PERRspectives: Health Care Archives

Health Care Archives

	For Republicans, No Means No If nothing else, Barack Obama is a glutton for punishment. Apparently confident in his ability to manhandle the Republican leadership in the wake of his televised beat-down of the House GOP caucus two weeks ago, Obama has invited McConnell, Boehner and company to the White House for a health care summit. But instead of applying a full-court press on recalcitrant members of his own party to finally pass a Democratic bill the country so badly needs, Obama will waste yet... more Posted on February 8, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	MA Voters Balk at Funding Red State Health Care One day before voters head to the polls, several factors seem to be fueling Republican Scott Brown's surprising lead over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Voter anger over the economy, Coakley's weak candidacy and Brown's strength among independents who now dominate Bay State politics are just some of the dynamics at work. But when it comes to health care, voters in a state where 97% of residents already have insurance simply may not want to fund coverage for... more Posted on January 18, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Rush Limbaugh Praises Blue State Health Care Last week, Republican strategist Kevin Madden chastised President Obama for choosing to vacation in a "foreign place" like Hawaii, concluding "it's much different than being in Texas." Rush Limbaugh, it turns out, couldn't disagree more. The right-wing radio host and avid golfer not only visits the islands every year. After his New Year's Eve scare with chest pains, Limbaugh had nothing but praise for the care he received there. And for good reason: while Hawaii ranks second in state health... more Posted on January 3, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Blue States Balk at Funding Red State Health Care The civil war over health care reform is rapidly becoming a war between the states. To great fanfare, seven state attorneys general - all of them Republicans - have promised legal action to block the Senate health care bill's Medicaid exception for Ben Nelson's Nebraska. But while the media have focused on the right-wing furor over the imbroglio derisively known as the "Nebraska Compromise," "Cash for Cloture" or the "Cornhusker Kickback," a second wave of protest is going largely unnoticed.... more Posted on December 29, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	McConnell and Friends Whitewash GOP Medicare Drug Plan Hypocrisy Only after both chambers of Congress had already voted on the health care reform bills which will cut the deficit, AP on Saturday belatedly looked back at the deeply flawed and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program Republicans jammed through Congress in 2003. 24 hours later, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on ABC's This Week to add his to the chorus of Republican voices protesting that was then and this is now. As Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett told the AP,... more Posted on December 28, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Lumps of Coal for Time and the New York Times Judging by two articles which appeared in their publications this holiday week, Time and the New York Times won't be getting a visit from Santa. Time's Amy Sullivan predictably stirred up right-wing rage with her just-in-time for the holidays, "No Churchgoing Christmas for the First Family." Meanwhile, David Herszenhorn described the Senate's "new partisan vitriol" in an account which conveniently omitted noting which party was responsible for it. Helping to resurrecting conservative mythmaking about President Obama's faith, Sullivan alerted readers:... more Posted on December 25, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Remembering Kennedy - and the Republican Goal - on Health Care Senate passage of the health care bill this morning naturally brought fond remembrances of reform's long time champion, Ted Kennedy. While his successor Paul Kirk announced, "He's having a merry Christmas in heaven," Kennedy's long-time Massachusetts colleague John Kerry concurred, "Ted Kennedy is up there smiling." But back here on earth, it's worth remembering why his Republican opponents waged an all-out war for four decades to block Ted Kennedy's dream of universal health care for the American people from ever... more Posted on December 24, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bipartisanship's Willing Executioners Republicans win, even when they lose. That appears to be the conventional wisdom after the Democrats' crucial victory in the Senate health care vote this weekend. In its wake, media outlets gave credence to John McCain's assertion that thanks to President Obama, Washington is "more partisan" and "more bitterly divided than it's been." That followed the pronouncement of CNN's supposedly moderate Republican analyst David Gergen, who proclaimed the party line vote "a tragedy" since it did not garner a "super... more Posted on December 22, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	God's Own Party Turns to Him to Block Health Care The first Republican Abraham Lincoln famously proclaimed, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." And as Matthew 4:23-24 tells us, Jesus never refused treatment to those with preexisting conditions, instead "healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." But as their prayers to God to block health care reform in the run-up to last night's decisive Senate vote show, today's Republicans apparently have... more Posted on December 21, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Six Degrees of John McCain Last week, Politico ran yet another fawning profile of John McCain, declaring him "critic-in-chief." But whether the ersatz Maverick's motivation runs the gamut from "unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama's agenda," McCain has been at or near the center of almost every domestic political news story over the past week. Call it the Six Degrees of John McCain. Or, perhaps more accurately, the First Degree of John McCain. In... more Posted on December 19, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Sheep, Unicorns, Kamikazes and Joe Lieberman When Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords balked at supporting President Bush's wildly irresponsible tax cuts in 2001, the retribution from the White House and its GOP allies in Congress was swift and severe. Ostracized and humiliated, Jeffords became an independent, briefly shifting control of the Senate to Democrats. Assessing that sea change, Connecticut's Joe Lieberman joyously proclaimed: "This is historic. It gives us the opportunity to set the agenda." As it turned out, of course, not so much. With the... more Posted on December 15, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Tea Baggers Ignore U.S. Health Care's Daily "Die-In" On Tuesday, frothing at the mouth Tea Party faithful will protest health care reform legislation by descending on the Senate to holding a "die-in." But while the Tea Baggers will feign dropping dead to dramatize their opposition to health care reform they wrongly believe will leading to rationing, they seem blissfully unconcerned about the thousands of Americans who actually die each year due to lack of insurance. As TPM reported: Tea Party organizer Mark Meckler writes on his site: "The... more Posted on December 14, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Republicans Warn of Health Care Gulags and Ghettoes For the Republican Party, the only thing worse than lower income Americans not having access to health insurance is having it. That's the conclusion of Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn, who on Sunday deemed the popular Medicaid program that serves 60 million Americans a "health care gulag." That fear-mongering came just days after his Tennessee colleague Lamar Alexander repeatedly branded Medicaid a "medical ghetto." The Democratic health care reform bills passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate... more Posted on December 7, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	2009 Democratic Deficit Cutters vs. 2003 GOP Budget Busters A funny thing has happened on America's way to health care reform. As Republicans promise a "holy war" to block supposed "government-run" health care that would "break the bank", Democrats in the House and the Senate offered reform plans that would cover all almost Americans, plans which pay for themselves. As it turns out, that's a far cry from the GOP's deeply flawed 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit, an unfunded act of transparent pandering to elderly voters which saddled the... more Posted on November 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Red State Reality: Unhealthiest Residents, Worst Health Care Throughout their all-out campaign to stop health care reform, Republican leaders have relied on questionable forecasts from the Lewin Group, a subsidiary of insurer UnitedHealth Group. Now, another study funded by UnitedHealth has some unwelcome news for the GOP braintrust: the red states they represent are the unhealthiest in the nation. Following on the heels of the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 Scorecard of state health care system performance, the United Health Foundation's report is just the latest confirmation that health care... more Posted on November 17, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	GOP Embraces Medicare Official Bush Tried to Fire Politics, especially Republican politics, makes for strange bedfellows. With the AARP by their side, President Bush and his GOP allies in 2003 pushed for their unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription drug plan. Now in their scorched earth campaign to block health care reform backed by the seniors' organization, the right-wing has declared war on the AARP. And the Republican partner swapping doesn't end there. Six years before Republicans hailed chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster this weekend for questioning the... more Posted on November 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	House GOP Reverses Role from 2003 Medicare Rx Vote With its talking babies and warnings of government takeovers and terrified seniors, the grandstanding by House Republicans during Saturday's narrow 220-215 passage of the Democratic Affordable Health Care for America Act was entirely predictable. And if that vote count sounds familiar, it should. Six years ago with the AARP by its side, it was the House GOP which eked out a victory for its deeply flawed and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program by an identical margin. But while the roles... more Posted on November 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Gingrich and Perry Tout Texas Health Care Mess Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a jaw-dropping 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. All of which makes today's op-ed by Newt Gingrich and Governor Rick Perry touting the mess in Texas all the more puzzling. Just two days after the CBO dismissed a House Republican plan that would barely... more Posted on November 6, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Pat Boone and the Right-Wing War on the AARP Back in 2003, Republican leaders praised the AARP for its support of President Bush's unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit. But now that the 40 million member organization has endorsed the House Democrats' health care reform bill, the GOP is declaring war on its one-time ally. Helping lead the attack is an array of industry-funded front groups and their reactionary has-been spokesmen like Pat Boone. Last week, Republican Congressmen Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Mike Pence (R-IN) implied the nation's... more Posted on November 5, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	The Hatch Truth: GOP Blocking Health Care to Prevent Permanent Democratic Majority A gaffe, Michael Kinsley famously mused, is what results when a politician inadvertently tells the truth. And so it was Monday when Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch came clean about his party's scorched-earth opposition to health care reform being championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Hatch acknowledged, as I've long argued, that the GOP is worried not that Obama's health care initiatives might fail, but that they might succeed. As he did in his pivotal effort to block Bill... more Posted on November 2, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	"Emergency Room" McConnell Claims Public Option May Kill You Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. Of course, McConnell's announcement that the public option "may cost you your life" should come as no surprise. After all, in July he echoed George... more Posted on October 30, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Broun Joins Palin in Backing GOP Plan to Privatize Medicare Among the more comic story lines of the Republican war on health care reform has been the Party's side-splitting defense of Medicare. After all, the GOP not only tried to block the program in the 1960's, but tried again to gut it thirty years later. But after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats were intent on "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare" and RNC chief Michael Steele called for "no cuts to Medicare to pay for another... more Posted on October 27, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Study Claims U.S. Health Care System Wastes $700 Billion Annually In the wake of its shocking assessment that employer-provided health insurance now covers only 54.6% of the American people, Thomson Reuters released a disturbing assessment of wasteful spending in the U.S. health care system Echoing the estimates of Obama OMB chief Peter Orszag and others, the analysis concluded that the United States wastes up to $700 billion a year - a third of the nation's total $2 trillion health care spending. As Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at... more Posted on October 27, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	When Opting Out is Not An Option While the Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats debate among themselves whether a so-called "opt out" public health insurance option will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor and GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would "lead a charge" in his state to opt out, Pawlenty replied, "I think so because I don't like government run health care." That's easy for him to say. As it turns out, Minnesota... more Posted on October 26, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Republican Malpractice Myths In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the heels of President Obama's latest offer to support limited tort reform as an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans balking at his health care proposals, including... more Posted on October 23, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Senate GOP: Delay, Define and Derail Health Care Reform For months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has led the Republican campaign of fear-mongering "reform that that denies, delays, or rations health care." Now unable to filibuster Democratic legislation on their own, Roll Call reports that McConnell's minions are unveiling a new scorched-earth strategy to "to delay, define and derail" reform. Of course, in their latest misrepresentations of the program's benefits and costs, the GOP is merely repackaging Bill Kristol's July war cry to defeat health care reform: "kill it... more Posted on October 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Studies Confirm Americans Are Self-Rationing Health Care Among the most pernicious and blatantly false Republican talking points designed to obstruct health care reform is the fear-mongering claim that Democratic proposals will lead to "rationing." Of course, with almost 50 million uninsured and another 25 million underinsured, Mitch McConnell's dystopian future of a system which "denies, delays, or rations health care" is already today's nightmare for millions of Americans. But as it turns out, recent studies show that the market failure that is the crumbling U.S. health care... more Posted on October 12, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Will Red States Opt Out of Blue State Generosity? Just in time for the debate over the merits of a state-by-state "opt out" of a national public health insurance option, the Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, the data reveals the critical condition of red state health care. All of which could present Republican governors and legislatures with a dilemma: will they refuse to offer lower cost insurance coverage for their residents by rejecting a system funded in part by blue state... more Posted on October 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	15 Years Too Late, Bob Dole Backs Health Care Reform When it comes to his role in health care issues, most Americans probably associate former Kansas Senator Bob Dole with Viagra. Yet this week, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate stood up (so to speak) for the cause of health care reform, issuing a joint statement with Democrat Tom Daschle urging "the joint leadership to get together for America's sake." But while Dole castigated his own Republican Party for "putting up a 'no' sign and saying, 'we're not open for business,'"... more Posted on October 8, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Carper's State Run Health Plans a Bridge to Nowhere As Democrats in the House are nearing a consensus on health care reform, Delaware's Tom Carper has introduced a potential compromise in the search of common ground in the Senate. Hoping to bridge the chasm between the watered down Baucus bill and the persistently popular public option, Carper has called for the creation of health insurance plans instead run by state governments. But by sacrificing national economies of scale and failing to address the wide disparities in state health care... more Posted on October 7, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Republican Leaders Remind Steele GOP Hates Medicare As Politico reported Monday, Republicans leaders took RNC chairman Michael Steele to the woodshed for his high profile role in the health care debate. Furious that Steele's so-called "seniors' bill of rights" committed the GOP to "no cuts to Medicare," the Congressional Republicans told their chairman to "quit meddling in policy." Of course, given the GOP's 50-year war on Medicare, their fury should come as no surprise. Beyond his almost daily, run of the mill buffoonery, the leading lights among... more Posted on October 5, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Washington Post Aids GOP in Medicare Role Reversal Story That the elderly of all groups of Americans most strongly oppose President Obama on health care reform shows the success of Republican fear-mongering over supposed Medicare cuts and "death panels". And on Monday, the Washington Post did the GOP a great service in a piece titled, "On Medicare Spending, a Role Reversal." While exploring the impact of projected savings in the program that serves 46 million Americans, the Post left unchallenged the Republicans' laughable claim to be the new protectors... more Posted on September 28, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	What's (Still) the Matter with Oklahoma? As previously detailed here, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the often comic and always tragic contradictions of the Republican war on health care reform. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most Republican in the nation, giving John McCain a whopping 31% win over Barack Obama. Meanwhile in Washington, its congressional delegation of John Sullivan, James Inhofe... more Posted on September 21, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Bi-Curious Baucus In his Washington Post column Sunday, David Broder provided some insight into the bi-curious political disposition of the Montana Senator Max Baucus. As he contemplated entering politics in the 1970's, Baucus apparently asked veteran New Dealer James Rowe, "Do you think I should run as a Republican or a Democrat?" So it should come as no surprise that thirty years later, the confused Baucus produced a Senate Finance Committee health care bill roundly criticized by both parties. But overlooked in... more Posted on September 20, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Baucus Bill Latest Proof of Krugman's Law With his seriously compromised and deeply flawed legislation, Senator Max Baucus has achieved rare bipartisan consensus on health care: virtually everyone from both parties hates his bill. But with his feeble acknowledgement that despite all of his kowtowing to his GOP colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee "no Republican has offered his or her support at this moment," Baucus once again confirmed "Krugman's Law." That is, no amount of appeasement is sufficient for Republicans to ever back Democratic proposals on... more Posted on September 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Employers to Raise Health Care Costs, Cut Coverage Even as the watered down health care reform legislation from the Senate Finance Committee is finally being delivered to growing concerns, a new study is shining a spotlight on questions the Baucus bill fails to address. Following an analysis from PriceWaterhouseCoopers earlier this year, the survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirms American employers are planning to raise health care premiums, slash benefits and, increasingly, drop coverage for their workers. The Kaiser report is just the latest symptom of the... more Posted on September 15, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	10 Lessons for Tea Baggers Back in April, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart offered some sound advice for frothing at the mouth Tea Baggers, "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Now five months after their Tax Day outburst, thousands of vein-popping Obama opponents descended Saturday on Washington for Tea Party II. But while Glenn Beck's furious followers alternately slandered the President as a "fascist," a "communist" and worse, they remained unencumbered by either the thought process - or the truth. Here, then,... more Posted on September 14, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	The Bad Medicine of the Republican Doctors When the GOP trotted out the hapless Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) to deliver the response to President Obama, the former cardiologist became just the latest Republican physician deployed to halt health care reform. As it turns out, the repentant Birther was an unfortunate choice to carry the GOP banner of tort reform, given his own history of malpractice suits. Of course, as his colleagues Tom Price, Tom Coburn and Bill Frist all show, when it comes to the politics of... more Posted on September 10, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	10 Missing Republican Talking Points on Health Care As President Obama's make-or-break health care speech to Congress approaches, the focus of media tea leaf readers is on what specifically he will say. Will the President overcome his marketing failures to date and commit his political capital to a reform plan? Will he draw a line in the sand on the public option, viewed by most of his allies as essential to reining in costs and crucial to making insurance mandates possible? But perhaps just as telling as what... more Posted on September 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Care Fight: No Echoes of Bush Social Security Debacle On Monday, the AP portrayed President Obama's struggle to pass health care reform as the second coming of George W. Bush's unpopular and ultimately disastrous attempt to privatize Social Security. But while man each left the bill crafting to Congress and faced a growing backlash from frightened American seniors, the parallels end there. Democratic health care proposals, including the public option centerpiece, have maintained broad popular support while voters never trusted Bush or his party when it came to Social... more Posted on September 7, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	RNC's Steele Backs - and Opposes - Medicare Cuts If nothing else the GOP is an irony producing machine. The same Republican Party which fought to block Medicare in the 1960's and tried to gut it in the 1990's is now pretending to be the defender of the popular government-run health care program for America's seniors. RNC chairman Michael Steele is just the latest to deploy the elderly as human shields in the GOP battle to halt Democratic health care reform at all costs. But by both opposing and... more Posted on September 1, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bill Bradley's Airball on Health Care Compromise In a New York Times op-ed Sunday, former New Jersey Senator and legendary New York Knicks forward Bill Bradley looked back to the future of health care reform. Citing his own role in the deal with Ronald Reagan that produced the 1986 overhaul of the tax code, Bradley optimistically insisted, "a grand bipartisan compromise is still possible with health care." But in declaring, "The bipartisan trade-off in a viable health care bill is obvious: Combine universal coverage with malpractice tort... more Posted on August 31, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Canadians Warned to Get Health Insurance for U.S. Travel Traffic in Vancouver, as I learned the hard way during a recent trip to British Columbia, is a nightmare. The crisis has become so severe that the city is now home to North America's only commercial radio station dedicated 24/7 to traffic reports. But judging from the ads on AM 730, the only thing Canadians seem to fear more than complete gridlock in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics is having a medical emergency while traveling in the United States.... more Posted on August 28, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	GOP: Health Care Needs More Senate Votes Than Social Security, Medicare Once upon a time - a time before the 2006 midterm elections consigned the GOP to minority status in Congress, a bill generally required 51 votes in the Senate to become law. But not content to rest on their record for filibusters in the 110th term, roadblock Republicans now insist even 60 votes aren't enough. But while Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demand "75 to 80" votes to pass health care reform, it's worth remembering... more Posted on August 21, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The 5 Symptoms of Incurable Republican Schizophrenia The Mayo Clinic, the world famous institution cited by all sides in the contentious health care debate, defines schizophrenia as a serious brain disorder "in which reality is interpreted abnormally" resulting in "hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior." Apparently, that affliction is now running rampant among supporters of the Republican Party. As recent polling about conservative beliefs regarding Medicare, taxes, supposed "death panels," President Obama's citizenship and more shows, the crisis of Republican schizophrenia has reached epidemic proportions. Here,... more Posted on August 20, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	America Wins When Democrats Go It Alone Back in January, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman presciently warned President Obama about the GOP's bad faith in negotiating the stimulus bill, announcing, "Look, Republicans are not going to come on board." Now Krugman's paper is reporting the White House may finally be learning its lesson and planning to "go it alone" on health care reform. Which is just as well. If the history of the past 30 years teaches us anything, it's that bipartisanship is a one-way street... more Posted on August 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	CBS News Slams AARP, Promotes Right-Wing ASA Instead As its 2003 support for President Bush's overpriced, unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit showed, the AARP can make some strange political bedfellows. Buti in a segment Monday slamming the 40 million member organization over its role in the current health care reform debate, CBS News made some strange bedfellows of it own. Its content-free coverage of disgruntled AARP members not only helped propagate Republican fear-mongering about mythical cuts to Medicare benefits. As it turns out, CBS essentially aired... more Posted on August 18, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Obama Falling Victim to Krugman's Law. Again. Following President Obama's lead, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday announced that a public option is "not the essential element" of the administration's health insurance reform push. Sadly, that development seems to signal that, as with the stimulus package, Obama has again fallen into a trap of his own making. In his quixotic quest for bipartisanship, the President is offering major concessions that will nonetheless earn him zero support from his "unreasoning, unappeasable" Republican opposition. Call it... more Posted on August 16, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Right-Wing Rage: Recurring Symptom of a Preexisting Condition There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful Deathers, raging Teabaggers and town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of the debate. And it's all a recurring symptom, Rick Perlstein argues in the Washington Post, of a nation in which "crazy is a preexisting condition." In his instant... more Posted on August 15, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Scare: When Politics is Entertainment "When politics is just another form of entertainment," I lamented in a presentation on the 2008 campaign last year, "the first thing that suffers is the truth." And so it is with the incendiary health care debate and so much else of what now passes for political discourse in the United States. Bolstered by flame-throwing right-wing media and complicit Republican leaders, the demonstrably false "death panels" myth refuses to die. New polling shows that the town hall festivals of fury... more Posted on August 14, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Smoking Grassley on Health Care Reform After his predictable experience with unified Republican obstructionism on the stimulus bill, President Obama must be high if he thinks there's a glimmer of hope for bipartisan cooperation on health care reform. Not because Sarah Palin is doubling-down on her "death panels" lie or Newt Gingrich is now fear-mongering over end-of-life care for the elderly he staunchly advocated just months ago. No, Obama's latest bad trip is thanks to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. One week after meeting with the President... more Posted on August 13, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Tom Delay and Fred Thompson, Death Panelists Slowly but surely, the mainstream media and even some Republican politicians are starting to roll back the GOP's vicious lies and fear-mongering over what Sarah Palin deemed Obama's "death panels." Ironically, many of the same conservatives who demanded the federal government should make the end-of-life decision for Terri Schiavo are labeling optional Medicare-funded consultations "euthanasia." As it turns out, the Republican luminaries Fred Thompson and Tom Delay would deny other Americans both the right and the support to make the... more Posted on August 11, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	What's the Matter with Oklahoma? As the ever more combustible health care debate rages across America, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the conflict and its contradictions. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most Republican in the nation, giving John McCain a whopping 31% win over Barack Obama. Meanwhile in Washington, its congressional delegation of James Inhofe, Tom Coburn and John Sullivan... more Posted on August 9, 2009 \| Comments (12)

	Town Halls, Teabaggers, Obama Birthers and Nixonland Once in a rare while, a book captures the spirit of its age. So it is with Nixonland, Rick Perlstein's stunning chronicle of the rise and fall of Tricky Dick. But his story of the "fracturing of America" isn't simply the harrowing tale of how Nixon, "a serial collector of resentments," fanned the flames of racism, anti-communism and the budding culture war to take power in his time. As the hateful rhetoric and dangerous tactics of furious Birthers, raging Teabaggers... more Posted on August 8, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Domestic Spying Ally Cornyn Now Fears Obama Data Collection If nothing else, Republican Senator John Cornyn is an irony producing machine. During the Terri Schiavo affair, the former Texas Supreme Court Justice was at the forefront of the GOP campaign to intimidate and threaten judges. Now after his fierce defense of President Bush's regime of illegal NSA domestic surveillance, Cornyn is comically warning that the Obama administration has launched a sinister "data collection program" to promote health care reform. Back in December 2005, Cornyn dismissed the New York Times'... more Posted on August 5, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	GOP Returns to 2000 Dade County Recount Playbook Every football coach will tell you: if a play works, keep running it until the defense stops you. And so it is with the health care debate. Facing overwhelming public support for health care reform, right-wing groups have deployed mobs to disrupt events and "rattle" Democratic politicians in Austin, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and across the country. As the bitter 2000 recount battle in Dade County, Florida showed, that model of intimidation and manufactured outrage has a proven track record of success... more Posted on August 4, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	GOP Turns to Scare Tactics, Double-Talk on Medicare In his latest fear-mongering on health care reform, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that Democrats are intent on "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare." Of course, McConnell's statement isn't merely false, it is comically so. After all, even as the program marked its 44th anniversary this week, his Republican colleagues like Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Price (R-GA) continued the GOP's decades-long war against "government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare." More laughable still, Mitch McConnell was among... more Posted on July 31, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Perpetual Republican War on Medicare Even as Republicans wage their new war against the latest efforts at health care reform, they are still fighting the last one. 44 years after the passage of Medicare, Republicans leaders like Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) are attacking Democratic proposals by blasting the popular health system for America's elderly. Sadly for the GOP, Medicare's proven success in reducing poverty among the elderly and its strong support from beneficiaries belies Price's claim that "nothing has had a greater negative effect on... more Posted on July 30, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Obama Fails Marketing 101 on Health Care Reform Seven years ago, President Bush's chief of staff Andy Card famously explained the administration's post-Labor Day campaign for war with Iraq, "'From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." As cynical and deceitful as the ensuing six month marketing effort was, President Bush at least knew what he was selling. Sadly, when it comes to health care reform, Barack Obama hasn't even defined the product yet. Obama's failure to date in marketing 101 - know... more Posted on July 29, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	CBO Slams GOP Claim on Public Option and Employer Coverage To be sure, the preliminary analyses from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have not always bolstered the Obama administration's case for health care reform. But on one vital issue - the impact of the so-called "public option" on employer-provided health care in the U.S.- the CBO numbers backed the administration's case and decimated another Republican talking point. Even as a bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee members reportedly reached a deal that would remove the public option from its version of... more Posted on July 28, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Family Health Insurance Premiums to Reach $22,000 by 2019 Whatever you think of the merits of President Obama's claim that the current American health care system is "unsustainable," the assertion is indisputable when it comes to the trajectory of insurance premiums. In a new analysis, the Center for American Progress forecasts the cost of the average family insurance policy to skyrocket from $13,000 today to over $22,000 by 2019. Pointing to the estimate from the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services forecast that per capita medical... more Posted on July 25, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Republican 10 Point Plan for Health Care After Rep. Roy Blunt, leader of the supposed House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, suggested Thursday that Republicans won't offer a health care plan of their own, Minority Leader John Boehner insisted one was still in the works. Of course, the Republican plan as in 1993 is to stop health care reform at all costs to prevent an enduring Democratic majority. Bill Kristol, who told Republicans 16 years ago that there was "no crisis" justifying health care reform then, now... more Posted on July 24, 2009 \| Comments (6)

	Jindal Parrots Rove's 100 Million Health Care Ploy After going to ground following his calamitous prime-time response to President Obama's address to Congress in February, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has stepped back onto the national stage to insert himself in the health care debate. But while his Wall Street Journal op-ed claims to show "how to make health care reform bipartisan," Jindal's simply took a page from Karl Rove's playbook. That includes regurgitating Rove's charge that a public option will lead 100 million Americans to change health plans,... more Posted on July 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	McConnell, Bush and Delay: No One Goes Without Health Care Despite 50 million uninsured, another 25 million underinsured, a steep drop-off in employer-provided coverage, costs forecast to rise by 9% in 2010, 1 in 5 Americans delaying needed treatment and medical bills involved in over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Mitch McConnell pretends to fear reform which "denies, delays, or rations health care." As it turns out, the Senate Minority Leader like fellow Republican George W. Bush and Tom Delay believes no one goes without health care in America; they just... more Posted on July 20, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	ABC's Tapper Slams Obama on Health Care Choice Fresh off revelations he offered disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford kid glove treatment in exchange for an exclusive interview, ABC's Jake Tapper has once again committed journalistic malpractice. The President's pledge to Americans that under his health care proposals "you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" isn't literally true, Tapper insists, because employers could still change or drop coverage altogether for their workers. Of course, Tapper ignores that employer-provided health care is already disappearing at an... more Posted on July 17, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Care Denied, Delayed and Rationed As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today. McConnell was... more Posted on June 20, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	John Ensign Praises Club Gitmo, Slams U.S. Health Care Nothing, it would seem, pleases the Republican mind more than regurgitating demonstrably false and shockingly mean-spirited talking points. So Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign must been ecstatic to score a twofer last week. In a single sentence, Ensign not only faithfully reproduced the GOP's "Club Gitmo" talking point, but resuscitated the old Republican claim that there is no health care crisis. Ensign's back-handed jab at the American health care system came even as he was insisting the Guantanamo Bay detention... more Posted on May 19, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The GOP War on Doctors, Patients and Health Care Reform Back in 1993, Bill Kristol mobilized Republicans to block the Clinton health care plan with an infamous two- word talking point, "no crisis." Now 16 years later, GOP pollster and master of double-speak Frank Luntz is offering conservatives a new lexicon for scuttling President Obama's health care initiatives. While feigning support for "reform," Luntz insists, Republicans should oppose Obama by warning of threats to the "doctor-patient relationship." Of course, the President is threatening no such thing. And as it turns... more Posted on May 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	One Psychiatrist, Two Psychologists and Torture This was not a proud week for the American mental health profession. On Thursday, ABC News documented the essential role of two $1,000 a day psychologists contracted by the CIA to architect its detainee waterboarding program. And on Friday, Harvard-trained psychiatrist turned right-wing water carrier Charles Krauthammer rationalized the Bush torture regime for his readers in the Washington Post. In the same article in which ABC briefly acknowledged its role in propagating former CIA agent John Kiriakou's misinformation about the... more Posted on May 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Wisdom of Politico: Right Angry with President It Opposed It's not for nothing that Politico is (or should be) known as the ESPN of politics, highlighting the contest but not the content of American democracy. One day after President Obama as promised signed an executive order reversing the draconian Bush restrictions on stem cell research, Politico focused on the grievances and disappointment of hard line social conservatives. Of course, while neglecting to mention that overwhelming majorities of the American people and their representatives in Congress backed President Obama on... more Posted on March 10, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Distracted President: Bush, Stem Cells and 9/11 Within minutes of President Obama's reversal of George W. Bush's strict limits on federal support for embryonic stem cell research, the Republican noise machine was reliably regurgitating its "distracted president" talking point. But while House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's sound bite was faithfully repeated by Time's Mark Halperin, apparently lost in the phony debate which followed was history's most recent - and tragic - example of presidential distraction. That is, while George W. Bush was single-mindedly focused on stem cells... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Republicans, Science and Manufacturing Uncertainty On Monday, President Obama as promised reversed George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal support for stem cell research in the United States. But just as important as that key step was its larger message that this White House rejects the politicization of science which has dominated Republican strategy for a generation. And at the heart of that cynical subservience to business interests and social conservatives alike has been one of the Republican Party's most destructive tactics, manufacturing uncertainty. After... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Majorities in Congress, U.S. Back Obama on Stem Cell Research On Monday, President Obama will reportedly reverse George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. But while coverage in press outlets including CBS, Politico and the New York Times has focused on a "controversy" that is "certain to draw criticism from anti-abortion and religious groups," lost in the consensus media narrative is the overwhelming support for the research both in Congress and among the American people overall. To be sure, embryonic stem cell research has enjoyed... more Posted on March 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Kristol Calls for a Repeat of 1990's GOP Obstructionism When it comes to blocking President Obama's economic stimulus plan, what is old is new for the conservative movement. Fearing a permanent Democratic majority if Bill Clinton succeeded in passing his health care reform package, Bill Kristol in 1993 famously rallied Republicans with a memo urging his party to halt it at all costs. With Congressional Republicans and right-wing talking heads alike now circling the wagons, history is apparently repeating itself. Afraid not that Obama's plan might fail, but that... more Posted on February 4, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Obama Reverses Bush Course on Reproductive Rights When it comes to Americans' reproductive rights, it's amazing what a difference one week - and one new president - makes. On Sunday, President Bush offered a final parting gift to anti-abortion extremists in the form of "National Sanctity of Human Life Day." But by Thursday, President Barack Obama marked the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade by declaring "I remain committed to protecting a woman's right to choose." And on Friday, Obama will reverse... more Posted on January 23, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Red States Show Highest Teen Birth Rates Just days after Bristol Palin officially became the poster child for her mother's failed abstinence-only sex education policy, a new report from the CDC revealed that in 2006 Alaska experienced the nation's fastest growing teen birth rate. While Mississippi suddenly surpassed Texas to earn the dubious leadership distinction, it comes as no surprise that the 10 worst performing states all voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Overall, teen birth rate jumped in 26 states, combining to reverse a 15-year... more Posted on January 8, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Study Shows Teens Unfaithful to Virginity Pledges What do Americans who took virginity pledges have in common with those who voted for George W. Bush for President? For one, many people in both groups later denied they did any such thing. And to be sure, they got screwed just the same. Those are just two of the findings from a new study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Looking at previous data regarding premarital sexual behavior, the analysis focuses "on teens who had similar values... more Posted on December 29, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's Final Double Standard on Religious Discrimination In the last throes of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has been nothing if not consistent with his flurry of midnight regulations. Whether the topic is mining on public lands, mountain-top removal, endangered species, clean water or power plant emissions, Bush will try to saddle Barack Obama with last-minute rule changes invariably favoring business interests over health or environmental concerns. But in one area, President Bush is cementing a glaring if predictable double-standard. While faith-based charities receiving federal funds... more Posted on December 13, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	New Study Refutes Justice Kennedy on Post-Abortion Syndrome In one of the most condescending and baseless Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." Now 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research concluded that there is no evidence to support the mythical "post-abortion syndrome" hyped by anti-abortion forces - and regurgitated by Justice Kennedy in Gonzales v. Carhart. The new research from... more Posted on December 4, 2008 \| Comments (5)

	Sweeping Bush Rule to Limit Abortion, Birth Control Access During a discussion of abortion in the final presidential debate, Republican John McCain shocked millions of Americans with his sneering remarks and derisive air quotes when it came to the "health of the mother." Now as he prepares to leave office, President George W. Bush is making that condescension towards American women the law of the land. His eleventh hour so-called "right of conscience" regulation would allow health care workers of all stripes to refuse to provide abortion services, artificial... more Posted on December 2, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	History Repeating as GOP Looks to Block Health Care Reform When it comes to blocking Barack Obama's health care plan, what is old is new for the conservative movement. Fearing a permanent Democratic majority if Bill Clinton succeeded in passing his health care reform package, Bill Kristol in 1993 famously authored a memo urging Republicans to halt it at all costs. Now in the wake of the GOP's latest blowout at the ballot box, its water carriers in right-wing think-tanks and media are calling for history to repeat itself. In... more Posted on November 24, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Palin, GOP Platform Ignore McCain on Same-Sex Marriage Ban Bloggers left and right took notice Monday of Sarah Palin's seeming split with running mate John McCain over the Federal Marriage Amendment. But overlooked in Palin's announcement that she supports a constitutional ban on same sex marriage is that hers - and not McCain's - is the official position of the Republican Party platform. In her interview with CBN, Palin parted company with McCain over the need for enshrining a prohibition on marriage for gay Americans in the United States... more Posted on October 21, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Caves on Draconian GOP Abortion Platform In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric Wednesday, Cindy McCain seemed surprised to learn that her husband John wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. But as it turns out, the surprises hardly end there for the McCains when it comes to abortion and the 2008 Republican platform. By rejecting John McCain's limited proposed exemptions for cases involving rape, incest and the life of the mother, the GOP's hard-line abortion banning plank echoes not its presidential nominee, but his running... more Posted on September 7, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Camp Joins Bush and Delay: There Are No Uninsured As I've noted previously, what passes for John McCain's health care plan is virtually identical to the stillborn scheme from George W. Bush. Now, the McCain campaign has joined President Bush and indicted former House Majority Leader Tom Delay in offering a novel solution - denial - to the problem of America's 46 million uninsured. As it turns out, they simply don't exist. That's the word from the architect of John McCain's health care proposals, John Goodman. No one in... more Posted on August 28, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Nasty, Brutish and Short: New Study on Life in America In 2007, Americans learned that they had relinquished their 200-year hold on the title of world's tallest people. Now a devastating new report shows that across a growing range of indicators of health, wealth and education, Americans simply aren't measuring up. The "Measure of America" study by the American Human Development Project (funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation) documents a laggard United States trailing other leading advanced economies. Reflecting growing income inequality and the... more Posted on July 17, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	McCain AWOL as Senate Overrides Bush Medicare Veto President Bush this week played a game of chicken on Medicare - and lost. Congress easily overrode Bush's veto of legislation designed to prevent an 11% cut in physicians' compensation under the health care program for elderly Americans. And speaking of chicken, John McCain was nowhere to be found. On June 26, Congressional Republicans led by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell blocked action by Democrats to avert the looming July cut in fees to doctors serving Medicare patients. While Barack... more Posted on July 17, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	CBS Shows GOP "Emergency Room" Health Care Plan in Action In a disturbing report on Wednesday, CBS News offered Americans a glimpse of their health care future under President Bush, John McCain and their Republican allies. Detailing two cases of patients dying untreated and unnoticed in New York and Los Angeles emergency rooms, the story shows the exceptions that may increasingly become the rule. Call it the Republicans' "Emergency Room" health care plan. During a July 2007 visit to Cleveland, President Bush unveiled his emergency room cure for the ills... more Posted on July 3, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain's AIDS Mentor Coburn Blocks Senate PEPFAR Bill A year after he admitted "you've stumped me" when asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV, John McCain once again finds himself in the AIDS spotlight. On Wednesday, Americans learned that arch-conservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) is blocking Senate action on a proposed tripling of President Bush's global AIDS program. That would be the same Tom Coburn John McCain extolled in March 2007 as "the guy I really respect" when it comes to policy for AIDS and contraceptives. As... more Posted on June 13, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Triple Whammy for State Health Insurance Mandates Over the past several days, a flurry of stories has raised red flags about the prospects for state-based health care mandates. On Saturday, the AP reported that soaring costs are buffeting the pioneering insurance mandate program in Massachusetts. Just days earlier, the New York Times described a Massachusetts primary care system now swamped with new enrollees seeking treatment. And complicating matters further, the deepening recession is hitting state budgets hard, producing a financial crisis almost certain to halt the expansion... more Posted on April 13, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	John McCain's Health Care Crisis John McCain is facing a major health care crisis. Not so much his own, though questions abound about the Republican presidential nominee's bouts with skin cancer. No, as the Boston Globe details, it is the feeble McCain health care plan itself which is terminally flawed. Which isn't to say McCain's age and medical history aren't a concern of his campaign. While the McCain camp has repeatedly delayed releasing his medical records, the New York Daily News is reporting that McCain... more Posted on April 6, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	U.S. Health Care in Red and Blue A new study released last week revealed a Republican Party ever more out of touch with the mushrooming crisis of the American health care system. Predictably, 68% of Republicans believe the U.S. has the best health system in the world, compared to only three in 10 Democrats. Ironically, those findings come just as new studies show a growing "income gap" in Americans' life expectancy and the painful impact of rising health care costs on Americans' stagnant wages. Most ironic, the... more Posted on March 24, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's AIDS Politics On his five nation swing through Africa, President Bush once again revealed the two inescapable truths of his AIDS diplomacy. First, as I noted last May, Bush never hesitates to use AIDS funding to provide air cover in his failing struggle to sway global opinion. And second, even thousands of miles from home, George W. Bush will kowtow to the religious right back in the United States. Greeted in Africa by banners proclaiming "Thank you for helping fight malaria and... more Posted on February 18, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush a Block Off the Old S-CHIP On Saturday, President Bush scored a triple victory when he quietly signed a bill extending the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) through March 2009. First, the President teed up "socialized medicine" as the definitive 2008 GOP talking point in response to any new health care initiatives coming from the Democratic Party. Second, he added another win for the GOP campaign of obstructionism, blocking Democratic successes at any cost in the hope of painting Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as... more Posted on December 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Reagan Debunked Huckabee's AIDS Bigotry - in 1987 Like all of the 2008 Republican White House hopefuls, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is quick to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan. But when it came to the AIDS crisis, President Ronald Reagan was positively enlightened compared to the extremist Senate candidate Huckabee years later. As it turns out, everything Mike Huckabee argued in response to the AIDS epidemic in 1992 - quarantining victims, blaming gay Americans, decrying federal funding to fight the disease - Ronald Reagan himself debunked... more Posted on December 9, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Employer-Provided Health Coverage Continues to Decline While the debate over the health care crisis in America remains focused on the expansion of S-CHIP and the competing proposals of the 2008 presidential candidates, a new study revealed the continuing and steady decline of employer-based health coverage in the United States. Once the lynchpin of the U.S. health care system, workplace health insurance now covers only 59.7% of Americans, down from 64.2% in 2000. And making matters worse, surging health care costs, insurance premiums and employees' own contributions... more Posted on November 8, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Laura Bush: Policy Maker, Not Stereotype On Sunday, First Lady Laura Bush revealed a new side of her persona to the American people: policymaker. Describing herself "involved for a long time in policy," Mrs. Bush decried the Stepfordesque stereotype she claimed is applied to her. But given her past public statements and policy roles to date, Americans should be forgiven for chuckling in response. The still popular First Lady made her comments during an attempt to defend the indefensible, her husband's veto of the expansion of... more Posted on October 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush to Stay "Relevant" with Holsinger Recess Appointment? ThinkProgress speculates this morning that President Bush will give a recess appointment to James Holsinger, his bizarre and wildly homophobic nominee for Surgeon General. For the White House, Holsinger's quackery and desire to "cure gays" not only makes him a very attractive successor to the disagreeable Richard Carmona. More importantly, a recess appointment in the face of overwhelming opposition from the Senate Health Committee helps President Bush "ensure that I am relevant." It's just another part of George W. Bush's... more Posted on October 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Supreme Irony: Frost Attacks Continue as Ex-Viacom Chief Wins Tuition Case While Republican politicians, conservative commentators and the right-wing blogosphere continued their jihad against the private school scholarship of 12 year old S-CHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost, the Supreme Court Wednesday quietly handed the son of multimillionaire former Viacom CEO Tom Freston private school tuition courtesy of New York taxpayers. Frost, as you'll recall, is the Maryland child who delivered the Democratic response on September 29th to President Bush's veto of the bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Frost,... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Hat Trick with S-CHIP Veto As White House press secretary Dana Perino promised Tuesday, President Bush on Wednesday "quietly" and "without ceremony" vetoed the expansion of the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Making good on his threat to block the additional $35 billion in funding over five years to boost the number of children covered under S-CHIP from 6.6 million to 10 million, Bush achieved three objectives - the proverbial hat trick - in one stroke of his veto pen. First, the President teed... more Posted on October 3, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	CBS News Resurrects Bill Frist In the age of Katie Couric, CBS Evening News has become synonymous with journalism as puffery and the interview as hagiography. But on Wednesday, Couric and correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reached a new low in a fawning profile of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In just a few minutes, CBS helped abet the conversion of the Schiavo misdiagnosing, AIDS myth propagating, feline dissecting, partisan hatchet man into a noble crusader for children's health. As I wrote earlier this month,... more Posted on September 27, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	New Jersey Fights Bush Over S-CHIP Cutbacks In August, the Bush administration fired a shot across the bow of those advocating the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Last week, New Jersey Governor John Corzine fired back. First, a little background. Last month, the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed separate packages adding an additional 3.3 million children to the 6.6 million already insured under the program covering low income families. The White House, hoping to block the expansion of the popular S-CHIP program, retaliated... more Posted on September 17, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi In November 2005, Perrspectives reviewed the PBS Frontline documentary, The Last Abortion Clinic. The segment detailed the relentless, draconian and largely successful efforts by anti-choice forces to restrict women's reproductive rights in Mississippi. Now two years later in the wake of the Gonzales v. Carhart decision upholding the so-called partial birth abortion ban, NBC News has an update on the desperate struggle of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. As PBS made clear, anti-choice extremists have made abortions virtually unobtainable... more Posted on September 9, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Save the Children Endorses Bad Medicine with Dr. Bill Frist The non-governmental organization Save the Children has rightly earned a reputation for bringing the best practices in sustainable development and family health care to developing nations around the world. But in selecting Dr. Bill Frist as its front-man for its new "Survive to 5" campaign against childhood mortality, Save the Children has chosen the wrong prescription. The global Survive to 5 initiative is a laudable and natural extension to Save the Children's historic commitment to battling infant mortality. Preventable diseases,... more Posted on September 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Hillary Clinton's Health Care Inoculation Strategy When it comes to health care, Hillary Clinton of all the presidential candidates faces a special burden. As her rivals left and right unveil their health care plans, Senator Clinton is moving cautiously, as if seeking a vaccine to protect her from a recurrence of her 1990's experience. Call it Hillary's Inoculation Strategy: go slow, go small, and go with your enemies. No doubt, Hillary Clinton faces a daunting challenge over health care in the 2008 race. Her leadership of... more Posted on August 25, 2007 \| Comments (8)

	Bush Repeats His Texas War on Children's Health Insurance In Washington this week, the White House renewed George W. Bush's war against children's health care that dates back to his days as Governor of Texas. Just two weeks after the House and Senate each approved major expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), the Bush administration announced draconian new eligibility rules that would trim thousands of low income children from the rolls. But unlike his Texas two-step when he claimed credit for a program he fought tooth... more Posted on August 23, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Studies: Americans Shorter, Living Shorter Lives New statistics released this week show that Americans are once again coming up in short when it comes to the health of nations. Just weeks after researchers found that Americans had relinquished their crown as the world's tallest people to the Dutch, a new study revealed that life expectancy in the U.S. had plummeted to 42nd worldwide. The data, compiled by the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics, shows a precipitous drop in the U.S. ranking from... more Posted on August 12, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Giuliani Recycles Bush Health Care Plan While the field of 2008 GOP White House hopefuls continues to distance itself from President Bush, Rudy Giuliani today endorsed the moribund Bush health care plan lock, stock and barrel. And speaking on the eve of the President's looming veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) expansion, Giuliani made it clear he shares the same blighted market-driven philosophy as Bush. In New Hampshire today, Giuliani like Bush made a $15,000 family health care tax deduction to purchase private... more Posted on July 31, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Suppressing Votes - and Science Two stories this weekend presented different faces on the unwavering - and perhaps criminal - zeal of the Bush White House to acquire and maintain power. On Friday, PBS Now reported how a massive Republican "vote caging" scheme targeted minority (read Democratic) voters in key 2004 battleground states. And today, the Washington Post revealed that Bush HHS appointee William R. Steiger blocked the release of Surgeon General Richard Carmona's 2006 global health report for purely political reasons. Suppressing votes and... more Posted on July 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	S-CHIP On Bush's Shoulder With his vocal opposition to the expansion of the S-CHIP program to provide health care coverage for more of America's children, President Bush is returning to the same tried and true formula he first pioneered in Texas. That is, Bush initially fought the legislation on ideological grounds before caving to popular pressure and grudgingly accepting some version of the bill. Then, as with the Texas S-CHIP program, the Texas Patients Bill of Right and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit,... more Posted on July 19, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	Plan B and a Surge - in the U.S. In Washington this week, former Bush Surgeon General Richard Carmona described what happens when radical conservative politics and ideology replace science at the basis for public health policy. But one story this week - the booming over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive - shows the benefits to Americans' health when those right-wing barriers are removed. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that sales of Plan B are forecast to double to $80 million in 2007. That increase was... more Posted on July 14, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Politics and Crime at the FDA On the same day that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona told Congress about the politicization of his office by the White House, a bizarre story from China served as a reminder of other past Bush wrong-doing at the FDA. The Beijing government punished the former head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration for approving bogus medicine in exchange for cash. Which sounds like President Bush's former FDA chief, Dr. Lester Crawford. As you may recall, Crawford mysteriously resigned in... more Posted on July 10, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	SiCKO Required Reading: U.S. Health Care by the Numbers Michael Moore's controversial film SiCKO opens nationwide this weekend. Hailed by critics and widely praised across much of the political spectrum, Moore's look at the failing American health care system is already generating the predictable smear campaign from the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical lobby and their allies on the right. But before the inevitable discussions about the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the U.S. health care system and the plight of insured middle class American come to dominate the... more Posted on June 29, 2007 \| Comments (30)

	Health Care the Latest Red State Failure A new study released this week revealed that Americans' health care varies dramatically from state to state. It should come as no surprise that in general Southern states ranked at the bottom in almost every category. After all, whether the issue is health, education, working conditions, or virtually any indicator of social pathology, things are worst in precisely those states that voted for George W. Bush. The Commonwealth Fund report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System... more Posted on June 17, 2007 \| Comments (30)

	How to Make the Stem Cell Bill Veto-Proof Just two days after the third anniversary of the death of Ronald Reagan, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill easing restrictions on stem cell research favored by his family. But with President Bush promising to once again veto what he called "a recycled old bill," Democrats will need a new strategy to win one for the Gipper. As I wrote back in April, all the stem cell bill needs is a name change - and a little help... more Posted on June 8, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's AIDS PR Scam On Wednesday, President Bush once again turned to AIDS for air cover in the battle for global opinion. Facing the prospect of universal condemnation by the international community for a wildly unpopular American policy, President Bush tried to change the topic and buy some global goodwill by announcing massive new U.S. AIDS funding. This time, Bush is trying to deflect criticism of American global warming policy in advance of next week's G8 summit. In 2003, of course, his problem was... more Posted on May 31, 2007 \| Comments (11)

	The GOP War on the Doctor-Patient Relationship From the moment he entered the White House, President Bush proclaimed the "doctor-patient relationship" the centerpiece of his policies when it comes to Americans' health care. Just not, as it turns out, for American women. As today's Supreme Court decision upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act shows, President Bush and his Republican allies don't care much at all about the doctor-patient relationship when it comes to women's reproductive health and safety. A quick look back shows that "protecting... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Marketing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban On its face, today's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart is a victory for abortion foes seeking to ban one rarely used but seemingly horrific procedure. But in the bigger picture, the Court's validation of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act is a landscape-changing triumph for conservatives' slippery slope campaign to chip away at the reproductive and privacy rights of American women. That's because anti-abortion forces never really cared about intact dilation and extraction, a rare practice used in... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Partial Responsibility: Democrats & the Court's Abortion Ruling In a calamitous setback for the reproductive rights of American women, the Supreme Court upheld the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act. In its 5-4 ruling, the Court handed Republican conservatives a major victory in their "slippery slope" campaign against choice. Sadly, the history shows that many Congressional Democrats were complicit in today's disastrous outcome. As I wrote back in 2004, significant numbers of Democrats in the House and Senate wavered when it came to protecting the health and safety of... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	How to Override the Bush Stem Cell Veto With Harry Reid's stem cell research bill headed to a Senate vote this week, Congressional Democrats and President Bush are on the brink of yet another confrontation. But while the White House is promising to repeat its 2006 veto, the ending can be different this time. All the Reid legislation needs is a name change - and a little help from Ronald Reagan. The failure to override President Bush's veto in 2006 shows that broad bipartisan backing in Congress, aggressive... more Posted on April 10, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Tommy Thompson and the Bush Kiss of Death On Wednesday, former Wisconsin Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson joined the increasingly crowded field in the 2008 Republican presidential race. But thanks to his enabling role in President Bush's Medicare prescription fiasco, Thompson's White House prospects were already dim even before last week's announcement. Like Michigan's John Engler and New Jersey's Christie Todd Whitman before him, Thompson is yet another new wave Republican Governor of the 1990's whose rising star was snuffed out by the reverse... more Posted on April 8, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	SOTU Preview: 10 Things to Watch Tuesday's State of the Union Address should offer Americans compelling viewing. After the GOP's electoral disaster in November and the resounding thud that greeted the "surge" in Iraq, the 2007 SOTU can be said to officially mark the last throes of the Bush presidency. In anticipation of tomorrow night's presidential flight of fantasy, here are 10 things to look for in the 2007 State of the Union: 1. An Unhealthy Vision As his Saturday radio address made clear, President Bush... more Posted on January 22, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Bush Flip-Flops on Plan B In a welcome change of course, the Bush administration ended its stonewalling of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive. After five years of outright deception and promises broken, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Barr Pharmaceuticals its blessing to proceed with OTC sales to women 18 and older. As Perrspectives reported two weeks ago ("Plan B's Tangled Web"), President Bush's looming flip-flop became apparent during the confirmation hearings of acting FDA chief Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. After... more Posted on August 24, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Plan B's Tangled Web President Bush's cynical efforts to block over the counter sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B have taken on almost comic proportions in recent days. But kowtowing to the radical right on Plan B has come at a steep price for Mike Leavitt, George Allen and other Republicans in the administration and Congress. The Senate confirmation hearings of acting FDA chief Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach offered a new chapter in the President's rearguard action to keep Plan B off drug... more Posted on August 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Wrist Slap for Bush Medicare Fraud Scully The Washington Post reported today former Bush Medicare and Medicaid administrator Thomas Scully agreed to pay back $10,000 for personal job-hunting trips he had charged to the government during his tenure. But while the Post piece provided a breezy overview of Scully's ethical indiscretions during his time at HHS, it completely omitted any mention of what should be his enduring legacy: threatening truth-telling subordinates with dismissal during the selling of President Bush's Medicare prescription plan. To fully appreciate Scully's sinister... more Posted on July 11, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Stem Cell Veto Threat is Dems' Opportunity In an interview with the Denver Post editorial board, Karl Rove signaled that President Bush would use the first veto of his presidency to block Congressional stem cell legislation. For Democrats, that veto threat could be just what the doctor ordered. In a nutshell, Bush's 2006 base-baiting, red meat strategy could well backfire when it comes to stem cell research. In May 2005, 50 Republicans joined a united Democratic block in passing the bi-partisan Castle-Degette bill by 238-194. (The House... more Posted on July 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Amazing Gracelessness In the Bible, Jesus cured the blind. In a bizarre White House Rose Garden press conference yesterday, President Bush chose to taunt them instead. During a rambling session with reporters following his Baghdad pop-in, Bush chided Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten for wearing sunglasses during the press conference: THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to ask that question with shades on? WALLSTEN: I can take them off. THE PRESIDENT: I'm interested in the shade look, seriously. WALLSTEN: All right, I'll... more Posted on June 15, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Laura Bush and the ABC's of AIDS On Friday, President Bush sent the only remaining popular member of his White House team to address the UN General Assembly meeting on HIV/AIDS. Just days after a UN study reported progress in slowing the spread of AIDS, a smiling First Lady Laura Bush demonstrated why her husband's United States may still be the biggest barrier to defeating the global scourge. A sure sign of the lack of seriousness of the Bush administration was the make up of the American... more Posted on June 3, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	Reagan and Bush in the Age of AIDS PBS this week aired "The Age of AIDS," perhaps the most powerful and devastating documentary on American television in years. The two part, four-hour special featured interviews and history from six continents and over a dozen countries detailing the path, the politics and the pain of 25 years of the AIDS pandemic. Perhaps the most disturbing thread running through "The Age of AIDS" is the myopic complicity of the American radical right in the needless death and suffering of thousands... more Posted on June 1, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	The Health of Nations: British, Canadians Healthier Than Americans Americans may share a common mother tongue with their Canadian and British friends, but when it comes to health care, they're speaking different languages. Their national health systems, emphasizing preventive care, appear to provide much better outcomes at dramatically lower cost than the ad hoc market-driven approach in the U.S. That's the clear message from two recent studies showing that the people of Canada and the UK are far healthier than Americans. A Harvard Medical School study in the upcoming... more Posted on May 31, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Bush to Disabled: "You Look Mighty Comfortable" It's been a banner week for the verbal incontinence of George W. Bush. Just days after telling a German reporter that the highlight of his presidency was "when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake," President Bush made a bizarre remark certain to charm disability advocates everywhere. Pitching his troubled Medicare prescription plan in Florida, President Bush said to a man in a wheelchair, "You look mighty comfortable." Just another example of "compassionate conservativism" in action. Hopefully, the... more Posted on May 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bitter Pills for Crawford, Limbaugh It was a mixed week for the Avenging Angel, punisher of conservative miscreants. Two evil doers of the right, Lester Crawford and Rush Limbaugh, found themselves in trouble this week for doing bad things with prescription pills. Sadly, only one faces the prospect of true justice. Dr. Crawford, the former head of the Bush FDA, faces a criminal inquiry for financial misdeeds and lying to Congress. Last fall, Crawford, a vet by training and a friend of big Pharma, reneged... more Posted on April 30, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Health Care Monopolies and the Massachusetts Model Last week, Massachusetts Governor and 2008 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney signed legislation mandating that all residents of the Commonwealth acquire health insurance. But while many analysts are lauding the Romney blueprint, a new American Medical Association report on the entrenchment of health insurance monopolies shows one of the many pitfalls of the Massachusetts model. On its face, the Massachusetts law seems like an innovative approach to providing health care coverage for all. Akin to auto insurance, all residents must... more Posted on April 18, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The Top 10 State of the Union Highlights Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The top 10 highlights: 1. Demonize the Democrats The President continued Karl Rove's 2006 electoral strategy to once again run on national security and brand the... more Posted on January 31, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Ford Joins GM on the Brink The American manufacturing sector took another body blow today as Ford announced massive layoffs beginning in 2007. As many as 30,000 employees at 14 Ford plants in North America, up to 21% of the company's hourly workforce of 82,000, could be impacted by 2012. The announcement by the #2 American automaker comes within weeks of similar devastating cuts at General Motors. As at GM, the United Auto Workers agreed to dramatic reductions in health care benefits at Ford, shifting expenses... more Posted on January 23, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Unhealthy Trends for 2006 If the closing weeks of 2005 are any indication, 2006 is rapidly shaping up as the year of the health care coverage crisis in the United States. Middle class Americans will join the 46 million uninsured in feeling the pain as companies trim benefits and shift costs to their employees under the guise of so-called consumer-driven health care. Judging from the results to date, the experience won't be a pleasant one. The looming crisis is much larger than just the... more Posted on December 30, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Bush League Economy Nothing, apparently not even the growing opposition to the war in Iraq, frustrates President Bush and the Republican Party more than Americans' consistently negative view of the economy. Despite 215,000 new jobs in November, stout 4.3% Q3 GDP growth and a whopping 4.7% gain in productivity, only 37% of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the economy. As one Wall Street analyst moaned on the RNC blog, "No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which... more Posted on December 8, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	GM and the War on Labor You can learn a lot about the state of class warfare in America just by reviewing the reaction to General Motors' recent announcement that it will lay off 30,000 workers and shutter a dozen plants in North America. While E.J Dionne at the Washington Post offered a thoughtful piece on the political responses to the impact of globalization and spiraling health care costs on manufacturing giants such as GM, Rich Lowry of the conservative National Review does what the right... more Posted on November 29, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Medicare's Prescription for Failure Last week saw the launch of the enrollment period for the new Medicare prescription drug plan. Judging by the initial reception by beneficiaries, Congress and the market alike, the Medicare drug benefit is off to a rocky start. That should come as a surprise to no one for a program that was designed to fail. All over the country, overwhelmed seniors wrestled with over 40 competing plans featuring conflicting formulary lists and dramatic geographic variations in premiums. Beneficiaries' confusion was... more Posted on November 23, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Blowback: Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback Washington is on pins and needles as all await word from CIA leak special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Reuters reports that Fitzgerald may convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to seek indictments. What began as an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative has grown to encompass perjury and obstruction of justice, and perhaps even cast doubt on the candor of the administration's rationale for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Bush White House is... more Posted on October 23, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	Medicaid's Fort Sumter When South Carolina makes the headlines, it's rarely good news for the United States or the American people. In 1828, South Carolina was the hotbed of the Nullification movement. In 1860, South Carolina's secession led the way to the Confederacy and in April the following year, fired the shots at Fort Sumter that started the Civil War. And over the past several years, South Carolina has been at the forefront of the movement to preserve the Confederate flag and heritage.... more Posted on August 16, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Stem Selling: The Ronald Reagan Life Legacy Act The momentum of politics and science is now with the Democrats in the battle to drive stem cell research in the United States. This week's announcement by South Korean researchers successfully producing healthy stem cells from the DNA of damaged tissue brought home the danger of the United States losing its leadership in the biotech sector. And new bi-partisan legislation in the House co-sponsored by Mike Castle (R-DE) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) shows that increasing numbers of Congressional Republicans will... more Posted on May 24, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	When Markets Attack Yesterday, AOL hero turned villain Steve Case announced his next new thing. Launching a company called Revolution with $500 million of his money, Case has the outsized goal of transforming the health care system for American consumers. But while the health care market may succeed in making Steve Case richer still, it will almost certainly continue to fail millions of Americans. Marrying his unique combination of consumer zealotry and business opportunism with an apparent growing awareness of his own mortality,... more Posted on April 5, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	To Err is Texan Three critical points have been almost entirely absent from the media's discussion of the Terri Schiavo affair. I've written about two and others in the blogosphere have done a great job addressing the third: 1. Moral Arguments Favoring the End of Life Support A thorough discussion of the very strong moral arguments in favor of honoring Terri Schiavo's end-of-life request to her husband has been completely missing in the media. For my take, see: "Schiavo, Mill and the Culture of... more Posted on March 21, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Schiavo, Mill and the Culture of Living President Bush often likes to speak of a �culture of life�, a catch phrase that neatly frames his opposition to reproductive choice and stem cell research. The tragic case of Terri Schiavo, now featuring dangerously irresponsible and unprecedented Congressional intervention, is only latest chapter in his conservative playbook. It is high time to end the melodrama of Republican political opportunism and regain control of this debate. Progressives must do this not because we�re �right� or because our position in this... more Posted on March 20, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	A Banner Day for Republican Fraud Q: What do the new Bush Medicare budget forecast and ex-Talon News reporter Jeff Gannon have in common? A: They are both frauds exposed on the same day. Medicon Today, the Bush administration revealed that its 10 year forecast for Medicare, including the supposed prescription drug benefit, will be $1.2 trillion. That's $1.2 trillion between 2006 and 2015, not the $400 billion sold to Congress in December of 2003 or the $534 billion figure updated only two months later and... more Posted on February 9, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Bush, Race and the State of the Union During the February 3rd segment of the Abrams Report on MSNBC, part of the discussion focused on President Bush's surprising and vocal support for DNA evidence funding during the State of the Union address. Abrams and his guests seemed mystified as to why President Bush, a man who presided over more executions than any other contemporaneous governor, would have a "born-again" revelation as to the importance of DNA evidence in securing defendants' rights. As with virtually everything else with this... more Posted on February 4, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	2004 State of the Union Flashback With President Bush's 2005 State of the Union approaching, my 2004 SOTU-eve critique of Bush's so-called Ownership Society still stands. State of Disunion Even with his shaky State of the Union address and dipping approval ratings, President Bush unfortunately remains in a strong position for the 2004 election. Saddam is captured, GDP is surging, and his reelection war chest has a staggering $100 million in the bank. And while his Democratic foes battle each other in primary contests across the... more Posted on January 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Bush Top 10 Flip Flop List Four years ago, George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for President, and famously set the moral tone - and expectations for his presidency: "So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God." It has not, of course, worked out that way. As we pointed out... more Posted on October 1, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Trial of John Edwards Within minutes of Senator John Edwards� selection by John Kerry as his running mate, the Republicans started their predictable onslaught of attacks on his national security experience and high-profile career as a trial lawyer. An instantaneously updated GOP web site called Edwards �a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers.� Trent Lott (whose wistful, public nostalgia for the days of Jim Crow cost him the Senate majority leadership) called him �a suing lawyer � that�s S-U-I-N-G lawyer.�... more Posted on July 8, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Slippery Slope Here we go again. Once again, the anti-choice movement, with support from congressional conservatives and President Bush, is pushing legislation that chips away at women�s reproductive rights. Once again, squeamish Democrats in the House and Senate are going along for the ride. And once again, they are playing directly into their opponents� hands, helping to bring about the gradual undermining of abortion rights... Continue reading "Slippery Slope"...... more Posted on February 25, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part VI: The Democrats' New American Bargain in Action In 2004, Democrats must answer the GOP assault on national unity with a program based on reciprocity, responsibility and opportunity that calls on the best in Americans and their government. On national security, Democrats must not only pass the threshold of credibility, they must demonstrate clear leadership compared to the GOP. There is no better way to do this, substantively and symbolically, than through national service. While the volunteer army currently seems sufficient to fight foes abroad such as Afghanistan... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part V: A New American Bargain Democrats need a new, revitalized public philosophy and politics not only to achieve victory in 2004, but also to have any hope of attaining majority status in the next decade. In contrast to a conservative Opt Out ideology increasingly at odds with the best American civic traditions, Democrats should seek to usher in the "Reciprocity Society." Characterized by shared national identity and values, commitment to common goals and public institutions, national service, mutual responsibility, and universal opportunity, the Reciprocity Society... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part IV: Identity Politics and the Threat from the Left Unfortunately, Democrats cannot credibly speak of a politics of national unity and common American interest unless they make a clear break with the identity politics, multi-culturalism, and group privileges of the party's left. Democrats during the Clinton reign in the 1990's made great progress overcoming two of the three barriers to the party gaining majority status: being trusted on national defense and to provide economic growth. On cultural issues, however, the Clinton program of "100,000 cops" and welfare reform (not... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part III: Branding the Opt Out Society Democrats in 2004 would do well to emulate two successful approaches of their opponents in branding the GOP and its Opt Out philosophy. In 1994 with Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and again with the 2000 Bush campaign, the Republicans succeeded in both labeling the Democrats as outside the mainstream while effectively positioning their own program in easily understood, hard hitting and, at least superficially, universally appealing sound bites. The result was and continues to be GOP domination of the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part II: On Your Own The impact of the Opt Out Society can be seen across the policies the Bush administration has pursued since coming to office. These are consistently defined by three characteristics. First is market idolatry; all public policy issues are framed in terms of market choice, competition, and privatization. From school vouchers to a market for pollution credits, any outcome that results is by definition the right one, since it was freely decided by the market. Second, the politics of the Opt... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part I: Introduction There's an old saying that says, "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." Another old saw goes "know your enemy." Truer words were never spoken as Democrats approach the 2004 elections. President Bush, fresh off his victory in Iraq, the staged performance on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and the capture of Saddam, has maintained strong approval ratings. But while the president wraps himself in the flag and the banner of unity in the American war against terror, the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)