Diagnosis: Reform (Capital Eye)
For some individuals, how Congress aims to reform America's health care system is literally a matter of life and death. For some industries, it could mean the difference between weathering the economic storm or shuttering their businesses. Nobody knows yet what the shape or scope of the final bill will be. It may not even make it to President Obama's desk. But one thing is certain: The American health care system is set to get a lobotomy and diverse special interests are spending big bucks to make sure they're in the surgery room when it happens.

Just so you'll know what the parasites are protecting by these donations to Congress:
CEO Compensation: Who Said Health Care is in a Financial Crisis? (by Doctor K at WebMD, thanks to DCblogger at Corrente)
Those of you who are struggling to pay for your generic medicines or wondering why the doctor is charging you a $5.00 co-pay, give some thought to these facts about how our health care dollars are allocated. At the end of this post, there is a list of 23 health companies I found on Forbes.com, what the CEO was paid in 2005, and the average paid to the CEO in the past five years. Imagine adding vice presidents, Board of Directors, stock holders and the other 200-300 other companies all cashing in on your health. [TOTAL 2005: 559.8 mil, TOTAL 5-Year: 14.9 billion]

Bill Clinton Sees Hope for Health Care Changes, This Time (New York Times)
As he watches the new Democratic president take on the issue that stymied him 16 years ago, Mr. Clinton has concluded that Mr. Obama has a better chance than he did, both because of the way the new proposals are structured and because of a national mood that is more supportive of major action. "He's got a better Congress, a more receptive climate," Mr. Clinton said in a recent interview. "He also has, frankly, a better -- at least more politically saleable -- set of proposals."
So why is Obama listening only to Blue Dogs, Republicans, and, like Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, servants of the health insurance parasites who make so much money by taking our money and then denying us coverage and care?

Daschle Folds on Federal Public Health Care Plan (The Note, ABC News)
In an attempt at bipartisanship, three former majority leaders of the U.S. Senate, Tom Daschle, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole, offered their solution today to the biggest obstacle to achieving health care reform -- a public option... In a blow to President Obama and many of his Democratic allies in the health care fight, the plan recommends that there be no federal public option, but rather state or regional public-sponsored networks that would compete with private health plans, according to the summary released today by the Bipartisan Policy Center. "If you want to stop this thing dead in its tracks, or dead on arrival, in my view you put the public plan in it," Dole said when asked whether there were any non-negotiables to deal with when drafting the bipartisan recommendations.

Daschle beds down with the enemies of health care reform (by Alegre)
There's absolutely no excuse for them to fail in getting at least a public option into a reform package.  This is the kind of thing we elected them to do - health care reform.  It's what people have said they wanted in poll after poll after poll.  If the Democrats in Congress fail to push for a public option and push it hard - and if the WH fails to demand it - then it's time we started asking the obvious question... What in the hell did we elect all of those Democrats for last November? [Emphasis added.] This should be a slam dunk dammit.  We don't need high-profile Democrats bedding down with Republicans to scuttle reform. We need them to grow a spine and get this thing done and done right.

Republicans try to obstruct health care bill. (Think Progress)
[Wednesday], the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee began marking up Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) Affordable Health Care Act. Republicans, who pushed for the incomplete HELP legislation to be studied by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and then pretended that the agency scored the entire bill, tried to obstruct the effort by complaining that the CBO had not yet scored the full proposal. During the hearing, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) argued that the hearing be postponed until a full cost-analysis is available.

The GOP then maneuvered to introduce a host of amendments simply as a delaying tactic. Rather than offering constructive improvements that could lower costs and expand coverage, a good number of the GOP's proposed amendments do nothing to solve the health care crisis. The Wonk Room has the run-down.

Senate Committee Delays Health Care Effort (Political Wire)
The Senate Finance Committee "has postponed the markup of its health care reform bill until after the Fourth of July recess," Roll Call reports. The markup was expected to begin next Tuesday.

House Republicans Unveil Thin Health Care Plan (Political Wire)
Roll Call: "House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn't know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it."

All Hat No Cattle

Taking the Hypocritical Oath (by Paul Krugman)
I know it's a tough competition, but this just might be the most hypocritical thing I've seen in the past year: "On Monday, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Pat Roberts (R-KS) introduced the 'Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009,' a new bill prohibiting Medicare or Medicaid from using 'comparative effectiveness research to deny coverage.'" How bad is it? Let me count the ways.

1. Politicians who rail against wasteful government spending are taking action to prevent the government from reining in ... wasteful spending.
2. Politicians who warn that the burden of entitlements is killing the federal budget are stepping in to block ... the single most painless route to reducing the growth of entitlements.
3. They're doing it in the name of avoiding "rationing of health care" ... but they're specifically addressing taxpayer-funded care. If you want to go out and buy a medically useless treatment, Medicare won't stop you.
4. These same politicians are, of course, opposed to efforts to expand coverage. In other words, it's evil for government to "ration care" by only paying for things that work; it is, however, perfectly OK, indeed virtuous, to ration care by refusing to pay for any care at all.

The Bipartisanship of Fools (by E.J. Dionne)
Where did we get the idea that the only good health care bill is a bipartisan bill? Is bipartisanship more important than whether a proposal is practical and effective?... It's one thing to compromise to pick up votes, which one hopes is what Baucus is doing. It's another to compromise in exchange for nothing at all. The first is bipartisanship with a purpose. The second is the bipartisanship of fools.

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Carolyn Kay                      
MakeThemAccountable.com