Big Pharma ready for all out to war to defend its sweetheart deal

Too bad. It's absurd the White House agreed to a deal that keeps your and my prescription drug prices artificially, and ridiculously, high.

The White House deal bars the government from negotiating drug prices, extends patent protections and blocks re-importing cheaper drugs from Canada.

I get the White House's logic. Someone there thought they had a masterful plan to neuter Big Pharma's opposition to health care reform by, essentially buying them off with our money. You and I get to pay more for prescription drugs - a drug tax, as it were - to line Big Pharma's pockets, and keep them supporting the administration's reform effort. It was smart, perhaps too smart by half, but smart. But was it wise? Was it sound policy? Was it even necessary? Read the rest of this post...

Why does Obama's pay czar want to limit his authority?

Limiting his authority to the Wall Street TARP recipients is understandable. Limiting that authority to only seven simply doesn't make sense. Noticeably missing is Goldman Sachs who greatly benefited and continue to benefit fro the TARP money given to AIG. Why the free ride for some? If Goldman wants to flaunt their obnoxious numbers, shouldn't they also be ready to deal with the fallout? Leaving them off the list when they are alive due to billions of taxpayer dollars still does not make any sense.

Feinberg also testified that his authority to set pay should not extend beyond the seven firms. Taxpayers have a vested interest in these companies since the government owns significant stakes in each. Aside from AIG and Bank of America, the other firms are Citigroup, General Motors, Chrysler, GMAC Financial Services and Chrysler Financial.

"The federal government should not enter the business of micromanaging compensation practices beyond these seven companies," he said. But Feinberg added that he hoped other companies would model their executive compensation on the practices he was putting in place at the seven firms.

Hoped? Really? What part of this botched bailout process did he miss? It's precisely this kind of ignorance and foolish hope that got us to this point in the first place. Wall Street does not respond to "hope" or asking nicely. They only respond to force and a lot of it. This pay czar is more disappointing by the day. Read the rest of this post...

ACCCE and Bonner knew of faked letters to members of Congress even before House voted on energy bill

This story gets dirtier with each new development. You'll recall that a D.C.-base astroturf lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates, was busted for sending forged letters to members of Congress during the debate on the energy bill last spring. The company's defense was that a rogue employee was responsible. But, Bonner & Associates, and its client, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), knew about the faked letters before the House voted, but apparently "did nothing" about it:

A grassroots lobbying firm knew several days ahead of a critical House climate change vote that letters it sent to members claiming local nonprofit groups opposed the bill were fake.

Working on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the firm Bonner & Associates has acknowledged that it sent about a dozen forged letters to three House Democrats who were seen as critical swing votes.

The head of the ACCCE also acknowledged learning of some of the forgeries the day before the vote, a discovery he said “appalled” him.

But both the firm and the coal group did nothing to inform the members or the misrepresented companies about the forged letters ahead of the vote.

So dirty. Not only are these people willing to destroy the environment, they've got zero integrity.

For more on the astroturfers, check out: astrotruth.org to "peel back the turf." Read the rest of this post...

Conrad urges Dem Senators to vote to bring health care bill to the floor

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), and a key moderate in the health care debate, today urged his Senate Democratic colleagues to vote to bring the health care bill to the Senate floor - i.e., oppose any attempts to filibuster starting debate on the bill. There are still additional potential filibusters, as Matt Browner-Hamlin detailed in the post below, but this is a step in the right direction. Read the rest of this post...

Everything you always wanted to know about "cloture" but were afraid to ask

Matt Browner-Hamlin at SEIU does a great job explaining what "cloture" is in the Senate, also known as breaking a filibuster. The most confusing part, I suspect, is that a vote FOR cloture is a vote AGAINST a filibuster (kind of reminds me how in Greek we say "ne" for yes, which people just assume is "no"). Here's a portion of Matt's explanation of the four cloture votes we should expect on the health care bill (if not more):

1.Cloture Motion on Motion to Proceed to Measure's Consideration: This will be the first step, where the Senate will ask itself: Do enough of us want to start debating specific health care reform legislation on the floor? Assuming that 60 senators do, the process will continue;

If Cloture on the Motion to Proceed is "invoked" (a fancy senate term for saying 60 Senators voted yes) then the Motion to Proceed will be adopted by a majority vote and the Senate will start debating the House bill that I mentioned above. Next the very first thing that will happen is that the "merged" Finance/HELP Committee bill will be offered as a complete substitute to the House bill. Then the fun really begins. Senators offer dozens of amendments, the Majority and Minority Leaders try to work out Unanimous Consent agreements, which I will explain below, to get lots of the amendments votes and sometimes Senators even filibuster each other's amendments. But sooner or later the Majority Leader says that is enough. That's when...

2.Cloture Motion on Manager's Amendment (Substitute Amendment): After considerable debate and amendment to the substitute, the Majority Leader will file Cloture on the Substitute. If there are 60 votes here, the Merged reform bill/Substitute as amended will get an up or down vote after 30 hours of post cloture consideration. Then...

3. Cloture Motion Filed on Measure (Final Passage): After the Substitute Amendment is adopted, the Senate still needs to bring debate on the entire bill to a close, so in oder to get to final passage of the health reform bill in the Senate, there will be one more cloture vote -- on the final bill (or to get super technical, on that old house bill as amended by the Substitute). Assuming 60 senators support getting to a final vote on the bill they've just spent days and weeks amending and debating (not to mention months doing the same in Committee), then there will be an opportunity for the health care reform bill to receive a straight up-or-down vote.

Read the rest of this post...

Live blogging blog call with Speaker Pelosi about health care reform

House Speaker Pelosi has invited a number of us on a blog call with her, happening right now. Here is my live blog. This isn't verbatim, it's my best effort at contemporaneous notes.

Thanked us for all of our help, without the help of the blogs would not be able to move ahead as we are with the public option.

8.2m downloads of health care bill on the House Web site.

Kids stay on parents' policy until age of 27.

Next week or week after we'll be voting on the bill, hopefully.

Q from McJoan at Dkos: Will amendments be allowed on the floor?

A: Been focused on policy, haven't focused on manager's amendment yet. She'd have to be talked into accepting amendments, but she's open to it.

Q from me,: How helpful has the WH been?

A: Depends what part of the bill. WH has been fine, pleased with the president's statement. Grateful to progressive caucus and to many of us for helping her get the public option. Senate coming forth with public option has been very powerful for the House, helped the House.

Q from Chris Bowers, OpenLeft: Is the Kucinich amendment permitting states to move ahead with single payer in the bill?

A: No.

Q from Ryan Grim with Huff Post: Weiner was promised he'd get a substantive amendment on single payer. Also elaborate on Pharma White House deal.

A: We cant take something to the floor that isn't scored. Trying to figure out how you score single payer. I've been for single payer for 30 years. Single payer now can be disruptive to Medicare, some say. We've put forth a bill that has consensus in our caucus, and the ability to pass. Remains to be seen what we add between now and Monday.

On the Pharma deal, we weren't a part of that. We rejected it, we were disappointed by it. In our bill, we require the Sec of HHS to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.

We took our costs down by demanding a price rebate for low income people to the tune of $14bn. Takes it out of Pharma. I never thought that the 80 was a serious antie from them.

Q: How high a priority is it keeping the drug price rebate in conference?

A: We were told to keep the bill under a trillion dollars. We worked on three bills. Then the president announced $900bn, well that's a big reduction. So we had to find out where we could do that. Of course members were very very unhappy about the Pharma deal, and that was a place where we could find the money. I don't know how we can do all these thing if an industry like Pharma will make - are you ready for this - 4 to 5 trillion dollars over the next ten years.

Q from Brian Beutler at TPM: WH reported trying to make public option more moderate to get Snowe on board. Was that a political calculation? Do you worry about president's support for public option going forward?

A: We have Senator Kennedy's public option. It's what he had in his HELP bill. I don't see any way to go less than that. I'm trying to deal with the calibration I have to make in the House with how we go forward. We never said we would come up with Medicare plus 5 public option, we said a public option. We are playing our role, strongest way for consumer, seniors, future generations, small businesses is this bill.

We honor the administration's principles in the "pay for" - surcharge for people making a lot of money. They made their preference the Senate pay-for which is unpopular in the public in its present form. We have a pay-for that 99.7% of American people are excluded from 0.3% are the people who make $500,000 a couple a year. It's a few people, but it's $400bn.

So we have the issue of how strong is the public option. How is the bill paid for. How can we agree on something stronger for seniors. Insurance affordability for middle class. We insure 7m or 8m more people than the Senate. We're up to 36m insured. Closing the donut hole sooner. Adding in kids up to 27. We think we're much better in many areas.

Senate has to do what they have to do, House has to do what we have to do, WH has to do what they have to do. I'm just so busy with what I'm doing, I'm not worried about what someone else is doing. I have confidence in the president.

We're the strongest bill at the table, but this isn't a fight between the House and the Senate.

Call is over. Read the rest of this post...

FOX mentions ACORN 22 times this morning, poo-poos GDP growth of 3.5%

I guess that truce we heard rumors of last night is over. From Sam Stein at Huffington Post:

On Thursday morning, Fox and Friends made 22 mentions of the minority-organizing group ACORN -- a consistent boogeyman for the GOP -- despite the fact that there has been no new news on the ACORN front in weeks.

"Straight ahead," said host Steve Doocy early in Thursday's show. "Congress has stopped funding ACORN after... Fox News uncovered shocking video tapes. But did you know that that ACORN ban was only temporary? Should ACORN get its funding back?"

Contrast that to the tone of the coverage when news broke, at roughly 8:30 am (late in the broadcast) that the economy had grown for the first time in the past year. The host spent just a handful of minutes -- and made only two mentions -- on the 3.5 percent growth in GDP, despite the fact that it signaled the beginning of the end of the worst recession in 70 years.

Read the rest of this post...

Blue Cross increasing premiums in DC area by 32%

This is stunning. And don't think for a minute that it's not their effort to gouge the consumer before "reform" is passed. I have the same plan as this reader (they're in northern Virginia, I'm in DC), whose email I'm printing below. My insurance premiums have been going up 20% to 25% a year for the past couple of years as well. And mind you, Blue Cross claims that they don't increase your premiums based on your health care needs, rather they increase premiums for everyone in your category of coverage, so you're not being "punished." Yeah right, 32%? How much was inflation last year? How much did drug and medical prices go up over the last year? I don't think it's 32%.

You and I have CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO, individual plan, and are about the same age and live a few miles apart. My rates change every December, and guess what they have in store for me (and probably you, too). Here is what I have paid per month every year I've had the plan:

2004 ... $203
2005 ... $240 ... +18%
2006 ... $241 ... +0.4%
2007 ... $238 ... -1.2%
2008 ... $300 ... +26.1%
2009 ... $365 ... +21.7%
2010 ... $483 ... +32.3%

When they jack up your rate by over 32% on your policy anniversary, don't assume it's because they are punishing you for the rightful indignation you blog about, or your prescriptions, because I am perfectly healthy and have no prescriptions. My only hope is that they genuinely fear the impending loss of their monopolistic stranglehold and are just profiteering until the bitter end. In which case, I hope they are dead right.

Read the rest of this post...

House health-care reform bill includes public option

UPDATE: The summary of the bill, and the legislation itself, are online here.

Shailagh Murray at the Washington Post:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled a health-care reform bill Thursday that includes a government insurance option and a historic expansion of Medicaid, although sticking points involving abortion and immigration remain unresolved.

The bill includes a version of the "public option" preferred by moderates and raises Medicaid eligibility levels to 150 percent of the federal poverty level for all adults, a steeper increase than in earlier drafts....

The House legislation aims to provide health insurance of one form or another to 96 percent of all Americans at an expected cost just below $900 billion over 10 years, without increasing the federal budget deficit for at least 20 years, House Democrats said....

Read the rest of this post...

White House refuses to release list of gay invitees at Hate Crimes reception

It's not entirely clearly why, but the White House is refusing to release the list of gay invitees for the hate crimes reception last night. I've tried to get it. We know which members of Congress were invited, and which members of the Shepard and Byrd families. But nothing about any gays invited at all. They're simply refusing to release any of the names. Why the White House would want, today of all days, to feed the story line about transparency and White House invitees is beyond me. This is just dumb. Read the rest of this post...

Blue Cross asks customers to help defeat health care reform, after sending them an 11% premium increase - oops

Blue Cross Blue Shield in North Carolina thought it might be nifty to spend a lot of money writing its customers and asking them to lobby Democratic Senator Kay Hagen to oppose the health care reform bill. Only problem? Blue Cross had just raised their customers' rates by 11%. People lost it.

First, they learned their rates will rise by an average of 11 percent next year.

Next, they opened a slick flier from the insurer urging them to send an enclosed pre-printed, postage-paid note to Sen. Kay Hagan denouncing what the company says is unfair competition that would be imposed by a government-backed insurance plan. The so-called public option is likely to be considered by Congress in the health-care overhaul debate.

"No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system," the BCBS flier read. "Who wants that?"

Plenty of people, it turns out.

Indignant Blue Cross customers have rebelled against the insurer's message, complaining that their premium dollars have funded such a campaign.

They've hit the Internet in a flurry of e-mails to friends and neighbors throughout the state. They've called Hagan's office to voice support for a public option. They've marked through the Blue Cross message on their postcards to instead vouch support, then dropped them in the mail -- in at least one case taped to a brick -- to be paid on Blue Cross' dime. Or dimes.

Read the rest of this post...

In 3rd Quarter, U.S. economy grew "for the first time in a year"

UPDATE: Oops, Chris already posted about this! Sorry about that. He gives a good explanation of what this means.

Chris will have a better sense of what this really means, but it looks like we're getting some good economic news for a change:

For the first time in a year, the United States economy grew, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. But even if a recovery is technically in the offing, job-seekers likely will not begin to feel the benefits for months to come.

Gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the three months ending in September, a significant spike from a relatively shrunken base. The economy had contracted at annual rates of 0.7 percent and 6.4 percent in the first and second quarters of this year, respectively.

Robust government spending, exports, consumer durables — buoyed by auto purchases Congress’s now-expired “Cash for Clunkers” program — and housing helped finally push the measure into positive territory.

Cars and houses. Both aided by government programs. First-time home buyers are still getting the $8,000 tax credit. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Late last night, the President traveled to Dover, Delaware to pay his respects to 18 members of the military whose bodies were being returned from Afghanistan. You may recall that George Bush would never do that. Obama has to make a decision on Afghanistan soon. George Bush never paid attention to that war.

Later this afternoon, Obama has a meeting with House members who are in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. They're all talking health insurance reform. These are the members who have pushed the hardest for real reform.

In Maine, the No on 1 operation is gearing up for the final push. It's impressive. If you want to help with pro-equality referenda in Maine, Washington State or Kalamazoo, check out the 3-2-1 Countdown for Equality post here.

Let's get threading... Read the rest of this post...

Zimbabwe welcomes UN human rights expert by arresting him at the airport

That pretty much sums up what Robert Mugabe thinks of human rights.

U.N. human rights expert Manfred Nowak was detained at Harare airport on Wednesday by Zimbabwean security agents, even though he said he had been invited by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The Austrian academic arrived in Zimbabwe from Johannesburg, a stopover over on his way to Harare, where a power-sharing deal between Tsvangirai and long-time ruler Robert Mugabe is under severe strain.

Read the rest of this post...

Economy forecasted to grow in third quarter

The figures are all in a close range but any of them will be good news. For now, growth is growth. Of course much of this has to do with the stimulus. That was the plan. The question will be what about the fourth quarter and then the first quarter of 2010? It will be very important to string together two quarters and then a third, etc. Some still are concerned about faltering in the next few quarters as the impact of the stimulus lessens.

Another concern are the forecasts of increasing unemployment which are very likely to go over 10% in the near term. Hopefully those numbers start moving down soon though jobs growth does not look encouraging.

Many analysts expect the economy returned to growth in the July-September quarter, expanding at a pace of 3.3 percent. If they are right, it would end the streak of four straight quarters of contraction, the first time that's happened on records dating to 1947.

A turnaround would be the strongest signal yet that the economy has entered a new, fragile phase of recovery and that the recession, which started in December 2007, has ended.

Read the rest of this post...

Why my prescription drug coverage is maxed out

As a follow-up to my post below about the latest lies from CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, a health care policy expert wrote me to explain why my prescription drug benefit is maxed out at only $1500 year:

The reason insurance companies will never up your pharmaceutical benefit is that they would like anyone who reaches your $1500 a year prescription benefit level to switch to another insurance carrier. They are hoping to antagonize you into leaving them. Reaching the pharma cap is a good indicator of a person on whom they are less likely to profit. Their ideal customer does not use this benefit (or any benefit, for that matter) at all. Unlike someone who breaks a leg and has big one-year costs, but probably nothing the next year, those with chronic health conditions take meds regularly, and scare the bejesus out of the profiteers.

Read the rest of this post...