Here are the FDL Action health care reform highlights for Monday, November 16.1. Jon Walker reports that "HR 3962’s Massive Expansion Of Coverage Would Result In Very Small Increase In Health Care Spending." Walker adds, "Despite the Republican talking point, it is not some liberal overreach–this reform bill is extremely modest reform that leaves statue quo mostly unchanged."
2. Jane Hamsher requests that we "[a]sk Sherrod Brown to save us from PhRMA and the Eshoo/Hagan/ lobbyist-written biologics legislation HERE."
3. I blog about a story on My Left Nutmeg, which has a rabbi telling Joe Lieberman with regard to health care reform and the public option, "Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbors." The rabbi also asks Senator Lieberman, "what is it that you stand for?" That's an easy one: Joe Lieberman stands for Joe Lieberman, not for the people of Connecticut, on this crucial issue.
4. Jon Walker blogs about a report in the New York Times that "the drug companies have dramatically jacked up the prices of their medications this year to lock in profits before reform starts." Wonderful, huh? As Walker puts it, "there goes your magic savings from the PhRMA deal." Ugh.
5. Michael Whitney reports that "Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) will oppose a final health care bill that has triggers or that allows states to opt out of the public option – with an asterisk." The "asterisk" is that she would "allow states to opt-out only if they did provided 'a more progressive option' offered at the state level." Sounds reasonable to me.
6. Jane Hamsher asks "What do you do when you're busted spamming the Congressional Record?" Easy: "Raise Drug Prices!" As Hamsher notes, that takes "some serious stones".
7. I report on the teabaggers in Virginia backing off their plans to burn Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perriello in effigy for supporting health care reform. It turns out, they were scared off by bloggers like Blue Virginia and Firedoglake. Are we "liberal bloggers" really that scary to big, bad tea partiers? Apparently so!
8. Jon Walker writes that the Senate health care debate is expected to start on November 30, which obviously "does not leave the Senate a lot of time to finish up amending the bill before Christmas." Are we going to miss another deadline on getting a health care reform bill to President Obama's desk for signature? It's starting to look that way, unfortunately.
9. Jon Walker says that Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware "thinks Democrats should embrace Snowe’s worthless trigger," and predicts that "Senate Democrats are going to rue that day if they sellout the over 80% of their base that supports a public option in order to win the support of one single Republican." And that's not even counting Joe Lieberman! Heh.
