Just When You Thought It Was Safe: 3 Potential Obstacles to Health-Care Reform
OPS_admin | Nov 23, 2009 | Comments 0
Harry Reid may have gotten the Senate to move his health-care bill forward, but a handful of conservative Democrats could still keep the bill from getting a final vote.
It was high drama for a Saturday in the U.S. Capitol Building — at least what counts for high drama in the Senate. Would Majority Leader Harry Reid be able to deliver every single senator in his caucus for a vote that would allow his historic health-care bill to move to the floor for debate? In the end, Reid won that victory, with caveats from a handful of reluctant senators. Hundreds of millions in Medicaid funds were handed to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., for the very poorest of her state’s poor in exchange for her vote (a move Capitol Hill staffers dubbed the “Louisiana Purchase”).
The fate of national health-care reform rests on Reid’s ability to repeat his 60-vote feat in order to close debate and bring the bill to a final vote, and there’s no guarantee that he can. In fact, it’s looking a little dicey. But even among veteran Congress-watchers, there’s no consensus on whether or not Reid will succeed in the end. To do so, the majority leader will need to negotiate three points of contention.
Full Story Just When You Thought It Was Safe: 3 Potential Obstacles to Health-Care Reform | Politics | AlterNet.
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
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