From RawStory.com

Author: Sahil Kapur

Alan Grayson has introduced a Medicare buy-in bill.

"The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population," Grayson said. "That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’  It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair.  This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote."

The inclusion of a public option in the larger Democratic health care legislation has been a topic of immense debate. The Senate dropped the proposal in December and the final package is unlikely to include it. A Medicare buy-in option was also briefly considered but didn't survive.

The Florida freshman described the "adversarial relationship" he had with his insurance company when his bills skyrocketed during the birth of his twins, who were born early and spent months in the hospital. He said many Americans face similar problems, and that "every penny they spent on my care was a penny less for their profits."

"America needs a public option," he declared, lamenting the lack of competition in the private insurance industry. "That's why I've introduced this bill."

Seeking to clear up any doubts about the proposal, Grayson noted that it's "not a plan for subsidies" as "everyone would have to pay their own costs."

He labeled insurance companies as "the real death panels in this country" due to their widely-documented practices of denying care due to people with pre-existing conditions and rescinding coverage from sick patients.

The idea of expanding public health insurance has been highly controversial in Congress, with Republicans offering unanimous opposition and conservative Democrats reluctant to support it.

"I say to those people on the other side of the aisle, if you don't want to buy into the public option, but don't prevent me and my family and the ones who I love from doing the same," Grayson said. "Let us have our alternative."

The video is Grayson's speech on the House floor Tuesday, uploaded to YouTube.

By Brad Friedman on 3/8/2010 6:02PM  

DOJ TO REQUIRE ES&S TO SELL OFF ASSETS FROM DIEBOLD MERGER CITING ANTI-TRUST CONCERNS

The Department of Justice's Anti-trust division has determined that the purchase of Premier Election Solutions, Diebold Inc.'s recently renamed e-voting division, by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), has resulted in a voting machine monopoly. The DoJ and nine states that have joined in a lawsuit are suing to require ES&S to divest of the assets gained in the bargain-basement priced purchase of Diebold's e-voting outfit last September.

The merger with Diebold/Premier, ES&S's second largest competitor, had given ES&S, a private corporation which already controlled some 50% of U.S. elections with its electronic voting systems, a full 70% control of the votes cast in this country. The acquisition had been opposed by election integrity organizations, Hart Intercivic (a much smaller Austin-based competitor), the New York Times' editorial board, and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, and was being investigated by 14 different states along with the DoJ's anti-trust division... More...

As you've probably read, President Obama and Democrats in Congress are aiming to pass a final health care package before the end of March. Not every detail is decided yet, but the final package will most likely look like the plan President Obama released two weeks ago. (For more information, see below.)

The president has offered a proposal that resembles the health care bill the Senate passed in December, but with a few key fixes. It's definitely not the bill most of us hoped for at the start of this fight, but it does do some important things.

For more info, here are a few helpful links:

• An overview of the president's proposal from WhiteHouse.gov

• A CNN report on the highlights of Obama's health care proposal

• A ThinkProgress article on the president's proposal and the differences between it and the Senate legislation

Thanks for all you do.

By Simon Johnson from The Baseline Scenario

Listening to US officials, talking to legal experts, and waiting for an intense Senate debate on financial reform to begin, you can easily form the impression that “too big to fail” adequately describes our most serious future systemic banking problems.  It does not.

In September 2008, the large banks and quasi-banks at the heart of our financial system faced failure – and they were saved in the most immediate sense through actions taken by the Federal Reserve, but TARP (passed by Congress and run Treasury) also played a significant supporting role.

The Bush administration threw a small fiscal stimulus into the mix in early 2008, hoping to stave off recession; the Obama administration committed a much larger package at the start of 2009, aiming to prevent anything like a Second Great Depression.  This fiscal policy response was in direct reaction to problems caused by the overextension and near failure of the financial system

Do not make the mistake – for example of Secretary Geithner, talking to the New Yorker – of thinking (or implying) that “saving the financial system” did not involve spending a lot of taxpayer money to support the real economy.  Remember that if the economy crashes, asset prices fall, and banks’ problems become even more severe.

And try to avoid three further mistakes that are currently common.

1. “Because the government will lose little on its TARP capital injections into banks, the financial rescue ends up not being costly.”  The true fiscal cost arising from our recent financial excesses is the increase in net government debt held by the private sector.  This will likely amount to around 40 percentage points of GDP (i.e., relative to what the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline would have been otherwise).  That’s a huge fiscal cost.
2. “Deficits don’t matter.”  Eventually deficits matter – the fiscal costs incurred in saving our financial system mean higher taxes, relative to what would otherwise have been the case, for you and your children.  This is not a call for precipitate fiscal austerity; that would be a disaster.  But eventually we will get our fiscal house in order – and then don’t send to know for whom the tax bell tolls; it doesn’t doesn’t tinkle for Hank Paulson.
3. “We can save our financial system in the future, if we have the right tools – in the form of an appropriately designed resolution authority.” More...

Many Santa Rosa Democrats enjoyed our JJ Dinner last fall, including some or our friends from Okaloosa County.  They in turn have invited us to their KK Dinner.  Sounds like fun and the neighborly thing to do.

An interesting article in the Miami Herald today reported that Bill McCollum has dropped the ball when it comes to cracking down on Medicaid fraud. As Attorney General, McCollum has done such a poor job that he even admitted today that "there is room for improvement" and one of his fellow Republicans said McCollum "needs to get his butt in gear."
So, what does Bill McCollum's failure on Medicaid fraud mean for you? It means that he has failed to effectively recover our tax dollars defrauded from Medicaid that could reach up to $3.2 billion in taxpayer money defrauded from the state's Medicaid budget.
Yes, you are reading that right. Criminals stole up to $3,200,000,000 from Florida taxpayers--and Bill McCollum dropped the ball.
That is a lot more zeros than I am used to seeing. So, I started thinking, if he had recovered it all, what could we do with it? What should we do with it? I wanted to ask Floridians what they think and let Bill McCollum know.
Join me in voting for what you think should Florida have done with the $3.2 billion in Medicaid fraud if Bill McCollum more aggressively tackled the problem.
His Medicaid fraud unit is the second largest of its kind in the country, but was ranked 25th for fraud recovery and 39th in convictions. Their team deserves a new leader.
In times like these, there is no excuse for not cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse.
After talking with a few people and doing some research, I've found just a few ways we could used the money if Bill McCollum had recovered it. We could:

• Erase Florida's budget shortfall and put the state on solid financial footing
• Build 168 Miles of light rail construction and create 100,408 jobs
• Build 21 Solar power plants providing clean energy for 63,000 homes
• Offer a Brand new Mac laptop for every child in Florida's K-12 public schools
• Lay 640 miles of highways, and create 128,000 jobs as a result

Yes, that's right. If Bill McCollum would do his job, we could be creating jobs for Floridians, while investing in our state's future.
Join me in telling Bill McCollum how you would like to see your tax dollars spent, if he worked harder to recover that $3.2 Billion.
Thank you for offering your thoughts -- and we'll share what you and everyone else says next week.
Thanks,
Eric Jotkoff
Communications Director
Florida Democratic Party

School Issues -- Teacher's View

Legislative Candidate Debut

New Voting Machines

Monday, March 8, 6:00 pm

Santa Rosa Democratic Headquarters

5746 Stewart St., Milton

(Hwy 87, 7 blocks North of Milton High School on east side)

Rhoda Chavers, President of the Santa Rosa Professional Educators will be the featured speaker.  She will explain why  educators refused to sign onto stimulus funds for schools, the salary dispute with the school board, the class size amendment proposal, and school board candidates.

A Democrat has filed as a candidate to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of disgraced Ray  Sansom of House District 4 (includes Navarre and Precincts 41 & 23 of Santa Rosa County).  Qualifying closes at 11 am Monday, and she expects to make her campaign debut at our Pot Luck.  The Special Election will Be April 13.  Come to this event and meet her.

Jim Bryan, the Democratic candidate for our Congressional District is also expected to be present.

Santa Rosa County will have new voting machines this year.  Supervisor of Elections Ann Bodenstein will explain about these machines and election law changes.

Potlucks are open to the public and there is no charge.  Bring a dish to share.  Beverages are furnished.  There will be door prizes.

As a public service, we collect non-perishable food items in behalf of the Manna Food Bank at Potlucks.

One day we need to examine how brown-noses like Chris Matthews get on the airwaves in the first place. He seems SHOCKED that 51 Senate votes out of 100 is a majority. I guess he never had a civics class. This is also another good example of Matthews attempting to change the frame from “health care” to “prove you have the votes”. Chris can’t see the forest for the trees. Here Matthews again mistakes his viewers for fools. We were forced to watch this as a public service, however, due to the propaganda content I wouldn’t recommend it for the unprotected mind. There is more than enough misinformation in public discourse already. Chris Matthews contributes a larger volume of misleading BS than most.

From the Huffington Post – Thursday --

Republicans like a politician who stands up for what he believes -- even if he believes the Republican Party is populated by a bunch of "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals."

The candidate leading the Florida GOP primary to determine who will take on Rep. Alan Grayson, the Democrat who represents the Orlando-based district, is none other than Grayson himself, according to a poll paid for by his campaign. Grayson is a freshman congressman who has drawn scorn from the GOP and has quickly built a nationwide following of progressives.

The poll has Grayson leading the 13 Republicans -- among Republicans -- with 27.8 percent of the vote. The congressman who mocked the GOP health care plan by saying that it amounts to telling people not to get sick and if they do, to die quickly, received more support than all of the Republican candidates combined.  More...