Here’s a video round-up of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) from The Rachel Maddow Show explaining Stupak’s Stupak Amendment.

Once again Obama uses his Weekly Address to talk about health care reform. Here’s the video, but there is no transcript available yet.

Watching the conservative echo chamber in action is a frightening experience that most people don’t have to stomach on a daily basis.

The latest misinformation parroted by the rightwing machinery is that President Obama is buying votes on health care with judicial nominations.

As usual, it all starts with just a simple question. This time the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard got the ball rolling.

Read the entire story on Examiner.com

President Obama announced today that it’s time to get health care reform done. He didn’t mention reconciliation directly, but that’s what Obama wants.

Here’s the complete transcript and video of Obama’s speech today. The video and transcript were provided by the White House.

Remarks by the President on Health Care Reform
East Room

1:50 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much, all of you, for joining us today. And I want to thank Julie, Barbara, Roland, Stephen, Renee, and Christopher, standing behind me — physicians, physicians assistants, and nurses who understand how important it is for us to make much needed changes in our health care system.

I want to thank all of you who are here today. I want to specially recognize two people who have been working tirelessly on that — on this effort, my Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius — (applause) — as well as our quarterback for health reform out of the White House, Nancy-Ann DeParle. (Applause.)

We began our push to reform health insurance last March, in this room, with doctors and nurses who know the system best. And so it’s fitting to be joined by all of you as we bring this journey to a close.

Last Thursday, I spent seven hours at a summit where Democrats and Republicans engaged in a public and very substantive discussion about health care. This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. And since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said — (laughter) — and just about everybody has said it. (Laughter.) So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.

Now, where both sides say they agree is that the status quo is not working for the American people. Health insurance is becoming more expensive by the day. Families can’t afford it. Businesses can’t afford it. The federal government can’t afford it. Smaller businesses and individuals who don’t get coverage at work are squeezed especially hard. And insurance companies freely ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; who can pay and who can’t. That’s the status quo. That’s the system we have right now.

Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing -– if we throw up our hands and walk away -– it’s a problem that will only grow worse. Nobody disputes that. More Americans will lose their family’s health insurance if they switch jobs or lose their job. More small businesses will be forced to choose between health care and hiring. More insurance companies will deny people coverage who have preexisting conditions, or they’ll drop people’s coverage when they get sick and need it most. And the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will sink our government deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. On all of this we agree.
So the question is, what do we do about it?

On one end of the spectrum, there are some who’ve suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. And though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry — whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. The argument is, is that that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their health care and their health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses and physician assistants like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients. (Applause.)

Now, the proposal I put forward gives Americans more control over their health insurance and their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I can tell you as the father of two young girls, I would not want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor.

Essentially, my proposal would change three things about the current health care system. First, it would end the worst practices of insurance companies. No longer would they be able to deny your coverage because of a preexisting condition. No longer would they be able to drop your coverage because you got sick. No longer would they be able to force you to pay unlimited amounts of money out of your own pocket. No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California — up to 39 percent increases in one year in the individual market. Those practices would end.

Second, my proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves — because if it’s good enough for members of Congress, it’s good enough for the people who pay their salaries. (Applause.)

The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance market where insurance companies give better coverage and better rates, because they get more customers. It’s an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past, before politics intruded.
And my proposal says that if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, even though it’s going to provide better deals for people than they can get right now in the individual marketplace, then we’ll offer you tax credits to do so — tax credits that add up to the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. After all, the wealthiest among us can already buy the best insurance there is, and the least well off are able to get coverage through Medicaid. So it’s the middle class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help.
Now, it is absolutely true that all of this will cost some money — about $100 billion per year. But most of this comes from the nearly $2 trillion a year that America already spends on health care — but a lot of it is not spent wisely. A lot of that money is being wasted or spent badly. So within this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go towards making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies; set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance; and we’re going to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare.

The bottom line is our proposal is paid for. And all the new money generated in this plan goes back to small businesses and middle-class families who can’t afford health insurance. It would also lower prescription drug prices for seniors. And it would help train new doctors and nurses and physician assistants to provide care for American families.

Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses, and the federal government. We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care — ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare. But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.

Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to a trillion dollars over the next two decades — brings down our deficit. Those aren’t my numbers; those are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress in terms of how much stuff costs. (Laughter.)

So that’s our proposal. This is where we’ve ended up. It’s an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans — including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform, and curbing waste and fraud and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform — provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.

Now, despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many — probably most — Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.

Now, some also believe that we should, instead of doing what I’m proposing, pursue a piecemeal approach to health insurance reform, where we tinker around the edges of this challenge for the next few years. Even those who acknowledge the problem of the uninsured say we just can’t afford to help them right now — which is why the Republican proposal only covers 3 million uninsured Americans while we cover over 31 million.

The problem with that approach is that unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets. The insurance reforms rest on everybody having access to coverage. And you also don’t do anything about the fact that taxpayers currently end up subsidizing the uninsured when they’re forced to go to the emergency room for care, to the tune of about a thousand bucks per family. You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room. So the fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all of these problems at once.

Now, both during and after last week’s summit, Republicans in Congress insisted that the only acceptable course on health care reform is to start over. But given these honest and substantial differences between the parties about the need to regulate the insurance industry and the need to help millions of middle-class families get insurance, I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help.

Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over. They’re continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade, or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long. So, no matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. (Applause.)

We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for the past year but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.

I, therefore, ask leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. (Applause.) And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well — every family, every business, every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every physician’s assistant. Make your voice heard.

This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that’s because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. If it was easy, it would have been solved long ago. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. And as a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

But that’s not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That’s not an excuse for us to walk away. We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s been a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. How will this play? What will happen with the polls? I will leave it to others to sift through the politics, because that’s not what this is about. That’s not why we’re here.

This is about what reform would mean for the mother with breast cancer whose insurance company will finally have to pay for her chemotherapy. This is about what reform would mean for the small business owner who will no longer have to choose between hiring more workers or offering coverage to the employees she has. This is about what reform would mean for middle-class families who will be able to afford health insurance for the very first time in their lives and get a regular checkup once in a while, and have some security about their children if they get sick.

This is about what reform would mean for all those men and women I’ve met over the last few years who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. When we started our push for reform last year, I talked to a young mother in Wisconsin named Laura Klitzka. She has two young children. She thought she had beaten her breast cancer but then later discovered it had spread to her bones. She and her husband were working and had insurance, but their medical bills still landed them in debt. And now she spends time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her children and focus on getting well.

This should not happen in the United States of America. And it doesn’t have to. (Applause.)

In the end, that’s what this debate is about. It’s about what kind of country we want to be. It’s about the millions of lives that would be touched and, in some cases, saved by making private health insurance more secure and more affordable.

So at stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. (Applause.) And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.

Thank you very much, everybody. Let’s get it done. (Applause.)

END
2:09 P.M. EST

Almost all politicians stretch the truth, or outright lie, to convince people that what they’re doing is for their benefit. But what’s happening right now regarding a possible parliamentary move by Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health care reform is just too much.

There are so many Republican lies whizzing across the media landscape about reconciliation it’s hard to keep up. The two biggest whoppers that GOP Senators and Fox News are disseminating are that Republicans would never dream of using reconciliation to thwart a filibuster, and that the use of the existing reconciliation rule (created in 1974) is the so-called “nuclear option.”

Republicans and Fox News are counting on no one looking at the public record and uncovering their blatant fabrications. If you look, you’ll see that Republicans have used reconciliation way more often than Democrats have. In fact, in the more than 20 times it’s been used, Republicans are on record with using reconciliation 17 times.

Most recently the GOP chose reconciliation to pass the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.

And as far as the so-called “nuclear option” is concerned – that has absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation – nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

It was Republicans who coined the “nuclear option” phrase back in 2003 when they threatened to change Senate rules outlawing the filibuster. They were pissed at Democrats who were trying to filibuster judicial nominees. It had nothing to do with reconciliation.

Watch this video. Stop watching Fox News. Think. Read. Research. Be critical. The information is there. “The truth is out there.” — Fox Mulder

President Obama appears to have finally realized that Republicans will never support any effort to reform health care. On Wed., Obama is expected to release a plan to pass health care reform. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the president would like Republicans to not filibuster the bill in the Senate and allow a simple up-or-down vote, but that’s not going to happen.

Now Republicans know they have lost this battle and they’re freaking out. One can only hope there’s a special place in hell for these so-called Christians who lie through their teeth.

Whether Republicans like it or not, reconciliation has been used 22 times since President Carter was in office. Of those 22 times, 16 were Republican lead efforts to sidestep a filibuster. And contrary to what Republican hacks are saying, it has been used to pass big bills.

Watch this video mashup and you’ll get the gist of it.

Martha Maccallum of Fox News “debated” health care reform with Bob Beckel and Kate Obenshain today.

The segment is called “Health Care Countdown: Debating the Differences.”

Representing the left was Beckel, a professor of advanced political studies at George Washington University, and on the right was Obenshain, the vice president of the Young America’s Foundation.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Holding up bills in the Senate is the Republican plan to prevent Obama and Democrats from scoring any political points. To accomplish this goal, Republicans are threatening to filibuster more than ever, and some Democrats want Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to call their bluff.

“It’s not only good policy but good politics to call them out now,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told US News and World Report last month. “The American people need to see who really is the roadblock here.”

Several House Democrats are saying it’s time to stop running away from the Republican filibuster threats.

Up until now, “we’ve been playing into the hands of people who don’t want to get anything done,” Grijalva told US News and World Report’s Anna Mulrine.

But a modern filibuster is likely to be much less satisfying than some House Democrats imagine. “It reflects a common misperception among House members in the U.S. – that somehow you can force Republicans to filibuster in such a way that it will be embarrassing to them,” Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers, told Mulrine.

Baker said that the days when Senators read from the phone book or waxed poetic about old girlfriends are no more. “This isn’t Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights,” Baker said.

However, polls show that most Americans believe that it’s Democrats who are trying to get something accomplished and Republicans are merely obstructionists.

“The Democrats don’t need the public to be watching the debates with bated breath,” Duke University Political Scientist David Rohde told Mulrine. “What the Democrats need is the public to think that they are trying to act and that the Republicans are trying to stop them.”

Steven Hurst of the Associated Press reported today that based on the number of cloture votes, the GOP’s frequency of filibusters and the threats to use it are record setting.

A cloture vote is a way for the majority to test whether it has the 60 votes needed to end debate.

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record. The 104th Congress in 1995-96 — when Republicans held a 53-47 majority — required 50 cloture votes.

Democratic Senators Tom Harkin and Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation last month to change Senate rules by lowering the number of votes needed to end a filibuster. But Majority Leader Reid sees this is as nonstarter. It takes 67 votes to change Senate rules.

Health care reform was the topic of President Obama’s Weekly Address on Feb. 27, 2010. The below transcript was provided by the White House and downloaded from WhiteHouse.gov on Feb. 28, 2010 at approximately 3:40 p.m. eastern.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
Weekly Address
February 27, 2010

As the Winter Olympics draw to a close this weekend, I just want to take a minute to congratulate all the athletes who competed in these games. And I especially want to say how proud I am of all the American men and women have achieved over the last few weeks.

Whether it was the men’s hockey team’s stunning upset of the Canadians on their way to the gold-medal game, Lindsey Vonn’s heroic gold-medal comeback from a shin injury, or Apolo Ohno becoming the most decorated American winter Olympian of all time, you can’t help but be inspired by the sheer grit and athletic prowess on display in Vancouver.

And it’s not just the medal count that’s inspiring – though we’ve certainly done great on that score. What’s truly inspiring is the character of the men and women who have won those medals. The sacrifices they’ve made. The integrity they’ve shown. The indomitable Olympic spirit that says no matter who you are or where you come from or what difficulties you may face, you can work hard and train hard and still triumph in the end. That is why we watch. That is why we cheer. That is why in the middle of an extremely challenging time for America, we’ve been able to come together as one nation for a few weeks in February and swell with pride at what our citizens have achieved.

Now, when it comes to meeting the larger challenges we face as a nation, I realize that finding this unity is easier said than done – especially in Washington. But if we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s games, we need to find common ground. We need to move past the bickering and the game-playing that holds us back and blocks progress for the American people.

We know it’s possible to do this. And we were reminded of that last week when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together to pass a jobs bill that will give small businesses tax credits to hire more workers. We also saw it when Democrats and Republicans in the House came together to pass a bill that will force insurance companies to abide by common-sense rules that prevent price-fixing and other practices that drive up health care costs.

We need that same spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship when it comes to finally passing reform that will bring down the cost of health care and give Americans more control over their insurance. On Thursday, we brought both parties together for a frank and productive discussion about this issue. In that discussion, we heard many areas of agreement. Both sides agreed that the rising cost of health care is a serious problem that plagues families, small businesses, and our federal budget. Many on both sides agreed that we should give small businesses and individuals the ability to participate in a new insurance marketplace – which members of Congress would also use – that would allow them to pool their purchasing power and get a better deal from insurance companies. And I heard some ideas from our Republican friends that I believe are very worthy of consideration.

But still, there were differences. We disagreed over whether insurance companies should be held accountable when they deny people care or arbitrarily raise premiums. I believe they should. We disagreed over giving tax credits to small businesses and individuals that would make health care affordable for those who don’t have it. This would be the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, and I believe we should do it. And while we agreed that Americans with pre-existing conditions should be able to get coverage, we disagreed on how to do that.

Some of these disagreements we may be able to resolve. Some we may not. And no final bill will include everything that everyone wants. That’s what compromise is. I said at the end of Thursday’s summit that I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge. The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

It is time for us to come together. It is time for us to act. It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations. So let’s get this done.

Thanks for listening.

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) has not been shy about how he feels about health care reform. He hate hate hates it.

Boehner said that the current bill will bankrupt the country, provide taxpayer funded abortions and it’s unconstitutional.

Pelosi said that Boehner is lying and that neither the House or Senate bills provide for taxpayer funded abortions.

At the Blair House Health Care Summit on Thursday, President Obama explains the Democrat’s proposal for Medicare Advantage. Republicans are claiming that changes to the Medicare Advantage are “Medicare cuts.” According to Obama, the only thing being cut are the profits private companies are taking from the Medicare Advantage program.

Here’s the exchange between Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Obama. McCain is clearly caught off-guard when Obama agrees with him about the special deal struck to keep Medicare Advantage for Florida.

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said at Thursday’s Blair House Health Care Summit that health care reform is budget reform. Therefore, he essentially made the case that Democrats can use budget reconciliation to pass health care reform. Both the House and the Senate have a reconciliation rule.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) addressed reconciliation on Tuesday and told Republicans to stop crying.

Here’s the exchange between President Obama and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). Barrasso said that Americans simply need to be better health care consumers and that the US has the best health care system in the world.

The World Health Organization ranks the US 37th of all countries and dead last when compared to other industrialized nations. According to a September 2009 report, the US health care system is number one in per capita spending, 39th in infant mortality, 3rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.¹

Today, Rachel Maddow called out Republicans for their lies about reconciliation.

Republican senators are calling reconciliation the “nuclear option.” That’s not at all true. The nuclear option was a threat by Republicans to ban filibusters over judicial nominations in 2005.

The fact is that Republicans have used reconciliation 16 times out of the 22 times it’s been used. They’re on the record supporting the use of reconciliation.

And according to Maddow, NPR reported that the number of health care bills passed without the use of reconciliation can be counted on one hand.

Reconciliation is how we do health care reform – love it or leave it.

It lasted more than seven hours. It was often unbelievably boring. A bunch of mostly old white guys sitting around a table bickering at one another. That was today’s health care summit and nothing of substance will come of it.

The bottom line for Republicans is that they want to kill health care reform no matter what. And the bottom line for Democrats is that have to get health care reform through congress one way or another.

So one side is unequivocally opposed and the other a staunch proponent of health care reform.

There was an exchange between President Obama and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley that highlights this deadlock.

“First of all,” Grassley said, “if anybody says that Medicare Advantage is a subsidy going to insurance companies, let me say what the statute says. The statute says that … 75 percent goes to beneficiaries and benefits, and 25 percent to the federal government.”

“I’m sorry Chuck, I just want to make sure about that,” Obama said, “that doesn’t sound right to me because that would mean 100 percent of it is going either to the benefits or the federal government, which means that the insurance companies aren’t making any money of it.”

“Seventy-five percent to beneficiaries and benefits,” Grassley snapped, “and 25 percent to the federal government.”

At which point Obama turned to Vice President Biden and presumably said something along the lines of, “What the hell is talking? That’s 100 percent. The insurance companies don’t get any money for selling prescription drugs to seniors. Is he drunk?”

“Probably Mr. President,” Biden threw his hand up in disgust.

“It takes 60 votes in the Senate to overrule them, so I’m not questioning the CBO,” Grassley said fidgeting in his chair.

Actually, the Congressional Budget Office does not create law and does not rule over the Senate in any way, shape or form. Grassley is making up Senate rules out of whole cloth.

“For the first time in the 225 year history of the country,” Grassley said, “the federal government’s telling you you’ve got to buy something.”

The Iowa Senator said he knows his constituents and “that just doesn’t make a lot sense to people in the grassroots of the Midwest.”

Actually the United States has been around for 233 years and citizens are forced to pay federal income taxes, Medicare and Social Security.

“Do you think we’re going to sit around in rural American, or even urban, downtown urban America, in the poverty parts of the city,” Grassley said, “that we’re going to let hospitals close down?”

Who’s closing hospitals?

At the end of his speech Grassley said, “You’ve got to take into consideration the consequences of the actions, or the unproven promises of cuts that aren’t going to materialize.”

His argument was that the Democrats bill relies on future congresses to make cuts and Grassley said that they aren’t going to have any more guts than we do, and this Congress doesn’t even have the stomach to mess with Medicare.

Obama seemed a bit shocked by Grassley’s remarks and tone, and had this to say.

“If the notion is that we can’t make some hard decisions about how entitlements work, because it’s just not realistic. Nobody’s going to have the guts to do it. Then we’re in big trouble.

Because that means that federal and state budgets, and then business budgets and family budgets, they’re all going to be gobbled up by this thing.

So I hope that we’ve got the courage to make some of these changes.”

If you have a heart, you might get a bit choked up watching this special comment by Keith Olbermann. It’s about his dad who’s quite probably not going to live much longer. It’s a message to the politicians who are going to President Obama’s health care summit tomorrow. And it’s a message to the people out there who have gotten so damn cynical about what health care really means to real people. Playing gotcha politics is fun, and good for a laugh, but real people are dealing with life and death every day, and this stuff matters to them.

If the video doesn’t load below check here.

I got to watch this one live, it was a good show. Rep. Weiner (D-NY) on the House floor said today that the entire Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry.

The Republicans reprimanded him for using inappropriate language on the House floor. Weiner withdrew his comments and said that every member of the Republican party he’s ever met is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry.

Republicans squawked again and after a few minutes, Weiner withdrew his comments again and went on to dress the GOP down for prostituting themselves for health insurance companies.

Today the US House of Representative passed a bill removing the anti-trust exemption from insurance companies.

The legislation passed 406 to 19 after hours of debate over an amendment by Rep. Daniel Lungren (R-TX) that would provide a data-sharing exception to the bill. The amendment was not added to the bill, but Lungren still voted in favor of the final bill.

A Republican filibuster is expected in the Senate to prevent the anti-trust exemption from becoming law.

This is the complete rush transcript of a speech Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) gave on the House floor this morning at approximately 11:30 a.m. eastern time.

The House was debating the health insurance anti-trust exemption created in 1945 by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The act allows insurance companies to collude with one another to keep prices high and to share data for the purposes of cherry picking the best customers to insure.

We should listen to our constituents.

I did town halls in August and they were attended by over 8,000 people.

And there was one item of agreement between the extremes in the debate between those representing the Tea Party and those representing single-payer.

And that was consensus, that this industry, the health insurance industry, should not enjoy a special exemption under the law.

They should not be able to collude to drive up prices. Limit competition. Price gouge consumers. They should play by the same rules as every other industry in America.

And this archaic exemption from anti-trust law should go to the dustbin of history.

There was consensus on that.

Now come the Republicans, oh wait a minute, “We’re not protecting the industry, we don’t to allow them to still have the anti-trust exemption, it’s about the little guys.”

It’s always about the little guys, isn’t it? So let’s give the little guys a loophole, oh but wait a minute, the big guys can use the same loophole.

Now the other thing I’ve heard is let’s be bipartisan.

Well there’s nothing much more bipartisan than the report of The Anti-trust Modernization Commission from April 2007.

This was a commission created by the Republican Congress when they controlled both the House and the Senate and the White House with the members named by President George Bush and the Republican leadership of Congress.

They came to the conclusion that this loophole, that they’re advocating today, should not exist.

And I’ll quote briefly from the conclusions from the bipartisan Republican created commission.

They said, “A proposed exemption should be recognized as a decision to sacrifice competition.”

Oops, I thought they were for competition?

“And consumer welfare.”

I thought they were for the consumers?

“And should be allowed only if Congress determines that a substantial and significant counter-valuing societal value outweighs the presumption in favor of competition and the widespread benefits it provides.”

They go on to address their arguments and they say, there are those who will argue that the small companies need to aggregate data and they will need this safe harbor.

And they [the commission] say, no actually not.

This again is the Republican created commission.

“Like all potentially beneficial competitor collaboration generally, however such data sharing would assessed by anti-trust enforcers, and the courts, under rule of reason analysis. They would fully consider the potential pro-competitive effects of such conduct and condemn it only if on balance it was anti-competitive. Insurance companies would bare no greater risk then companies in other industries engaged in data sharing and other collaborative undertakings. To the extent that insurance companies engage in anti-competitive collusion, however, they would then be appropriately subject to anti-trust liability.”

They want to give them a safe harbor – that is so big that the Justice Department could never review it. Their objective to the fact that the Justice Department might look at and investigate the activities surrounding data sharing and potential collusion by the industry to continue to price gouge consumers and benefit unreasonably and profit unreasonably.

They want to create that loophole. That loophole is unnecessary.

If you adopt that proposal, we might as well just not pretend to care about consumers and consumer welfare and that we’re going to meaningfully address this industry playing by the same rules as every other industry.

[Will the gentleman yield?]

No I will not yield. The gentleman has his own time.

This industry should play by the same rules as all others – plain and simple.

Americans get that.

They’re not happy with seeing their insurance premiums double every ten years – and now it’s more of doubling rate of three to five years.

They know that they are being taken to the cleaners.

They know that the industry is trying to cherry pick.

They know there’s anti-trust activity going on.

It’s time for that to change.

No loopholes!