are traditional, and they are the basis for so much of our country. Now, we have some folks who are skeptics about that. I’m reminded of the story – the true story of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, who came to our prayer breakfast here in Washington, D.C., about a year or so ago. He recalled a story that as a young schoolboy his father had suffered a terrible stroke. It was life-threatening and quite severe. And he remembers being in school and having a teacher pull alongside him and bend down on his knee and whisper to him, “Tony, I’m going to pray for your dad.” And Tony reminded the teacher and remembered the teacher and said, “But teacher, my dad doesn’t believe in God.” And the teacher said, “That’s okay, Tony. God believes in your dad. God believes in your Dad.”

On Abortion rights:

In Minnesota we’ve done a number of things – I won’t go through them all – but one that I’m most particularly proud of and it’s been very impactful is I’ve proposed and signed into law the so-called women’s right to know bill, which provides women important information who are considering abortion, and it also provides a waiting period for them to consider their decision. That combined with many other measures and efforts of good-hearted people all across Minnesota has significantly decreased the number of abortions performed in my state, and it’s a very effective piece of legislation.

(The Women’s Right to Know Act, of course, forced women to read anti-choice propaganda before having an abortion. Part of the information given out by the Minnesota Department of Health initially included the debunked breast cancer-abortion link.)

On GLBT Rights and Marriage Equality:

A really important example of this is defending and protecting traditional marriage. All domestic relationships are not the same, and traditional marriage needs to remain elevated in our society and in our culture. Marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman, and I sponsored that legislation when I was in the Minnesota Legislature, and we should make sure that the people are heard on this, that the Constitution is heard on this, not courts who are making up the law in the backroom.

Now, this is not some radical notion or some extreme notion. My goodness, when it’s been put to the vote of the people even in left-of center places like Oregon and – California voted twice for traditional marriage. If they can support traditional marriage in California we should do it all over this country.

(According to the Washington Independent, at this point Pawlenty ad-libbed, “This is not politically incorrect! This is not politically offensive! This is what our founding fathers believed.”)

On Health Care:

President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress not long ago regarding this topic, and he said he’s going to start calling people out on this debate by name. I guess I was the first one up this morning. The DNC put up a video or some sort of thing attacking me on this debate for various things I’ve said in recent weeks and months, and I accept the challenge. And I’ll just respond by calling out the president back tonight. And I would say – (applause) – and what I’d like to say to him is, DNC and he calls me out, I’ll call you out, call you back, and here’s my message: Stop spending the country into bankruptcy. Stop taxing us into oblivion. And the next time you address a group of young people maybe you should apologize for the crushing debt you’re putting on their shoulders.

(Applause.)

And one additional challenge. If, as he and the Democratic Congress, or some of the Democratic Congress say, “Oh, no, we’re not for public funding for abortions,” then don’t duck, don’t bob, don’t weave, put the language of the Hyde amendment in the health care bill.

Tim Pawlenty is not a moderate. He has never been a moderate. He is a stalwart conservative, quite at ease among the furthest part of the party’s right wing. Democrats and independents need to realize this going into 2012. After all, Minnesota has paid a high price for the reckless budgetary games of Pawlenty. It would be a pity if the rest of America failed to learn from our lesson.

Click on the cartoon to see it bigger.

Andrew Romano at Newsweek:

From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.

Consider a few statistics. According to a July article in the American Journal of Public Health, immigrants typically arrive in America during their prime working years and tend to be younger and healthier than the rest of the U.S. population. As a result, health-care expenditures for the average immigrant are 55 percent lower than for a native-born American citizen with similar characteristics. With the ratio of seniors to workers projected to increase by 67 percent between 2010 and 2030, it stands to reason that including the relatively healthy, relatively employable and largely uninsured illegal population in some sort of universal health-care system would be a boon rather than a burden. “Insurance in principle has to cover the average medical cost of all the people it’s serving,” explains Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University. “So if you add cheaper people to the pool, like immigrants, you reduce the average cost.” More undocumented workers, in other words, means lower premiums for everyone.

The actuarial advantages don’t end there. As it is now, undocumented workers (and others) who can’t pay their way receive free emergency and charitable care—a service that costs those of us with health insurance an additional $1,000 per year, as Obama noted. But if illegals were covered, this hidden tax would decrease, further lowering our premiums and “relieving some of the financial burden on state and local governments,” says Harold Pollack, a University of Chicago professor who specializes in poverty and public health. What’s more, employers currently have a clear economic incentive to hire undocumented immigrants: they don’t require coverage. A plan that mandates insurance for native workers but not their illegal counterparts actually makes life harder on the blue-collar Americans competing for jobs (and railing against immigrants) because it means that hiring them will cost more than hiring a recent transplant from Mexico City. As The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein recently explained, “If you’re really worried about the native-born workforce, what you want to do is minimize the differences in labor costs between different types of workers. A health care policy that enlarges those differences—that makes documented workers more expensive compared to undocumented workers—is actually worse for the documented workers.”

At this point, you’re probably wondering whether taxpayers would have to foot a bigger bill for these newly insured illegals. Not necessarily—at least in theory. As Obama said in Wednesday’s speech, “Like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects” to fund whatever care it provides. Given that many undocumented workers leave the country before they’re old enough to require much medical care, says Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation, “you could set up the system in a way that that they wind up contributing as much or more than they receive” in low-income subsidies, especially when the “offsetting savings of lower emergency-room use” are factored in.

As Romano notes, coverage of undocumented immigrants is politically impossible, even though it makes sense. (Via Ezra.)

So as previously noted, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., last night got himself into trouble for calling the President a liar. Now, there’s nothing wrong with calling the President a liar; indeed, that’s a time-honored American tradition. But you’re not supposed to do so by shouting at him while he’s speaking to a joint session of Congress, especially if you’re a member of the House of Representatives. That will get you in enormous trouble.

That said, Right Blogistan is defending Wilson today, saying that was totally right to heckle Barack Obama, because the bill does totally take the money of honest white Americans and give it to dastardly illegal immigrants from Mexico. So who’s right? Well, as everyone knows, the media doesn’t deal in “right” or “wrong,” just “he-said-she-said.” So let’s take a look at the arguments side-by-side:

So that’s your summary! Were I a journalist, I’d be forced to point out that reasonable minds disagree, and some say that the Obama plan would force you to kill your grandma so that an undocumented alien can get Viagra. Being a dirty liberal blogger, though, I’ll simply say that the right’s argument is painfully specious, even by the right’s recent standards.

Remarks in debate (which may include references to the Senate or its Members) shall be confined to the question under debate, avoiding personality.

–Rules of the House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress
Rule XVII, Section b

If you want to see the decline of American political civility, it exists in the person of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. Wilson, unwilling to deal with the President of the United States stating the fact that the current health care proposals will not aid undocumented aliens,¹² Wilson shouted out, “You lie!” on the floor of the House of Representatives, interrupting the speech in the fashion of a Code Pink protester or teabagger.

This is, to be blunt, completely outrageous, and unbecoming of a U.S. Representatives. And I would have said the exact same thing if a Democrat had done this to George W. Bush, even as Bush did lie, repeatedly. The simple fact is that there are rules of decorum, ways you are supposed to comport yourself on the floor of the United States Congress. These rules are in place to smooth out the partisan rancor, to force representatives to disagree without being disagreeable. You can think someone’s an ass; that’s fine. But you don’t say it on the floor, because that’s not the way you conduct yourself.

I doubt Wilson will face a penalty for this, but he should. Indeed, the Rules of the House allow him to be censured for making a personal remark in debate; calling someone a liar would certainly rise to that level. Calling someone a liar when they’re telling the truth, however, remains standard operating procedure for the GOP.

UPDATE: This is the least he should do, but at least he did it:

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies [sic] to the President for this lack of civility.”

1. As for me, I’d be fine if it did. I don’t see how being in America illegally should earn you the death penalty. But what do I know? I’m just a crazy liberal. (back)
2. Fixed. (back)

The Minnesota State Fair is going on right now. Unlike many state fairs, Minnesota’s is located in the heart of the metropolitan area, just north of St. Paul, just south of the University of Minnesota. And so the fair becomes a huge magnet, not just for people coming out to eat pronto pups, but for politics. If you’re a Minnesota politician, you’re going to have to put in time at the fair. Indeed, former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn., best known nationally as the guy Wellstone beat, built a huge following based on the fact that he had a booth at the state fair where you could get root-beer-flavored milk. I am not making this up.

Anyhow, because the state fair is a magnet for politicians, it’s also a magnet for political activists. And here in the silly season, that means that there are roving bands of teabaggers looking to challenge DFL elected officials on health care.

One of these roving bands decided to take on freshman Sen. Al Franken, DFL-Minn. And the discussion that followed was exactly the sort of discussion that we should be having.

I have expressed concern about Al Franken being too partisan as a senator; I’m not opposed to him being liberal, but by the same token, I know that successful politicians are able to fight their opponents with a smile.

This discussion is Franken at his best. Franken doesn’t talk down or attack people who want to attack him, lays out a sensible case for health care reform, stresses points of agreement between everyone, and generally disarms people who see this as a socialist plot to steal sick people’s bodily fluids.

The reason, though, that Franken is successful here is that he knows what the hell he’s talking about. He’s not rattled by the hokum; he’s interested in countering it and refuting it, and trying to bring along as many conservatives as he can.

I understand the argument that Democrats should give up on seeking GOP votes for health care reform, that we can water down the bill so far that it only realistically allows the poor access to high-deductible plans, which they then are required to purchase. There are health care bills that are a cure worse than the disease. And while I am not in the camp that thinks jettisoning the public option is the point of no return (I’m far more concerned about making sure subsidies are robust), I am decidedly in the camp that thinks that progressives are right to push hard for as good a bill as possible.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop talking to Republicans. Yes, GOP politicians are going to spew bile, and GOP talk show hosts are going to spread conspiracy theories, and there’s a big chunk of GOP activists who really believe that Barack Obama is going to use mind control powers to steal their children. But there are also Republicans out there who are Republican because they haven’t been engaged by anyone who knows what they’re talking about. Republicans who might not agree with the health care reform bill that’s passed, but who could at least be persuaded that it isn’t a Trojan horse for Stalinism.

Part of a politician’s job is to engage with people that disagree with him or her. To show those people respect. To listen to them, and to attempt to persuade them. One can do that the way the Republican party does, by endlessly looping a few basic talking points. Or one can actually try to, you know, engage adults like adults, talk to grown-ups like grown-ups, and explain what one believes. In the end, the Democratic Party needs its leaders, including the President, to start emulating Al Franken here. To fight opponents of health care reform, not with anger, but with truth. To accept that we may disagree with each other, but to believe that disagreement is no reason for bitterness. Yes, it sucks that Democrats have to be the grown-ups — for it is more fun just to shout back at the shouters. But someone has to be the grown-ups. It might as well be us.

(Via Dusty Trice.)

[My sincere thanks to Virginia Frederick for her permission to reprint this letter on "Alas." --Amp]

Dear Senator Hutchinson.

I am one of your Texas constituents that is “under-insured” and I want to speak to you about health Care.

I never thought I would be a statistic in this predicament—my husband was a corporate soldier all his working life and we had great health insurance provided by our companies. But then my husband got Leukemia. He couldn’t work and Cobra soon ended. Ironically he survived a bone marrow transplant and is now doing incredibly well—and he has health insurance. His health insurance comes through Medicare–it is a great program.

But I am not eligible for Medicare—I have 7 years to go. I was offered a job in the local school 3 years ago—but had to turn it down when my husband’s condition took a turn and I had to become his full-time caregiver. Now they don’t even respond to my applications—and I am sure I don’t have to tell you about the job market for 58 year olds. So I have to get individual health insurance.

I am not stupid—I have too much to lose if I have to go bankrupt–so I do have a high deductible HSA. But I learned a lot in the process of getting that policy. You see I had had a sports injury the year before we moved to Texas—plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of connective tissue in the foot caused when I tried to learn skate-skiing.

What I found out was this:

• The laws that govern pre-existing conditions in group policies do not apply to individual policies
• Insurance companies can and will deny any coverage if they choose to
• They can and do exclude coverage for certain conditions for as many years as they want

As a result: I do have a policy but it will not cover any foot injury I might have for 5 or more years from the day of policy inception.

The GOOD NEWS IS: I don’t do much skate-skiing in Texas.

The other “GOOD NEWS” is: I LEARNED that I can’t let the insurance company know if I have any warning signs of anything that may develop into something more serious—in fact, I can’t know if I have any warning signs. If I did—and I had to change policies for any reason—those conditions would not be covered. So:

• I can not and will not get my cholesterol checked
• I can not and will not get a mammogram—even though my mother died of breast cancer
• I can not and will not get a pap smear—even though my grandmother died of uterine cancer
• I cannot and will not get tested for osteoporosis

MY HEALTHCARE HAS ALREADY BEEN RATIONED. It is a fact and I have sent a copy of my policy rider to prove it. American healthcare is already rationed: rationed by corporate profit motives. My story is not nearly as dramatic as so many others who have lost or been denied insurance coverage—but it proves to me that there must be a better way to access health care than the insurance companies have provided.

On July 10th you wrote: “Health Care Reform Needs the Right Solution, Not a Politically Expedient One.” I agree. Please be part of the solution by working for health care reform.

Sincerely,

Virginia L Frederick

Generally speaking, I try to avoid using the word crazy to mean “bizarrely wrong.” It wasn’t always so, but after years of online discussions with people smarter than I am, I’ve come to the conclusion that that usage of the word reinforces negative stereotypes about people suffering from mental health issues. As a person who suffers from my own share of mental health issues (depression and ADHD, plus a grab-bag assortment of behavioral issues related to those two), I should be the last person perpetuating the myth that being mentally ill is a moral failing. Being mentally ill is like having cancer — it’s probably not your fault, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Unlike, say, hoping God smites Barack Obama with brain cancer and sends him to Hell. In earlier years, I might have called Pastor Steven Anderson crazy. But he isn’t crazy. Just evil.

But while I have decided that I’m not going to use crazy to mean evil, I still intend to use crazy when I mean to describe someone as, well, crazy. After all, some people are crazy.

Take Michele Bachmann. Please. Because Rep. Bachmann, R-We There Yet, is crazy.

I don’t mean she holds a lot of bizarre right-wing views, though she most certainly does. But holding bizarre right-wing views doesn’t make one crazy. That falls more into the “evil” category, and I’m only too happy to talk about them as such.

No, I mean Michele Bachmann is crazy. She has serious, deap-seated, untreated mental health issues that are deeply affecting her ability to carry out her job.

Last night’s speech in Colorado is a fine example. Bachmann, as could be expected, spoke out against health care, using rather typical Republican rhetoric:

“Something is way crazy out there,” Bachmann said in her remarks, billed as a “personal legislative briefing” by the Golden-based Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market think tank.”

“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”

In a speech filled with urgent and violent rhetoric, Bachmann — who proudly acknowledges she is the country’s “second-most hated Republican woman,” behind only former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – drew a clear line on health care reform.

“You’re either for us or against us on this issue,” she said after deriding U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, a Fort Collins Democrat, for “[sitting] on the fence” about health care proposals at recent town halls.

Okay, well, that’s overheated and over-the-top. But it isn’t crazy. Sadly, it’s only slightly to the right of mainstream, right-wing discourse on health care these days.

No, crazy is this:

“This cannot pass,” the Minnesota Republican told a crowd at a Denver gathering sponsored by the Independence Institute. “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”

That’s crazy. As in completely disconnected from reality crazy.

Now, I don’t know if Michele Bachmann meant to call for mass suicide to stop health care reform; I frankly don’t know what exactly she was trying to say. I do know that, from calling on Americans to rise up against tyrrany to declaring that health care reform will be defeated “on our knees in prayer and fasting,” Bachmann is reaching new, messianic heights in her rhetoric, and slipping the surly bonds of sanity in the process.

I mean this sincerely: I believe Michele Bachmann is mentally ill. She’s certainly demonstrated a strong paranoid streak, including this charming anecdote from her time as a state senator:

Bachmann said both women stood in front of the bathroom door and then one woman put her hand on top of the door and her other hand on the door handle and leaned her body weight toward the door to hold it shut. The other woman put her hand on the door as well. … [Bachmann said she] was absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her.

These were not just women, of course, but lesbian women. (The complaint was dropped, as there was no evidence anybody had done anything but talk to Bachmann.)

And of course, who could forget this classic:

Michele Bachmann has a mean streak.

On May 6, 2006, the day she was endorsed by the Sixth District Republican Party for the nomination to become a U.S. Representative, she threatened to retaliate against a woman who had opposed her nomination.

“You will pay, you will pay,” Bachmann said to the woman in front of a dozen or more witnesses. The woman grew increasingly upset at the non-specific threat and demanded to know how Bachmann was going to make her pay. She didn’t get an answer. But Bachmann, continued to repeat “you will pay” until the woman was led away from the incident, in tears, by her husband.

I witnessed the confrontation myself. It was in the lobby of Monticello High School, just outside the auditorium where the delegates were in the process of endorsing Bachmann.

Quite simply, Michele Bachmann is not sane. She’s able to function in society because her insanity has been channeled into service to conservative politics, but that doesn’t mean that she’s well.

Unfortunately, rather than living in a society where this sort of behavior would lead to one’s loved ones suggesting counseling, and perhaps a psychopharmacological agent, Bachmann lives in a society where Republican politicians claim with a straight face that a provision in a health care plan to give people control over end-of-life decisions will lead inexorably to death panels. Yes, most of the Republicans know they’re lying. But Bachmann doesn’t. She believes it, with the white-hot fervor of a true believer.

I am concerned about where Bachmann is heading. She has come awfully close to calling directly for violence against Democrats, and I have a feeling that at some point, she will. Not out of malice, exactly — but because she doesn’t really seem to understand that her words have consequences. I’d pity her, except she’s got a say in how the country runs.

Ultimately, I don’t wish ill on Michele Bachmann. I’d like to see her get help, and get stable, and heck, maybe even become an effective legislator. But until she does, her behavior and her words will get more and more bizarre. And there will be at least one politician in America who I can say, without judgment or anger, is crazy. Oh, she’s evil, too. But that’s something separate entirely.

(Cartoon by Mikhaela Reid.)

In comments, I wrote, “if the House bill becomes law, no one will be forced to be on the public option — everyone’s free to choose a private plan, if they don’t like the public plan.”

Robert Hayes replied “not for long,” pointing to this post on his own blog. Here’s the heart of Bob’s argument:

If the public option is in place, employers all over the country will jump at the chance to move their employees out of costly benefit plans and into the public system. [...] Unless the plan is punitive towards employers who do that – and it won’t be, because that would be politically suicidal for Democrats – there will be an inevitable tidal wade into the public system, not by choice, but by expulsion.

Bob’s wrong; in fact, the proposed health insurance plan provides three layers of protection, to keep people from being unwillingly forced onto the public option.

First, contrary to what Bob says, the plan is punitive towards large employers who don’t provide health insurance for their employees.¹ From a New York Times report on how the proposed Health Insurance Exchange would work:

In general, there’s no strong incentive to drop coverage, because businesses are required to contribute to the cost of coverage or pay a penalty. The play-or-pay requirement is designed to create a relatively balanced choice between providing coverage directly or going into the exchange. The experience in Massachusetts and San Francisco, the only two places in the country that currently have a play-or-pay arrangement, is that firms largely keep doing what they were doing. If they’ve been providing coverage, they keep providing coverage. If not, they pay a penalty.

So that’s the first level of protection against being involuntarily forced onto the public option.

So what if a large employer does choose to dump employee health care — something that could happen under the status quo, as well as under the proposed changes, and is likely to be rare in either case? Wouldn’t that mean that those employees would be forced to take the public option?

No, it wouldn’t. Here’s where the second level of protection comes into play — people could simply buy insurance on the private market, contracting directly with the insurance companies.

But what if they can’t find a deal that’s worth taking on the private market? It generally sucks buying insurance as an individual, rather than as part of some big group plan. Wouldn’t people then be forced to buy into the public option?

No, they woudln’t, because that’s where the health insurance exchange — the third level of protection — comes into play.

Because the health insurance exchange, which uses the same model for health insurance used by members of Congress, would give people the choice between several competing health insurance plans. (That’s what a health insurance exchange is.) And only one of those plans would be the public option.

The difference is, under the status quo, someone in that situation might find that no insurance company is willing to cover them, because of age or a pre-existing condition. Under the proposed health insurance reform, everyone can get health insurance. And that health insurance will contain consumer protections that the status quo lacks — so insurance can’t drop people because they become sick, or cut them off from assistance.

To make up for the extra costs of forcing insurance companies to cover anyone, everyone — including the young and the healthy — will be required to get health insurance. Of course, paying for health insurance wouldn’t be cheap — but it’s not cheap under the status quo, either. At least under the proposed health insurance reform, people who make up to 3 or 4 times the poverty line can get assistance in paying for their health insurance.

1. Small employers get assistance to help them insure employees more cheaply than they’d otherwise be able to. Or they can pay part of the cost of having their employees join the public plan — but they pay less than large employers would. (back)

From Donkeylicious.

On my Facebook page, my friend Danny wrote:

Now how does that fit in to the Co-Op thing they are talking about? Are the 27.5 million people in the bottom box going to be forced to get insurance like in MA? Will people be fined if they both can’t afford private health insurance and make too much to qualify for subsidized insurance? I am all for a single-payer health insurance system, but I think this plan they have come up with now is too intrusive without much of any benefit.

Here’s what I wrote in response to Danny, which seems a little terse because I was desperately trying to edit it down to fit within Facebook’s comment length limit:

1) The co-op thing is an alternative plan to the public option, not something to fit alongside it. So to see where co-ops fit in to this flow chart, everywhere it says “public option,” cross out “public option” and write in “co-op” instead.

2) Yes, everyone must be insured.

3) The House bill calls for a fine, with a hardship exemption for those who are to broke to pay. (The proposed cut-off for subsidies is $34,000 for a person with no kids.)

4) Single-payer has zero chance of passing congress. The alternative to this plan isn’t single payer; it’s continuing the status quo.

5) The plan would get millions of currently uninsured people insured, and provide huge consumer protections for people already having insurance. I’d call both of those substantial benefits.

I’ve been reading about FASINPAT, a worker-owned, democratically run ceramics factory in Argentina. From Marie Trigona:

The workers at Argentina’s occupied ceramics factory FASINPAT won a major victory this week, the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. [...] Hundreds of workers from the FASINPAT factory, factory without a boss, waited anxiously until the late hours of the night for the legislature’s decision. The expropriation law passed 26 votes in favor and 9 votes against the bill. [...]

FASINPAT has operated under worker control since 2001 when Zanon’s owners decided to close its doors and fire the workers without paying months of back pay or severance pay. Leading up to the massive layoffs and plant’s closure, workers went on strike in 2000. The owner, Luis Zanon, with over 75 million dollars in debt to public and private creditors (including the World Bank for over 20 million dollars), fired en masse most of the workers and closed the factory in 2001-a bosses’ lockout. In October 2001, workers declared the plant under worker control. [...] Since the occupation, the workers renamed the factory FASINPAT (Factory without a Boss).

The Wikipedia page about FASINPAT gives a nutshell history of the worker takeover. An earlier article, also by Trigona, provides more detail about how the factory runs. Trigona definitely writes as a booster, without attempting to be objective; still, I think it’s very interesting stuff. There’s far too much to quote, but here’s a sample.

At Zanon every worker is paid the same wage, with the exception of a small pay difference based on seniority, but seniority based on who withstood the old boss, firings, stand-off, and occupation.

The workers at Zanon have had the most political approach to hiring workers. Today, the plant employs 473 workers, more than 230 of whom were hired after the plant came under worker control. When Zanon began to produce under worker control they hired former Zanon workers who had been fired. Later they began to divide the job openings for grass roots activists working with the unemployed (piquetero) worker organizations.

Workers at Zanon have developed a coordinator system to organize production and basic functioning. Each production line forms a commission. Each commission votes on a coordinator that rotates regularly. The coordinator of the sector informs on issues, news, and conflicts within his or her sector to an assembly of coordinators. The coordinator then reports back to his or her commission news from other sectors. The workers hold weekly assemblies per shift. The factory also holds a general assembly, during which production is halted, each month.

Every month the bookkeeping coordinator gives an extensive report on the income and expenditures at the plant. During the assemblies workers decide how profits should be used. One month, the assembly voted on a pay bonus for workers as the production quota goal for June, 2006 went above expectations. Workers also voted in favor of hiring 15 new workers. Who will get the job is decided on criteria based on family needs, political commitment to the struggle, and technical experience. One participant also brought up the possibility of workers rotating to explore other areas of worker management.

While the factory has adapted democratic practices, many workers have found that smaller meetings have been more effective for workers to address specific concerns or volunteer ideas.

Gender Relations

Women at Zanon created a Women’s Commission (Comision de Mujeres de Zanon ) in 2004 after a national congress on gender and equality in the Coastal city of Mar del Plata. They have begun to print a newsletter, which is distributed to all 470 workers. [...] One issue the workers’ assembly has still to resolve is the need for day care for children, not only for mothers but the majority of workers who are fathers as well. The Women’s Commission has organized specific activities like giving away decorative ceramic calendars in the city center, meeting with other women from social movements, and coordinating activities like a talk on domestic violence in the factory for November 25: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Re-learning Production

Under worker control, no management or professional stayed at the factory. The workers not only had to re-learn the process of production but also other traditionally administrative areas like sales, book keeping, and production planning. Workers at Zanon regularly work with lawyers, accountants, and other professionals whom they trust, but the professionals don’t make decisions. The worker assembly votes on technical decisions. Professionals have provided specific skills training for workers at Zanon. However, for many of the recuperated enterprises there is a deficit of trustworthy professionals.

FASINPAT doesn’t stand alone; it’s part of a Latin American movement for worker-owned, “bossless” factories that has been going on for nearly a decade.

De Geografías e Historias quotes an article about FASINPAT, which can be read in English here via Google’s translator.

You know, I’m a free speech absolutist, and a staunch civil libertarian. But quite honestly, if you’re going to bring a gun to a town hall meeting held by the President of the United States, you probably should, at the very least, get a visit from the Secret Service:

A man carried a handgun strapped to his leg to a town hall meeting being held by President Obama in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Tuesday.

It’s legal for him to have the gun as long as it is unconcealed, the police told MSNBC. The man was on private property — church ground on the roadway leading to the high school where Obama would speak. The church gave the man permission to be there. However, according to police officers, he is under constant surveillance and is not anywhere near where the president will speak.

You know what? I don’t care if it’s legal for you to carry a gun in New Hampshire — you don’t carry a gun to a protest against the President of the United States. You especially don’t carry a gun while holding a sign that says “It is Time To Water the Tree of Liberty!” For those of you who’ve forgotten your Revolutionary War-era Thomas Jefferson quotes beloved by libertarian types, the full quote is, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Quite simply, carrying a firearm to a protest against the president, while holding a sign threatening violence against tyrants, is, if not illegal, than deeply immoral to the point of pure anti-Americanism. Had our country never lost a leader to gun violence, one might feel differently, but we’ve lost four; when one out of every eleven presidents has been shot and killed, and more than twenty percent of presidents have had shots fired at them, it’s impossible to view this as anything other than a direct threat on the president’s life.

Of course, the man carrying the gun, William Kostric, is unrepentant. He sees nothing wrong with implied threats on a president’s life, nothing wrong with the direct implication that our government leaders should be killed. He just wants, in his words, “an informed society, an armed society, a polite society.” Which is why he was carrying a sign calling for the death of tyrants.

We are steering down a dangerous course. While the health care proposal is modest by world standards, people are decrying this as some kind of Trojan horse for communism, Nazism, the theft of our nation’s vital bodily fluids, and the end of life on Earth. With the stakes raised so ludicrously high, and with the anger being fed at such a fever pitch, I fear that threats of violence will not be where this ends. After all, if Barack Obama was planning on herding our parents into death camps, seizing everyone’s bank account, and creating a panel that would decide who lives and who dies, I would be the first one on the line in the ensuing revolution. He isn’t, of course, doing any of those things. But a huge subset of the right, fed by people who should know better, thinks he may be. This does not end well, I fear. I hope I’m wrong.