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John Zoeller

NPR: Administration Touts Lower-Than-Expected Obamacare Premiums | Notes, Topic 5: Heal... - 0 views

teachers.dadeschools.net/...e8da40d65db3f13ac95ae2-85.html

Topic 5

shared by John Zoeller on 26 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • According to a released by the Department of Health and Human Services, "premiums nationwide will ... be around 16 percent lower than originally expected," and 95 percent of uninsured people live in a state with average premiums that are lower than expected.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 26 Sep 13
       
      So here's the simple takeaway: if allowed to do so, it SEEMS that Obamacare's insurance exchanges will work. Meaning, they will provide private health insurance coverage to people who need it at an affordable price.
  • John Zoeller on 26 Sep 13
     
    Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says "6 in 10 Americans who currently lack insurance will be able to find coverage that costs less than $100 a month" in health insurance exchanges set to open next week.
John Zoeller

4-Food Inc (transcript) - 5 views

teachers.dadeschools.net/...4_food-inc-transcript.html

shared by John Zoeller on 16 Dec 13 - No Cached
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      Agricultural revolution, yes...
  • It's the spinning of this pastoral fantasy.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      Make reference to the Persuaders here...
  • ...58 more annotations...
  • There is this deliberate veil, this curtain, that's dropped between us and where our food is coming from. The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.
  • The reality is a factory. It's not a farm.
  • enormous assembly lines
  • animals and the workers are being abused
  • a small group of multinational corporations who control the entire food system. From seed to the supermarket, they're gaining control of food
  • The whole industrial food system really began with fast food
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      The title of the dvd chapter is "Fast Food to All Food"
  • The McDonald brothers had a very successful drive-in, but they decided to cut costs and simplify. So they fired all their carhops, they got rid of most of the things on the menu and they created a revolutionary idea to how to run a restaurant. They basically brought the factory system to the back of the restaurant kitchen. They trained each worker to just do one thing again and again and again. By having workers who only had to do one thing, they could pay them a low wage and it was very easy to find someone to replace them. It was inexpensive food, it tasted good and this McDonald's fast food restaurant was a huge huge success.
  • When McDonald's is the largest purchaser of ground beef in the United States and they want their hamburgers to taste, everywhere, exactly the same, they change how ground beef is produced.
  • largest purchaser of potatoes
  • pork, chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, even apples
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      And so this demand changes how all of the market suppliers behave...
  • big big fast food chains want big suppliers
  • a handful of companies controlling our food system.
  • In the 1970s, the top five beef-packers controlled only about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control more than 80% of the market
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      These are both market forces...below, you will see how government policy is deeply involved...
  • We've never had food companies this big and this powerful in our history. Tyson, for example, is the biggest meat-packing company in the history of the world.
  • A company like Tyson owns the birds from the day they're dropped off until the day that they're slaughtered.
  • National Chicken Council
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      Special interest, yes, but also an industry association that provides expertise to its membership and to government regulators and elected representatives.
  • the integration of production, processing and marketing
  • It's all highly mechanized. So all the birds coming off those farms have to be almost exactly the same size. What the system of intensive production accomplishes is to produce a lot of food on a small amount of land at a very affordable price. Now somebody explain to me what's wrong with that.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      These two scenes are Tennessee chicken houses, one that supplies Tyson, the other Purdue. Note that these are likely formerly tobacco farmers. Changing social norms, and government policy, have decreased demand for tobacco.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      This, of course, is abusive...or not, depending upon your perspective: What the system of intensive production accomplishes is to produce a lot of food on a small amount of land at a very affordable price. Now somebody explain to me what's wrong with that...
  • When I wanted to understand the industrial food system, what I set about doing was very simple. I wanted to trace the source of my food.
  • What really surprised me most as I followed that food back to its source, I kept ending up in the same place, and that was a cornfield in Iowa
  • 100 years ago, a farmer in America could grow maybe 20 bushels of corn on an acre. Today, 200 bushels is no problem. That's an astonishing achievement for which breeders deserve credit, for which fertilizer makers deserve credit, for which pesticide makers all deserve credit.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      Productivity is an aspect of economic growth. When one sector becomes more productive, some resources can be reallocated to meet other market demands. Widespread productivity increases are even more helpful.
  • In the United States today, 30% of our land base is being planted to corn. That's largely driven by government policy, government policy that, in effect, allows us to produce corn below the cost of production. The truth of the matter is we're paid to overproduce, and it was caused by these large multinational interests. The reason our government's promoting corn-- the Cargills, the ADMs, Tyson, Smithfield-- they have an interest in purchasing corn below the cost of production. They use that interest and that extensive amount of money they have to lobby Congress to give us the kind of farm bills we now have. Pollan: A "farm bill," which should really be called a "food bill," codifies the rules of the entire food economy. Farm policy is always focused on these commodity crops because you can store them. We encourage farmers to grow as much corn as they can grow, to get big, to consolidate. We subsidize farmers by the bushel.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 17 Dec 13
       
      - US consumers spend approximately $2 trillion on food - omnibus "farm bill" is passed approximately every 5 years - everything the Department of Agriculture does is included - amends, or repeals provisions of preceding agricultural acts for a limited time (5 years) - since in 1973, farm bills have included titles on commodity programs, trade, rural development, farm credit, conservation, agricultural research, food and nutrition programs - international trade, environmental conservation, food safety, and the well-being of rural communities - agricultural subsidy programs mandated by the farm bills are the subject of intense debate both within the U.S. and internationally...
  • Plus, you can feed it to animals
  • Corn is the great raw material.
  • starch and you can break that down and reassemble it. You can make high-fructose corn syrup. You can make maltodextrin and diglycerides and xanthan gum and ascorbic acid.
  • Corn is the main component in feed ingredients whether it's chicken, hogs, cattle-- you name it.
  • tilapia or the farmed salmon
  • the average American is eating over 200 lbs of meat per person per year. That wouldn't be possible had we not fed them this diet of cheap grain
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 18 Dec 13
       
      A perfect example of the "revolving door"...
  • the chief of staff at the USDA was the former chief lobbyist to the beef industry in Washington; the head of the F.D.A. was the former executive vice president of the National Food Processors Association. These regulatory agencies are being controlled by the very companies that they're supposed to be scrutinizing.
  • It's remarkable how toothless our regulatory agencies are when you look closely at it, and that's how the industry wants it.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 18 Dec 13
       
      Here is a perfect example of the Iron Triangle: Kowalcyk is the special interest, the USDA is the executive agency, the Agriculture committees and subcommittees are the Congressional points
  • There is a spiderweb of roads and train tracks all around the country moving corn from where it's being grown to these CAFOs. Cows are not designed by evolution to eat corn. They're designed by evolution to eat grass. And the only reason we feed them corn is because corn is really cheap and corn makes them fat quickly.
  • There's some research that indicates that a high-corn diet results in E. coli that are acid-resistant. And these would be the more harmful E. coli.
  • So you feed corn to cattle and E. coli, which is a very common bug, evolves, a certain mutation occurs and a strain called the "E. coli 0157:h7" appears on the world stage. And it's a product of the diet we're feeding cattle on feedlots and it's a product of feedlot life. The animals stand ankle deep in their manure all day long. So if one cow has it, the other cows will get it. When they get to the slaughterhouse, their hides are caked with manure. And if the slaughterhouse is slaughtering 400 animals an hour, how do you keep that manure from getting onto those carcasses? And that's how the manure gets in the meat. And now this thing that wasn't in the world is in the food system.
  • E. coli isn't just in ground beef now-- it's been found in spinach, apple juice-and this is really because of the runoff from our factory farms. 90 confirmed cases of E. coli poisoning. Central to it all-- raw, bagged spinach.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 18 Dec 13
       
      arbara Kowalcyk and Patricia Buck, Kevin's mother and grandmother, lobby the USDA (executive branch) and two members of the House of Representatives...
  • After the first big push to establish food standards, people just got complacent. We reduced funding for the FDA. We've relied increasingly on self-policing for all of these industries. And now we just have, really, lost our system. You're really one of the champions on the hill for food safety and it's a very important cause.
  • relied increasingly on self-policing for all of these industries
  • We've relied increasingly on self-policing for all of these industries
  • We put faith in our government to protect us, and we're not being protected at a most basic level. In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157:h7. The idea was that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, that the USDA would shut the plant down because they obviously had an ongoing contamination problem. The meat and poultry associations immediately took the USDA to court. The courts basically said the USDA didn't have the authority to shut down the plants. What it meant was that you could have a pound of meat or poultry products that is a petri dish of salmonella and the USDA really can't do anything about it. A new law was introduced in direct response and this law became known as Kevin's Law. It seems like such a clear-cut, common sense type thing. - How are things going? - Fine fine. Kowalcyk: We've been working for six years and it still hasn't passed
  • I sense that there may be an opportunity-- an enhanced opportunity-- to get this signed into law this time. I think that from the standpoint of the consumer, a lot of people would support the idea of paying a little more if they could be guaranteed a higher standard of safety. - Kowalcyk: Yeah. - But I also know that there are other players - in the food production chain... - Kowalcyk: We know. ...that tend to worry about that, because it's gonna be seen as an add-on to their costs.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 18 Dec 13
       
      This is the response of someone who seems concerned more with costs to suppliers than the safety of the food supply...
  • Sometimes it does feel like industry was more protected than my son. That's what motivated me to become an advocate
  • The industrial food system is always looking for greater efficiency, but each new step in efficiency leads to problems. If you take feedlot cattle off of their corn diet, give them grass for five days, they will shed 80% of the E. coli in their gut. But of course that's not what the industry does. The industry's approach is-- when it has a systematic problem like that-- is not to go back and see what's wrong with the system, it's to come up some high-tech fixes that allow the system to survive.
  • But I just started working with ammonia and ammonia hydroxide. Ammonia kills bacteria, so it became a processing tool. I'm really a mechanic. That's really what I am. We design our own machiner
  • This is our finished product. Man: Is your meat in most of the hamburgers in the country? Roth: 70%. In five years, we think we'll be in 100%
  • When you genetically modify a crop, you own it. We've never had this in agriculture.
  • Used to be that your land-grant universities, they developed what was called public seed
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 18 Dec 13
       
      This is what economists call a public good...
John Zoeller

Case Study-Obama's Deal - 3 views

teachers.dadeschools.net/...4-Obamas-Deal.html

shared by John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • I remember Patrick Moynihan, the senator from New York, telling me in his very thick Irish accent that he just got this document, 1,273 pages, describing how health care reform should be done and basically says, "I'm not even going to read it."
  • The Harry and Louise ads cost and cost and cost us in the Clinton years.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      These ads were supported by many in the MdIC, but most importantly, the health insurance industry.
  • What did he do that's different from what Bill and Hillary did? Everything. Everything.
  • ...60 more annotations...
  • congressional buy-in on the front end
  • former congressional insiders
  • Peter Orszag, was the head of the Congressional Budget Office
  • top aide to Ted Kennedy.
  • top staff guy for Henry Waxman.
  • Robert Gibbs, who worked in the Senate, who's now the press secretary.
  • the quintessential Washington insider, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle.
  • The once powerful Senate majority leader had made enemies. The Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, was an old rival.
  • Baucus allowed Republicans on the committee to tear into Daschle's personal finances
  • Senate investigators found income tax problems. Daschle had left the government and cashed in, making millions at a Washington law firm. Along the way, a client had provided a limo for Daschle's personal use. Eventually, he paid more than $140,000 in taxes and penalties on the gift
  • It's a very bad cloud over this nomination
  • Does this really represent the kind of change that Mr. Obama said he would be bringing to his administration?
  • Obama quickly, calmly accepted the resignation offer, did not pause, did not look back
  • Seven weeks into his presidency, in March of 2009, the new president gathered in one room at one time friends and potential enemies alike.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      This is the BIG PRESS CONFERENCE: ONLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE US CAN COMMAND THIS KIND OF ATTENTION...THE POWER OF PERSUASION...
  • Obama's advisers had told him that many of the lobbyists in the room were prepared to cut a deal. Karen Ignagni is the chief lobbyist for the insurance industry.Pres. BARACK OBAMA: Why don't you wait for a mike, Karen, so that-KAREN IGNAGNI, Pres., America's Health Insurance Plans: We entered this year being committed to change, being committed to restructuring and committed to actually helping to get this done
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      OBAMA HANDS TO THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY LOBBYIST THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW THAT THEY WILL BUY IN AND NOT OPPOSE THIS NEW ATTEMPT...
  • Privately, Ignagni was playing hardball. She said she'd support the bill only if everyone was required to buy health insurance.
  • Obama had campaigned against the mandate. Ignagni was insisting he reverse himself.
  • They want to make sure that they get a requirement that all of us buy health insurance. They want to make sure that we are all forced by to buy products from them. And they want to make sure that there's no alternative other than the private insurance market. That's why they're so adamantly opposed to the public option.
  • Obama had also supported the public option, a government health plan, and Ignagni wanted him to walk away from that, too.
  • It is not wiping out the private insurance industry, it's just creating a public insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. But they wanted no part of that.
  • Baucus received more than $2.5 million from special interest groups in the health industry.
  • What the campaign contributions often do is that they open doors. They give industries entree to important congressional staffers and lawmakers.
  • The Senate bill, you know, frankly, is just an insurance company bill. The insurance companies, actually, literally did write it. There were two senior staffers in Max Baucus's office, one who used to work for United Health Care and one who used to work for WellPoint, who wrote the bill. It's a great bill from the insurance companies' point of view. It doesn't happen to do a whole lot to change the system and to bring reform.
  • Liberal outrage arrived in Baucus's own hearing room, as health care activists, one after another, shouted him down.
  • There's millions for the insurance industry, the HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies, and you're denying the people a voice!
  • The activists were especially angry that Ignagni had a seat at the table but they did not.
  • Physicians for a Nat'l Health Prgm.: When we received the list of the dates of the hearings and who was being invited, and we saw who was invited, we requested that we have one person invited in the, you know, series of three hearings. They were inviting 41 people total to testify. And they said no
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      The committee chair controls who testifies at hearings: no testimony means your views don't exist...
  • That spring, Baucus and the White House were also secretly negotiating another deal, this time with the pharmaceutical industry. Their top lobbyist was a classic Washington character.CECI CONNOLLY: Billy Tauzin is a New Orleans politician, a very colorful, lively figure who took over the pharmaceutical industry trade group, PhRMA.Rep. MICHAEL BURGESS (R), Texas: Billy Tauzin is a formidable negotiator. And Billy Tauzin knows how things work on the Hill, and he knows how things work in this town.NARRATOR: His most notorious act took place when then Congressman Tauzin and Senator Baucus pushed through a Medicare prescription drug bill.Rep. BILLY TAUZIN (R), Louisiana: We are about to pass a $400 billion insured drug account for these citizens who have no drug insurance today.NARRATOR: In 2003, in the middle of the night, Tauzin kept the House voting machine open until he could scrounge and wheedle just enough votes to pass the controversial measure.Sen. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH), Health Committee: It was a payoff to two industries, the drug industry and the insurance industry. There was no question about it. They did very, very well out of this bill.NARRATOR: It meant hundreds of billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry.Rep. DAN BURTON (R), Indiana: The comptroller general said when we passed the Medicare prescription drug bill that it was the worst piece of legislation, fiscally, that he had ever seen. And he said over time, it was going to be a disaster.
  • And just over a year later, Tauzin was hired as the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist.Rep. DAN BURTON: Billy got a very good job with PhRMA. I think he makes around $2 million a year. At least, that's what I've been told. Many of his staff people went with him or went to work for pharmaceutical companies. And Billy was the main pusher of the bill.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      Another "revolving door" example...Tauzin to PhRMA...
  • In the 2008 presidential campaign, the incident became one of Barack Obama's favorite complaints about the Washington political culture.Sen. BARACK OBAMA, Presidential Candidate: And you know what? The chairman of the committee who pushed the law through went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that. That's an example of the same old game playing in Washington. You know, I don't want to learn how to play the game better, I want to put an end to the game playing.NARRATOR: But secretly, one year later at Max Baucus's Senate office, the Obama White House was negotiating with Billy Tauzin.
  • It's a very Rahm Emanuel idea, get them at the table, make them agree to something with the threat that something worse could be out there if they don't. And once you get this buy-in, that should eliminate pockets of opposition.NARRATOR: Billy Tauzin knew that during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama had promised to slash drug prices.CECI CONNOLLY: PhRMA had some real concerns that there would be an effort by the Democrats to enable the government to negotiate for its prices on Medicare prescription drugs, and this could be potentially a very big hit to the industry.NARRATOR: Tauzin also knew the White House was eager for any early deal that appeared to contain costs.JOHN PODESTA, Co-Chair, Obama Transition, 2008-09: I think he was smart in saying that "If I get in early, I can make a deal that my members can live with."
  • PhRMA certainly had deep enough pockets to do some real damage advertising-wise if it wanted to.RYAN LIZZA, The New Yorker: If you can stop $100 million from being spent to attack your plan, that looks very- you know, that's not such a bad deal.
  • The president accepted the deal.RYAN LIZZA: There's always two sides of Obama. You have to have the sort of inspirational message. You have to have something to lift up people. But at the end of the day, when you're passing legislation, it is about deal making. There's no other way to do it.
  • Once again, it was the liberals in the president's own party who began to criticize the deal.NEWSCASTER: There's also growing concern that the Obama administration secretly made concessions to drug companies.PETER BAKER, The New York Times: The liberals were watching what was going on with increasing alarm because what they saw was the new White House getting in bed with the people that they thought they had been fighting against for all these years.
  • For months, the president had been doing deals- insurance and pharmaceuticals, Now it was time to write a bill and to fulfill another campaign promise, to create a Washington beyond partisan politics.DAN BALZ: A bipartisan outcome, even in a minimalist sense, was certainly a very, very high priority of President Obama.NARRATOR: Again, Max Baucus would have to be the point man. Getting through his Senate Finance Committee would be the crucial test.PETER BAKER: If they could get five, ten Republicans, that would have been enough. And Max Baucus was, they thought, their key to getting that.NARRATOR: Baucus had a close relationship with the ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley.Sen. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA), Finance Committee: Senator Baucus and I were still working on what we thought ought to be a- not just a bipartisan bill but a kind of a consensus bill. In other words, something that would get 75 or 80 votes.
  • Grassley was under intense pressure from his own party.JONATHAN COHN, Sr. Editor, The New Republic: Charles Grassley is in line for a committee chairmanship. The Republican Party plays hardball with its members. I think the message got through that he was jeopardizing his standing in the party by playing too nice with health care reform.
  • You had the Senate leadership in Mitch McConnell and John Kyl saying, "Don't get involved. This is going to be the president's Waterloo. It's our way to win back the Congress.
  • Impatient, Emanuel began a campaign to convince the president to change course, to scale back their ambitions.RYAN LIZZA: Rahm Emanuel is all about, as he says, putting points on the board. Just get a deal and get it over with.DAVID GERGEN: Rahm was the guy who was skeptical about trying to go for major comprehensive health care reform. He saw what happened. He was there during the Clinton debacle. He knows how much it takes out of a presidency.DAN PFEIFFER: It was entirely a conversation of feasibility. Option A, pass the comprehensive bill. Option B, smaller bill. And option C, which no one would entertain, would be to do nothing.NARRATOR: The president made the final decision.RYAN LIZZA: Obama weighed in and said, "No, I want to try and get what I campaigned on. I want to try and get the full bill."
  • PETER BAKER: Heading into the summer recess is a period of great frustration for the White House. Everything was getting stuck. Everything was sort of slowing down. And as they head into August, they don't recognize what's about to hit them.PROTESTER: You want to kill my grandparents, you come through me first!PROTESTER: God will take care of health care.PROTESTER: You dirty thieves!PROTESTER: We can't afford it!PROTESTER: Afro-Leninism!NARRATOR: Angry citizens, stoked by economic fears, outraged about bail-outs and expanding government-PROTESTER: The things that Obama's doing are the exact things that Hitler did.PROTESTER: No public option!NARRATOR: -focused their rage on the health care bill.Rep. MICHAEL BURGESS: Boom, the summer town halls literally blow up in our faces.PROTESTER: Radical communists and socialists!Rep. MICHAEL BURGESS: The fat really hit the fire when we went home in August for what usually is a fairly leisurely stroll through the district-PROTESTER: Yes, we can!Rep. MICHAEL BURGESS: -a town hall here-PROTESTER: Baby killer! Abortion is murder!
  • There was anger out there, and members of Congress listened and they were scared.
  • Senator Grassley, the swing man in the president and Max Baucus's bipartisan strategy, felt the fire from his conservative base.Sen. CHARLES GRASSLEY: I had people come to my town meeting with sheets of paper that thick off the Internet and quoting from the bill. You know, I've never had that happen before. People were up on it, and people didn't like what they were reading.TOWN HALL PROTESTER: Democrat or Republican or whoever, senator or congressman, voted this bill, we will vote you out! [cheers]PETER BAKER: Suddenly, the idea of cutting a deal with President Obama no longer looked like it was good politics, no longer looked like it was good policy.
  • I had people come to my town meeting with sheets of paper that thick off the Internet and quoting from the bill. You know, I've never had that happen before
  • Just as the town hall anger was reaching its boiling point, the president received more bad news.NEWSCASTER: Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, has died.NEWSCASTER: The last in the line of this extraordinary American dynasty is gone.NEWSCASTER: Last night, an American political era came to an end.NARRATOR: The most passionate advocate of health care reform was dead, but some believed Kennedy's death might change the tone of the debate.Pres. BARACK OBAMA: Ted Kennedy's life work was not to champion the causes of those with wealth or power or special connections, it was to give to give a voice to those who were not heard.PETER BAKER: It was an emotional rallying point for Democrats for a while- "Win this for Teddy" kind of thinking.CECI CONNOLLY: Some people thought, "Well, gosh, maybe in memory of Senator Kennedy, some of these old Republican friends of his would rejoin the effort."NARRATOR: The president would redouble his efforts to achieve Kennedy's dream.JOHN PODESTA: After consulting with a number of people, including Senator Daschle and others, I think the president concluded, "I need to take back control of this."
  • Senate majority leader Harry Reid would take control of the bill. Talk of a public option was back. The mandates the insurance industry had fought for were watered down. Karen Ignagni didn't like what that might mean for the bottom line.
  • Senate majority leader Harry Reid would take control of the bill. Talk of a public option was back. The mandates the insurance industry had fought for were watered down. Karen Ignagni didn't like what that might mean for the bottom line.
  • At the White House, they decided a war with the insurance industry was just what the doctor ordered. In his weekly Internet address, the president let them have it.
  • The insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking out their massive war chest to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo.
  • they decided to play that role when they decided to spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat health reform.
  • they're funding studies designed to mislead the American people.
  • Karen Ignagni and her allies fought back.
  • New, hidden taxes that Congress wants on your health care, hidden health care taxes on medicines, medical devices and health insurance
  • They secretly funneled millions of dollars to a tough ad campaign by the Chamber of Commerce.
  • powerful senators stepped up to support her cause.CECI CONNOLLY, Co-Author, Landmark: There were still some- Senator Lieberman was one, Senator Nelson of Nebraska was another- who still said there's merit to what the insurance industry is saying. And those were critical swing votes.
  • To a lot of us, we were very, very upset about it. It was very poorly done. But the only way they could get it through was basically to bribe their members
  • It's not a pretty process. There is deal making. That's the way it's been done for a long time. But those deals done in your front parlor can be pretty smelly.
  • The ayes are 60, the nays are 39. HR 3590 is passed.
  • This was a strictly party-line vote, all the Democrats voting yes, all the Republicans voting no, the final tally 60 to 39.
  • The White House wasn't paying attention, but up in Massachusetts, that "Cornhusker kickback" was still hanging in the air. It was almost election day. At stake was Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.
    • John Zoeller
      John Zoeller on 12 Nov 13
       
      Ted Kennedy's Senate seat was vacated by his death. Republican Scott Brown's election would mean that the Senate could not be counted on to pass another bill.
  • From the very moment that it was clear that Scott Brown was going to win that seat, he began thinking through what the next steps would be to be able to right the ship and get health care done.NARRATOR: The president asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi if she could get the House to pass the Senate bill.
  • They just ignored Max in the end. They just felt they could ram this right through and to heck with Republicans, to heck with conservatives
John Zoeller

NPR: Commander In Chief, Explainer In Chief Tout Health Care Law - 1 views

teachers.dadeschools.net/...1d42572cb26600ac638558-86.html

Topic 5

shared by John Zoeller on 26 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • John Zoeller on 26 Sep 13
     
    President Obama's health care law has so far survived challenges in Congress and the courts. But its biggest test could begin next week. That's when the online marketplaces offering health care coverage to the uninsured are set to start signing people up. The question is, will they come?
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