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The law calls for states to build new health insurance markets called exchanges, so that millions of middle-class people who are currently uninsured can buy taxpayer-subsidized private coverage. It also expands eligibility for Medicaid so low-income adults who have no dependent children can get government insurance. Putting the two approaches together, more than 30 million Americans are expected to gain coverage starting in 2014.

But 26 states are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the health care law, and many of those have made little progress in planning their exchanges, even though the deadline clock is ticking. The law says state plans must be approved by Jan. 1, 2013 – a year in advance of the program’s launch – or the federal government will step in and run things.

“No matter where you live, on Jan. 1, 2014, an exchange will be up and running,” deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle said on the White House blog.

An accompanying progress report said 28 states and Washington, D.C., are “on their way” toward establish exchanges, widely considered the operational linchpin of the health care law.

With a presidential election and Supreme Court decision on the fate the health care law coming first this year, 2014 seems like a long way off even if Obama‘s signature domestic accomplishment is upheld. But to federal and state officials planning for exchanges, time is short. A totally new marketplace must be created, along with systems for verifying and safeguarding confidential personal information used to determine eligibility.

“Exchanges will offer consumers the same kinds of health insurance choices that members of Congress now have,” DeParle said.

But the White House report put a rosy outlook on the progress in some states.

For example, Idaho was among the states highlighted as advancing. Republican Gov. Butch Otter originally supported a state-run exchange, and his administration received a $20 million federal grant to start work. But the legislature has to approve the actual spending of the money, and Republican foes of the federal overhaul are trying to block the state from moving ahead. Faced with a standoff, Otter now says he is leaving it in the hands of the legislature.

“It seems that the White House is desperate to show progress and is selectively searching for any evidence that states are taking action,” said Mike Schrimpf, spokesman for the Republican Governors Association. “Many of the states that have started action are doing so primarily as a defensive maneuver to keep the federal government from having even greater control over their health care markets.”

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The Daily Beast Reports:

Republican presidential candidates are still vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, of course, but they are mainly going after President Obama’s economic record. That makes sense because the lagging economy is by far the top concern of voters. It also makes sense because with each passing month, the health-care law is woven more tightly into the fabric of American life and becomes more difficult to unravel.

David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, says Republicans will make a mistake if they dwell next year on repealing the law. “The American people want to move forward. If there are problems with reform, fix it. They don’t want to start all over again,” he told me.

The article also reports that Republican candidates would have to not only repeal the bill, but formulate an alternative, which could be difficult.

Read More At TheDailyBeast.com

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Roland Martin talks with Congressman John Conyers about the GOP’s’ attempt to repeal health care reform and what can supporters of the health care reform do to stop them.

Former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich details what he thinks will happen in the 2012 presidential campaign and when the health care reform bill will be repealed.

Roland Martin joins John Avlon, Erick Erickson and JKUSA host John King to discuss Gingrich’s health care prescription and 2012 predictions.

WATCH:

On March 23 of this year, after months of heated conservative backlash at town halls and Tea Party rallies nationwide, President Obama signed into law HR 3590, which enacted sweeping changes to America’s health care system. Not a single Senate or House Republican supported the bill.

With 46 million Americans living without health insurance, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, health care reform’s real benefits breached divisions between classes, genders and races. Nevertheless, African Americans are still suffering disproportionately with the problems of this country’s broken health care system.

In 2009, 19 percent of blacks did not have health insurance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number for whites was 10.4 percent in 2007. What’s more, 48 percent of African-American adults suffer from chronic diseases, compared with 39 percent of the general population.

Read more at TheRoot

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The president of a Hellertown-based amusement company apologized Wednesday for a target shooting game depicting the image of a black man that appears to be President Barack Obama.

Irvin Good Jr., president of Goodtime Amusements, said he did not intend to offend anyone by offering the game, called “Alien Attack,” which recently appeared at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Big Time Fair in Roseto and sparked a complaint.

“I guess we made an error in judgment and we apologize for that,” said Good, who has had the game for about six weeks. “I voted for the man. It wasn’t meant to be him. If they took it that way, we apologize.”

The game depicted a black man dressed in a suit holding a rolled up piece of paper labeled, “Health Bill.” The man also sported a belt buckle fashioned after the presidential seal. Participants shot darts at targets, located on his head and heart, to score points and win a stuffed animal prize.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday through Spokeswoman Moira Mack saying it disapproves of using the president’s name and likeness for commercial purposes. The longstanding policy precedes Obama.

Click here to read more at The Morning Call

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From HipHopWired.com:

Rush Limbaugh is never one to bite his tongue especially when it comes to anything and everything related to President Obama and his healthcare reform bill.

In the conservative shock jock’s latest asinine statement he blames President Obama and the Democrats’ passing of the healthcare reform bill for the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in Iceland.

Ash from the eruption has shut down airports overseas for several days now and even blocked the President from attending the Polish President’s funeral over the weekend.

Click here to view photos:

According to Racist Rush it’s “God speaking” citing the fact that more airspace has been affected by ash from the volcano than after 9/11. He also mentions that since the “earth has opened up” he hopes it’s a rebirth and not an Armageddon.

“You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law, Obama ran around all over the country saying, “Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. No Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.

I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes – airspace has more affected – than even after 9/11 because of this plume, because of this ash cloud over Northern and Western Europe. … It’s got everybody just in a shutdown. Earth has opened up. I don’t know whether it’s a rebirth or Armageddon. Hopefully it’s a rebirth, God speaking…”

Uhhh yeah.

Click here to read more.

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From NYTimes.com:

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday ordered his health secretary to issue new rules aimed at granting hospital visiting rights to same-sex partners.

The White House announced the rule changes, which will also make it easier for gay men and lesbians to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners, in a memorandum released Thursday night. In it, the president said the new rules would affect any hospital that participates in Medicare or Medicaid, the government programs to cover the elderly and the poor.

Click here to view photos of Famous Gay Americans:

“Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindness and caring of a loved one at their sides,” Mr. Obama said in the memorandum, adding that the rules could also help widows and widowers who rely on friends and members of religious orders who care for one another. But he says gay men and lesbians are “uniquely affected” because they are often barred from visiting partners with whom they have spent decades.

Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay rights issues, said that while the memorandum on its own did not grant any new rights, it did “draw attention to the very real and tragic situations many gays and lesbians face when a partner is hospitalized.”

Click here to read more.

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Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.

What does the video show? Not much. Indeed, new interviews show that a much-viewed YouTube recording cited as evidence by conservatives was actually shot well after the time in question.

It was March 20, near the end of the bitter health care debate, when Reps. John Lewis, Andre Carson and Emanuel Cleaver say that some demonstrators, many of them tea party activists, yelled the “N-word” as the congressmen walked from House office buildings to the Capitol.

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Stung by the charges of racism, conservatives and tea party activists insist it never happened. And one of them is offering big money if anyone can prove it did.

With so many media and citizen cameras at the demonstration, any epithets would have been caught on tape, says Andrew Breitbart. He’s the web entrepreneur who released the video of ACORN workers counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute, and has pledged $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone provides proof of the epithets.

Click here to view photos of Obama Haters:

“It didn’t happen,” said Breitbart, who wasn’t there. “This is 2010. Even a racist is media-savvy enough not to yell the N-word.”

The dispute pits the lawmakers — one of them, Lewis, is a leader and survivor of 1960s civil rights battles — against conservatives determined to counter claims of racism within the predominantly white and middle-aged tea party movement. The criticism has proven a distraction to a nascent movement pushing a unified message of fiscal conservatism and limited government.

The issue still echoes in the media and blogosphere.

“Listen, I was there,” Carson, D-Ind., said in an interview. “In many regards I think (the challenges are) a veiled attempt to justify actions that are simply unjustifiable. I think we need to move toward a dialogue that explores why this kind of divisive and reprehensible language is still making it into our political debate.”

RELATED: Protesters Shout N-Word & Spit On Black Congressmen

A fourth Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Henderson (N.C.) Times-News that he heard the slurs.

A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.

Breitbart posted two columns on his Web site saying the claims were fabricated. Both led with a 48-second YouTube video showing Lewis, Carson, other Congressional Black Caucus members and staffers leaving the Capitol. Some of the group were videotaping the booing crowd.

Breitbart asked why the epithet was not captured by the black lawmakers’ cameras, and why nobody reacted as if they had heard the slur. He also questioned whether the epithets could have been shouted by liberals planted in the crowd.

But the 48-second video was shot as the group was leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after Lewis, D-Ga., and Carson walked to the Capitol, which is when they said the slurs were used.

Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.

“I’m not saying the video was conclusive proof,” he said.

RELATED: N-Word Sign Hurts Tea Party Leader

Lewis declined to discuss the issue with The Associated Press. Asked whether the epithet was used, his spokeswoman said: “Yes. Congressman Lewis did hear the N-word yelled from the crowd.”

Carson described leaving the Cannon House Office Building for votes and bumping into Lewis in the elevator. They chose to walk outside to the Capitol, rather than through the underground tunnels.

Conservatives say Democrats staged a march through a hostile crowd to instigate a reaction. Carson said there was no such plan: It was just the first day of spring.

Soon after leaving Cannon, “I hear someone say it,” said Carson, a former police officer. “You see one or two tea party people kind of look at him, and then you hear it again as we’re walking. Then we walk across (Independence Avenue), and that’s when it starts getting deeper.”

Carson said he heard it coming from different places in the crowd. “You heard it in spurts, in the midst of ‘Kill the bill. Kill the bill.’”

“One guy, I remember he just rattled it off several times. Then John looks at me and says, ‘You know, this reminds me of a different time.’”

Cleaver, D-Mo., was walking a distance behind Carson and Lewis. He says he heard the epithet and was spit on. Capitol police handcuffed a man after Cleaver said he was spit on, but Cleaver told reporters that he did not want to press charges. No arrests were made. The moment was captured on video; debate continues over whether it shows any spitting.

In a separate case, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said he was called “faggot.”

RELATED: VIDEO: 10-Year-Old Lays N-Word To Rest

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly discussed the issue on four of his shows, beginning March 22. The first segment led with clips from the 48-second video and featured Dana Loesch, a radio talk-show host who accused the congressmen of fabricating their claims.

O’Reilly said, “Just because it’s not on tape doesn’t mean it’s fabricated.” A spokeswoman said O’Reilly thinks that something happened, but is not sure exactly what.

A few days later, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., told an audience, “No witness saw it, it’s not on camera, it’s not on audio.”

Only 22 seconds of video have emerged from the time in question, filmed by Lee Fang of the liberal American Progress think tank. His YouTube clip — labeled as being filmed about five minutes after the crowd rushed Lewis and Carson — has been posted by Breitbart and dozens of blogs accusing Democrats of lying.

Fang told the AP he was standing “pretty far away” across Independence Avenue from the Cannon building when he saw the crowd erupt, so he hurried over. Fang did not hear the epithet, but he said he believes it was used. “The hatred was palpable,” he said.

Conservatives insist the absence of racial epithets on Fang’s video and the 48-second clip show there was no hate.

“If it didn’t happen on YouTube,” says a regretful Fang, “it didn’t happen at all.”

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama travels to Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday to try to sway the public’s opinion of his health care overhaul.

It’s Obama’s first beyond-Washington event aimed at promoting the plan since it was passed Sunday. The president signed it into law Tuesday.

The president is scheduled to speak at the University of Iowa, which is in Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack’s district. Loebsack voted for the health care bill.

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Before the vote, Obama promised wavering Democrats, who primarily were moderates in conservative-leaning districts and states, that they wouldn’t be left standing alone if they cast the tough “yes” votes on the bill.

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PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS HEALTH CARE REFORM INTO LAW

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans learned early Thursday that they will be able to kill language in a measure altering President Barack Obama’s newly enacted health care overhaul, meaning the bill will have to return to the House for final congressional approval.

It appeared initially that deleting the provisions, dealing with Pell grants for low-income students, should not cause major problems for Democrats hoping to rush the bill to Obama and avoid prolonging what has been a politically painful ordeal for the party. Democrats described the situation as a minor glitch, but did not rule out that Republicans might be able to remove additional sections of the bill.

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The president, who signed the landmark legislation into law on Tuesday, was flying to Iowa later in the day for the first of many appearances he will make around the country before the fall congressional elections to sell his health care revamp.

RELATED: PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS HEALTH CARE REFORM INTO LAW

Obama was appearing in Iowa City, where as a presidential candidate in 2007 he touted his ideas for health coverage for all. His trip comes with polls showing people are divided over the new health law, and Democratic lawmakers from competitive districts hoping he can convince more voters by November that it was the right move.

As an exhausted Senate labored past 2 a.m. on a stack of GOP amendments, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told reporters that Republicans consulting with the chamber’s parliamentarian had found “two minor provisions” that violate Congress’ budget rules.

Republicans have been hunting for such violations in hopes of bringing down the legislation. Democrats had also been consulting with the parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, and hoped they had written a measure that would not be vulnerable to such problems.

The two provisions are expected to be formally removed from the bill on Thursday. Manley said he expected the Senate to approve the measure without them and send it to the House. He said Senate leaders, after conversations with top House Democrats, expect the House to approve the revised measure.

The Senate scheduled passage of the health bill for Thursday afternoon. Both chambers are hoping to begin a spring recess by this weekend.

Besides reshaping parts of the landmark health overhaul, the legislation transforms the federal student loan program — in which private banks distribute the money — into one in which the government issues the loans directly. That produces some federal savings, which the bill uses in part to increase Pell grants to needy students.

RELATED: House Passed Health Care Reform – What Happens Now?

Democratic aides said the problematic provisions deal with protecting students from future cuts in their grants if Congress does not provide enough money for them. They violate budget rules because they do not produce savings, one aide said.

The development came as the Senate completed nine hours of uninterrupted voting on 29 GOP amendments to the legislation. Majority Democrats defeated every amendment.

The legislation would change the new health care law by making drug benefits for Medicare recipients more generous by gradually closing a gap in coverage, increasing tax subsidies to help low-income people afford health care, and boosting federal Medicaid payments to states.

It kills part of the new statute uniquely giving Nebraska extra Medicaid funds — designed to lure support from that state’s Sen. Ben Nelson — that had become a glaring embarrassment to Democrats. It also eases a new tax on expensive health coverage bitterly opposed by unions and many House Democrats, while delaying and increasing a new levy on drug makers.

As they began pushing the bill to passage on Wednesday afternoon, Democrats ran into a mountain of GOP amendments. Outnumbered and all but assured of defeat, Republicans forced votes on amendments aimed at reshaping the measure — or at least forcing Democrats to take votes that could be used against them in TV ads in the fall campaigns.

“There’s no attempt to improve the bill. There’s an attempt to destroy this bill,” said an exasperated Reid, D-Nev.

“The majority leader may not think we’re serious about changing the bill, but we’d like to change the bill, and with a little help from our friends on the other side we could improve the bill significantly,” answered Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Senators voted on 29 consecutive GOP amendments between 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and 2:30 a.m. Thursday, when they recessed.

By 57-42, Democrats rejected an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., barring federal purchases of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. Coburn said it would save millions, while Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., called it “a crass political stunt.”

Democrats also deflected GOP amendments rolling back the health law’s Medicare cuts; killing extra Medicaid funds for Tennessee and other state-specific spending; barring tax increases for families earning under $250,000; and requiring the president and other administration officials to purchase health care from exchanges the statute creates.

The landmark legislation that Obama signed Tuesday would provide health care to 32 million uninsured people, and make coverage more affordable to millions of others by expanding the reach of Medicaid and creating new subsidies. Insurance companies would be forbidden to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing illnesses, individuals could buy policies on newly created exchanges and parents could keep children on their family plans until their 26th birthdays.

The $938 billion, 10-year price tag would be financed largely by culling savings from Medicare and imposing new taxes on higher income people and the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Attorneys general from 13 states sued the federal government Tuesday, claiming the landmark health care overhaul is unconstitutional just seven minutes after President Barack Obama signed it into law.

The lawsuit was filed in Pensacola after the Democratic president signed the 10-year, $938 billion bill the House passed Sunday night.

“The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage,” the lawsuit says.

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Legal experts say it has little chance of succeeding because, under the Constitution, federal laws trump state laws.

RELATED: PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS HEALTH CARE REFORM INTO LAW

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is taking the lead and is joined by attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana. All are Republicans except James “Buddy” Caldwell of Louisiana, a Democrat.

Some states are considering separate lawsuits — Virginia filed its own Tuesday — and still others may join the multistate suit. In Michigan, the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, a Christian legal advocacy group, sued on behalf of itself and four people it says don’t have private health insurance and object to being told they have to purchase it.

McCollum, who is running for governor, argues the bill will cause “substantial harm and financial burden” to the states.

The lawsuit claims the bill violates the 10th Amendment, which says the federal government has no authority beyond the powers granted to it under the Constitution, by forcing the states to carry out its provisions but not reimbursing them for the costs.

It also says the states can’t afford the new law. Using Florida as an example, the lawsuit says the overhaul will add almost 1.3 million people to the state’s Medicaid rolls and cost the state an additional $150 million in 2014, growing to $1 billion a year by 2019.

“We simply cannot afford to do the things in this bill that we’re mandated to do,” McCollum said at a press conference after filing the suit. He said the Medicaid expansion in Florida will cost $1.6 billion.

“That’s not possible or practical to do in our state,” he said. “It’s not realistic, it’s not right, and it’s very, very wrong.”

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, who is also running for governor, said the lawsuit was necessary to protect his state’s sovereignty.

RELATED: HOUSE PASSES HISTORIC HEALTH CARE REFORM, 219-212

“A legal challenge by the states appears to be the only hope of protecting the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government,” he said.

But Lawrence Friedman, a professor who teaches constitutional law at the New England School of Law in Boston, said before the suit was filed that it has little chance of success. He said he can’t imagine a scenario where a judge would stop implementation of the health care bill.

Still, McCollum said he expects the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually decide if the overhaul is constitutional.

“This is not lawful,” he said. “It may have passed Congress, but there are three branches of government.”

Some states are looking at other ways to avoid participating. Virginia and Idaho have passed legislation aimed at blocking requirements in the bill, and the Republican-led Legislature in Florida is trying to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ask voters to exempt the state from the federal law’s requirements. At least 60 percent of voters would have to approve.

Under the bill, starting in six months, health insurance companies would be required to keep young adults as beneficiaries on their parents’ plans until they turn 26, and companies would no longer be allowed to deny coverage to sick children.

Other changes would not kick in until 2014.

That’s when most Americans will for the first time be required to carry health insurance — either through an employer or government program or by buying it themselves. Those who refuse will face tax penalties.

“This is the first time in American history where American citizens will be forced to buy a particular good or service,” said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, who is also president of the National Association of Attorneys General, explaining why his state joined the lawsuit.

Tax credits to help pay for premiums also will start flowing to middle-class working families with incomes up to $88,000 a year, and Medicaid will be expanded to cover more low-income people.

No Republicans in the U.S. House or Senate voted for the bill.

From CNN:

Washington (CNN) — President Obama signed sweeping health care reform legislation into law at the White House on Tuesday.

Greeted by applause from enthusiastic supporters, he said, “Today after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America.”

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The president said he is confident the Senate will improve the health care reform law swiftly. He said some health care reforms will take some time to phase in, but others will “take effect right away.”

Obama said Tuesday that under provisions of the health care legislation that will take effect this year, small businesses will receive tax credits to help cover insurance, insurance companies won’t be able to drop people’s coverage when they get sick, and uninsured Americans and parents of children with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase coverage.

He said he signed the health reform bill into law on behalf of several people, including his mother — “who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.” He praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional committee chairs, saying, “We are blessed by leaders in each chamber who not only do their jobs very well, but who never lost sight of the larger mission. They didn’t play for the short term. They didn’t play to the polls or the politics.”

Vice President Joe Biden, praising Obama’s leadership in forging health care reform legislation, said, “Mr. President, you’ve done what generations of not just ordinary, but great men and women have attempted to do. … You delivered on a promise, a promise you made to all Americans when we moved into this building,” the White House.

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DR. BOYCE: Why Black People Should Be Happy About Health Care

Most young people and college students have yawned their way through the less than inspiring battle in Washington over health care.   Why do you care about what happens if you get sick when you’re never going to get sick anyway?  Young people are healthier than old, and most of them spend more time thinking about the next party than worrying about choosing a doctor.  But then again, I can’t over-generalize.  Perhaps I am speaking to my own ineptitudes as a young man.

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I get it.  This is not the Obama that you voted for, nor the one that made you cry at his inauguration.  You expected the super hero to leap tall politicians in a single bound and make Washington into a place you can appreciate and respect.  Sorry, but that last part just ain’t gonna happen.   Unfortunately, in spite of all the hoopla and excitement, Barack Obama is just another boring politician.  But as Obama is showing us, the seemingly dull, detail-oriented pragmatic approach to solving problems can sometimes yield results.

RELATED: HOUSE PASSES HISTORIC HEALTH CARE REFORM, 219-212

Good for you Barack, I am proud of you.  That does not, however, mean that I am drinking the kool-aid, since you and I both know that the black community is in dire need of targeted economic policy.  Obama has been given a huge pass on black America in order to be an effective president, requiring the community to carefully reposition it’s challenge to the very systems that keep us oppressed.  But I digress.

The reasons we should be happy about health care reform passing through the House of Representatives is because this Congress has had the courage to implement policy that will keep you from going bankrupt due to an illness.  Many hard-working, financially responsible Americans find themselves facing economic devastation because their medical insurance was capped, causing them to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their own pockets.

This law also keeps you from being denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition.  If you are sick and insurers know you’ve been sick in the past, they can deny you coverage due to your being a health risk.  Not anymore.

RELATED: House Passed Health Care Reform – What Happens Now?

There are also subsidies to help you afford health insurance if you can’t afford it.  You can stay on your parent’s insurance until you are 27 years old, there are limits to your out of pocket expenses, and even your grandma is going to get a little help with her Medicare costs.  Everyone benefits on some level from health care reform, so the world might be a better place since it has passed.

This bill is not perfect by any stretch, but it’s a better system than the one we’ve had before.  Also, the passage of this bill proves that President Obama is not a wimp.  When times got tough, he could have let the effort go, but instead, he pushed it through in spite of the opposition.  By getting the votes to pass this bill, Obama might have been able to save the next two years of his presidency.  In spite of what you might think about his health care plan, those who supported him should be proud of this achievement.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the author of the book, “Black American Money.” To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

WASHINGTON — Now that Congress has passed a health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is expected to sign it quickly, then get back on the road to talk about it some more.

A senior administration official says it’s likely Obama will sign the bill tomorrow, then travel to Iowa on Thursday to sell it to a skeptical public. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the strategy hasn’t been announced.

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Obama will also work to shepherd a companion bill through the Senate that proposes changes to the bill that was passed by the House late last night. Senators are expected to start debating those changes as early as tomorrow.

Democrats hope the proposed fixes will emerge from the Senate intact, while Senate Republicans will attempt to make changes.

The companion bill isn’t just about health care. It also proposes sweeping changes in the student loan program, an effort that has been stalled in the Senate for months.

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HOUSE PASSES HISTORIC HEALTH CARE REFORM, 219-212

House Passed Health Care Reform – What Happens Now?

Though the House of Representatives made history last night by passing a sweeping health care reform bill, this fight is far from over. President Obama still has to sign the overhaul into law, and once he does so there remain several “fixes” to be made to the bill and a great deal of legislative wrangling left to do during the controversial “reconciliation” process. Naturally, Republicans can be counted upon to throw up roadblocks during every step of the process. So while the passage of this bill is certainly cause for excitement, it would be a mistake to believe this reform is 100% secure at this stage of the game. Below, MSNBC explains what we can expect going forward. – NewsOne Staff

From MSNBC:

So, now what?

Relieved Democrats may still be celebrating the passage of landmark health care overhaul legislation, but Republicans in the Senate still have an opportunity to try to derail the bill.

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And if history is any guide, they are likely to force the House to vote on health care again before Easter. “Anybody that thinks that this is only going to be a one-time deal today in the House, I think, is grossly mistaken,” said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

RELATED: HOUSE PASSES HISTORIC HEALTH CARE REFORM, 219-212

Late Sunday, the House passed the Senate’s version of the comprehensive bill, and because most members didn’t like it, they also passed a smaller bill of so-called “fixes.”

Passing of those subsequent fixes was a critical component to passage of the Senate bill for House Democrats.

Without them, House Democrats would have been supporting a bill with elements deemed largely undesirable. A promise by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that the Senate would work to approve the package of fixes coaxed “yes” votes from many Democratic lawmakers who had previously indicated they might oppose the Senate bill.

On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to start its work on the fixes bill using a little-understood procedure known as reconciliation.

RELATED: Obama To GOP On Health Care: “Let’s Get This Done”

For Democrats, reconciliation is the perfect antidote to what they feel is Republican obstructionism in the upper chamber. The process is filibuster-proof, requiring only 51 votes for final passage rather than the usual 60 to overcome a blockade by the minority party.

For Republicans, reconciliation is their best chance to kill the smaller bill or make changes to it. Because the House and Senate must pass the same bills — word for word — even a minor tweak would send it back to the House for another vote.

Click here to read more.

From NY Times:

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Sunday to legislation that would provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and remake the nation’s health care system along the lines proposed by President Obama.

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the bill after a day of tumultuous debate that echoed the epic struggle of the last year. The action sent the bill to President Obama, whose crusade for such legislation has been a hallmark of his presidency.

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Democrats hailed the vote as historic, comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social Security and a long overdue step forward in social justice. “This is the civil rights act of the 21st century,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

After a year of partisan combat and weeks of legislative brinksmanship, House Democrats and the White House clinched their victory only hours before the voting started on Sunday. They agreed to a deal with opponents of abortion rights within their party to reiterate in an executive order that federal money provided by the bill could not be used for abortions, giving the Democrats the final votes. Democrats said that in expanding access to health coverage for uninsured Americans, they were creating a new program every bit as important as Social Security and Medicare, while also putting downward pressure on rising health care costs and reining in federal budget deficits.

Republicans said the plan would saddle the nation with unaffordable levels of debt, leave states with expensive new obligations, weaken Medicare and give the government a huge new role in the health care system.

Click here to read more.

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[3:03 p.m. - 3/21/2010] – Democrats Say They “Have The Votes Now” For Health Care

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON – House Democratic leaders predicted that a rare Sunday session will produce one of the most significant legislative triumphs in decades: passage of a landmark health care overhaul that promises to provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

The chances for House passage increased Sunday afternoon after a possible agreement between Democratic leaders and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who had led a group of anti-abortion lawmakers in opposing the bill, was revealed.

Stupak is now poised to support the bill, NBC’s Chuck Todd reported. Stupak told CNN that there is no deal yet but that he and the White House are “close” to an agreement. “It’s a work in progress,” he said.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., also said that Democratic leaders been able to secure Stupak’s support.

The potential deal appears to be based on a promise that President Barack Obama will issue an executive order that would provide more assurances that no public money would be used for elective abortions.

“If we get this thing resolved, then they’ll have more than enough votes,” Stupak said on Sunday morning.

Click here to read more.

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[8:36 a.m. - 3/21/2010] – House Prepares To Make Historic Health Care Vote

From CNN:

Washington, D.C. — Former President Bill Clinton made several phone calls Saturday to lobby wavering Democrats to sign on to the health care reform bill, Democratic sources told CNN.

Clinton made phone calls to an unspecified number of House Democrats on Saturday as leaders tried to round up the 216 necessary votes to pass the bill.

According to CNN’s latest count, 33 House Democrats plan to vote against the legislation. Thirty-eight Democratic “no” votes are needed to kill the bill.

On Saturday, President Obama made his last appeal for the reform, telling House Democrats on the eve of the historic vote: “Let’s get this done.”

“If you agree that the system is not working for ordinary families, if you’ve heard the same stories that I’ve heard everywhere, all across the country, then help us fix the system,” Obama said.

“Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid,” he said. “Do it for all those people out there who are struggling.”

Obama’s speech came just hours after Democratic leaders decided to abandon a controversial legislative mechanism to avoid a direct vote on the health care legislation. They will now hold an up-or-down vote on the $875 billion reform plan that the Senate has already passed.

Click here to read more.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats heard it all Saturday — words of inspiration from President Barack Obama and raucous chants of protests from demonstrators. And at times it was flat-out ugly, including some racial epithets aimed at black members of Congress.

Most of the day’s important work leading up to Sunday’s historic vote on health care was being done behind closed doors. Democratic leaders cajoled, bargained and did what they could to nail down the votes they will need to finally push Obama’s health care overhaul bill through the House.

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But much else about the day was noisy, emotional and right out in the open. After more than a year debating the capstone of Obama’s domestic agenda and just hours to go before the showdown vote, there was little holding back.

The tone was set outside the Capitol. Clogging the sidewalks and streets of Capitol Hill were at least hundreds — no official estimate was yet available — of loud, furious protesters, many of them tea party opponents of the health care overhaul.

RELATED: Right-Wing Protesters Denounce Obama In D.C.

Rallies outside the Capitol are typically orderly, with speeches and well-behaved crowds. Saturday’s was different, with anger-fueled demonstrators surrounding members of Congress who walked by, yelling at them.

“Kill the bill,” the largely middle-aged crowd shouted, surging toward lawmakers who crossed the street between their office buildings and the Capitol.

The motorcade that carried Obama to Capitol Hill to whip up support for the bill drove past crowds waving signs that read “Stop the spending” and “Get your hands out of my pocketbook and health care.” Many booed and thrust their thumbs down as Obama rode by.

As police held demonstrators back to clear areas for lawmakers outside the Capitol Obama’s speech, some protesters jeered and chanted at the officers, “You work for us.”

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a reporter that as he left the Cannon House Office Building with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights era, some among the crowd chanted “the N-word, the N-word, 15 times.” Both Carson and Lewis are black, and Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones also said that it occurred.

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“It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis,” said Carson, a large former police officer who said he wasn’t frightened but worried about the 70-year-old Lewis, who is twice his age. “He said it reminded him of another time.”

Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Cleaver’s office said he would decline to press charges, but Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: “We did not make any arrests today.”

Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina’s public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior “absolutely shocking.”

“I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus,” Clyburn told reporters.

Inside House office buildings, protesters made their views known by visiting lawmakers’ offices and chanting at legislators walking by.

Among the demonstrators was Delane Stewart, 65, of Cookeville, Tenn., who had come with her husband, Jesse.

“You know what’s coming next if this happens?” she said, referring to the health bill’s passage. “They’re going to come after gun control.”

Retired businessman Randy Simpson, 67, of Seneca, S.C., also said the health bill was just a first step.

“My concerns are about the health care bill, and the direction it takes us is toward communism, quite frankly,” he said.

At a daylong meeting of the House Rules Committee, members of both parties squeezed into a tiny hearing room traded accusations in a session that was often a shouting match.

“You all in the minority know what the American people think,” Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said loudly and mockingly at Republicans repeatedly saying the public overwhelmingly opposes Obama’s health care bill.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said a tricky voting procedure Democrats had been contemplating “corrupts and prostitutes the system” and would “unleash a cultural war in this country.”

Obama’s Capitol Hill visit was the day’s emotional peak for House Democrats as he sought to energize them to finally approve the legislation.

He conceded that it could be tough for some to vote for the bill, but predicted it would end up being politically smart because once it becomes law people will realize they like its provisions like curbs on insurance companies.

“It is in your hands,” the president said in what Clyburn later called the best speech he’d ever heard Obama make. “It is time to pass health care reform for America, and I am confident that you are going to do it tomorrow.”

This company’s reprehensible behavior underscores the need for substantive health care reform in this country. If insurance companies can only be relied upon to look after healthy patients, and then make it a policy to abandon them when they get sick, what’s the point of having health insurance at all? Click here to find out how you can advocate for much-needed health care reform in the United States. – NewsOne Staff

From Reuters:

In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

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Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.

So he hired an attorney — not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney’s letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.

In 2004, a jury in Florence County, South Carolina, ordered Assurant Health, part of Assurant Inc, to pay Mitchell $15 million for wrongly revoking his heath insurance policy.

In September 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s verdict, although the court reduced the amount to be paid him to $10 million.

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From Reuters.com:

The findings, based on data for nearly 475,000 VA patients, found that African Americans had lower rates of prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering statins, as well as ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers used to treat high blood pressure and certain heart problems. They were, however, more likely than white patients to be on aspirin.

At the same time, black patients were less likely than whites to have undergone coronary bypass surgery. The procedure is performed to reroute blood flow around heart-artery blockages, with the goal of relieving serious chest pain known as angina, and reducing the risk of heart attack.

Researchers say these racial gaps in drug prescriptions and bypass may help explain why heart disease deaths are not declining as rapidly among African Americans compared with other racial groups in the U.S.

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“It’s likely this may be a result of the lesser use of these strategies,” lead researcher Dr. Jawahar L. Mehta, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, said in an interview.

Click here to read more.

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WASHINGTON – Days away from a make-or-break vote on his health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is turning up the pressure as only presidents can, as Democratic leaders make a desperate scramble for votes.

The president is wooing freshman Democrats in the Oval Office, holding at least two one-on-one sessions in the past few days that never appeared on his official schedule, according to aides to two lawmakers invited, Reps. Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., and Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla.

Both voted “no” when the legislation passed the House on the first go-round last year, but now they’re not ruling out siding with the president and Democratic leaders on what’s expected to be a cliffhanger vote in the House later this week.

RELATED: Obama Reveals His Own Health Care Plan

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Another lawmaker who opposed the legislation last year, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, flew with Obama on Air Force One to an Obama appearance in Kucinich’s district Monday. Kucinich, was against the bill because he wants a larger government role in health care, also is not ruling out voting “yes” this time.

With a number of anti-abortion Democrats expected to defect over provisions they contend allow federal funding of abortion, every vote will count for Democratic leaders, who need to win over lawmakers who opposed the legislation the first time — and keep reluctant supporters on board in the face of escalating attacks. Sweetening the pot, those who vote with the president may get more help from him in the future: Party officials said that in determining how to allocate Obama’s time for campaign stops or other events, a vote on something like health care would be a consideration.

House Democrats triggered the countdown Monday for the climactic vote, with the House Budget Committee agreeing 21-16 to fast-track rules for the health bill, a necessary first step before floor action. Even so, the legislation remained incomplete. House Democrats caucused Monday evening, and a number of rank-and-file lawmakers straggled out discouraged that they still didn’t have final legislative language or a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

Leaders hope to get both those things Tuesday. Until then there’s only so much they can do to pin down wavering lawmakers who will soon be asked to make one of the riskiest votes of their careers.

RELATED: Obama: “We Need Courage” To Pass Health Care Reform

“There’s no decision yet on what the process is going to be, there’s nothing back from the CBO, there’s no commitment yet from the Senate that they can get 51 votes, and there’s no bill to show me what it’s in it,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a freshman who voted “yes” last year and has been targeted by Republicans. “So until those things get resolved I’m staying uncommitted.”

Democratic leaders sounded notes of optimism anyway.

“When we bring the bill to the floor, then we will have the votes,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Obama said in an interview with ABC News: “I believe we’re going to get the votes. We’re going to make this happen.”

In order to avoid a Republican filibuster in the Senate, the House will be voting to approve the Senate’s health overhaul bill, along with a package of fixes to change things House Democrats didn’t like, such as a tax on high-value insurance plans. That fix-it package can pass the Senate with a simple majority, a necessary approach because Republicans are unanimously opposed and Democrats control only 59 Senate votes, one short of the 60 needed to block a filibuster.

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A complicated procedure is being contemplated for the House floor, too, one that would shield lawmakers from having to vote directly on the Senate bill, allowing them to instead approve a rule for debate that would deem the Senate bill passed once the fix-it bill has passed.

Outside interests on both sides turned up the heat.

Union groups and other supporters announced a $1.3 million advertising campaign urging 17 House Democrats to vote for the measure, and officials at the Service Employees International Union threatened to withdraw support from Democrats who vote against the bill.

The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortions, wrote to lawmakers that support for the Senate bill would be a “career-defining pro-abortion vote.” Although House leaders hope to get the votes they need without changing the abortion language, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Monday that he’d spoken during the day with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., leader of a group of anti-abortion Democrats, and would continue their conversations.

It was more than a year ago that Obama asked Congress to approve legislation extending health coverage to tens of millions who lack it, curbing industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and beginning to slow the growth of health care costs nationally.

Sweeping legislation seemed to be on the brink of passage in January, after both houses approved bills and lawmakers began working out a final compromise. But those efforts were sidetracked when Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts — and with it, the ability to block a vote on a final bill in the Senate.

From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama, beginning his final push for a health care overhaul, called for Congress to allow an “up or down vote” on the measure, and sketched out an ambitious — and, some Democrats said, unrealistic — timetable for his party to pass a bill on its own within weeks.

“I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform,” Mr. Obama said during a 20-minute speech in the East Room of the White House. He said there was no point in starting over, as Republicans are demanding, and called on nervous Democrats to stick with him, declaring there was no reason “for those of us who were sent here to lead to just walk away.”

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The speech, less than a week after Mr. Obama held a high-profile televised health care forum, will usher in what White House officials say will be their last campaign to bring Washington’s long and contentious health care debate to a close — with a bill-signing ceremony at the end.

Click here to read more.

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Because of a disproportionate gap in health care coverage, among other things, African-Americans tend to be at higher risk for many life-threatening illnesses, including but not limited to breast cancer and heart disease. They also, often, lack access to treatment options and donors. To find out how you can help bridge this gap and to learn more about the unique organ/blood donation & transplantation issues that affect minorities, CLICK HERE. To learn more about the benefits of cord blood stem cells, click here. -NewsOne Staff

From CNN.com:

Cleveland, Ohio (CNN) — Diana Tirpak was so sure her leukemia was going to kill her, she bought a suit for her husband, Jake, to wear at her funeral.

“I was bound and determined he was going to look fine at the funeral,” says Tirpak, 68, a retired school nurse in Hudson, Ohio.

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Until recently, Tirpak would have faced a death sentence without a bone marrow transplant. But Tirpak’s physician, Dr. Mary Laughlin, turned to something deemed medical waste until recently: umbilical cord blood.

WATCH the story here:

Cord blood is rich in stem cells and easier to match than adult bone marrow because the immune cells are not developed. Also, patients can get the treatment in about three weeks — as opposed to six to eight for bone marrow from an adult donor, said Laughlin, founder and medical director of the Cleveland Cord Blood Center.

“That can be a critical time interval for a patient who is in remission,” she said, noting that doctors often fear a patient’s relapse while awaiting the transplant.

Click here to read more.

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While it is increasingly frustrating to watch President Obama’s continued overtures to a party that has no intention of working him no matter what he does, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all GOP ideas are bad ones and should be excluded. In particular, tort reform could prove useful to driving down the costs of health care by freeing doctors from the necessity of practicing defensive medicine. Hopefully after these new additions to Obama’s proposal, Democrats can finally stop pandering and get around to actually passing a bill. - NewsOne Staff

From CNN:

Washington — In a last-ditch attempt to craft a bipartisan health care reform bill, President Obama will release a new proposal Wednesday that will include Republican ideas on tort reform and health savings accounts, according to Democratic officials familiar with the plans.

But top Republicans, including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, immediately said the new proposal is not good enough and reiterated calls for the president to scrap the plan and start over.

The situation is setting up a likely showdown that top Democrats say will end up with the president trying to pass the health legislation with only Democratic votes through the legislative shortcut of reconciliation.

In fact, senior congressional Democrats have privately expressed frustration that the president is spending time at this late date reaching out to Republicans, when it has become increasingly clear the two parties can not settle their differences on this contentious issue.

The senior Democrats said they think the White House should be devoting time trying to win over Democrats, because it’s still not clear they can secure a simply majority in the House and Senate for the president’s plan.

Click here to read more.

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Saturday he is ready to compromise with Republicans on health care if they are serious about it, but that an overhaul must go forward. “Let’s get this done,” he said.

Obama’s comments in his weekly Internet and radio address, two days after an all-day bipartisan summit across from the White House, were the latest sign that Democrats are getting set to try to pass health care legislation without any Republicans on board.

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Success will require colossal efforts on the part of Obama and Democratic leaders to round up votes after a year of corrosive debate and a Senate special-election upset that threw the overhaul effort into limbo last month. But Obama and the Democrats reject the piecemeal approach sought by Republicans and have no intention of scrapping their 10-year, $1 trillion bill and starting over, as the GOP demands.

“I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge,” Obama said.

RELATED: Obama Unveils His Own Health Care Plan

“The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

“It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations,” Obama said.

Obama’s legislation would insure some 30 million more Americans over 10 years with a new requirement for nearly everyone to carry insurance and would end insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with medical problems. Republicans generally oppose mandates that make everyone get insurance, and although they want people with health conditions to be able to buy insurance, they would try to address the problem without new requirements on insurers.

Obama plans to release an updated proposal in the week ahead, likely on Wednesday, according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs suggested it would include concepts put forward by Republicans at the summit. One attendee, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., was contacted Friday by the White House and asked to submit details of suggestions he made to tackle waste and fraud in the medical system, Coburn’s spokesman said.

John Hart said Coburn views Obama’s legislation as a government takeover and would not be able to support it even if it includes some of his proposals.

RELATED: VIDEO: Will Abortion Sink Health Care Reform?

Adding Republican ideas is not likely to win Republican votes because the GOP insists Democrats should start from scratch. But Obama would be able to say that he’d listened to Republicans and attempted to meet them part way. Moving ahead may mean using Senate rules that would let Democrats pass legislation with a simple majority instead of the 60 vote they no longer command.

The approach infuriates Republicans and is opposed by some Democratic moderates because of its partisan nature.

Coburn, in the GOP’s weekly address, argued against a Democrats-only bill.

“Unfortunately, even before the summit took place the majority in Congress signaled its intent to reject our offers to work together,” Coburn said. “Instead they want to use procedural tricks and back-room deals to ram through a new bill that combines the worst aspects of the bills the Senate and House passed last year.”

“The American people are telling us to scrap the current bills, which will lead to a government takeover of health care, and we should start over,” Coburn said.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama alternatively courted and blasted Republicans who have impeded his health care plan Thursday, in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit aimed at breaking a partisan deadlock over his top domestic priority.

With the unprecedented, daylong policy debate available from start to finish to a divided public, Obama and Democratic leaders cast the reform they want as critical to tackling an issue that is even more pressing to many Americans — the struggling economy. Republicans fought back, and tempers flared.

“We just can’t afford this. That’s the ultimate problem,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican.

RELATED: Obama Unveils His Own Health Care Reform Plan

Passing a version of the bill that Republicans managed to block despite solid Democratic majorities in Congress also is critical to the president’s political future and that of his party ahead of congressional elections in November.

With that in mind, Obama is trying to boost support from moderate Democratic lawmakers, who could face the wrath of conservative voters if they back their president’s plan.

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“We all know that this is urgent,” Obama said.

At stake is the Democrats’ stalemated legislation to extend coverage to more than 30 million people who are now uninsured.

Polls show Americans want their elected leaders to address the problems of high medical costs, eroding access to coverage and uneven quality. But the public is split over the Democrats’ sweeping legislation, with its $1 trillion, 10-year price tag and many complex provisions, including some that wouldn’t take effect for another eight years — after Obama has packed up and left the White House.

For Obama, the summit is his chance to make a compelling closing argument to the American people. If he succeeds, Democrats will push ahead to pass the legislation with a package of revisions he’s proposed. If Obama falters, another Democratic president will have been humbled by health care. He will have to appeal to both sides to at least give him a modest bill smoothing some of the rough edges from the current system.

Obama lamented the partisan bickering that has stalled the health care legislation. “Politics I think ended up trumping practical common sense,” he said. But, he noted, “everybody here understands the desperation that people feel when they’re sick. And I think everybody here is profoundly sympathetic and wants to make sure that we have a system that works for all Americans.”

And yet, even as he pleaded for cooperation he acknowledged agreement may not be possible. “I don’t know that those gaps can be bridged,” Obama said. “If not, at least we will have better clarified for the American people what the debate is all about.”

Both chambers of Congress passed separate bills last year. But before the two versions could be reconciled, Republicans captured the Massachusetts Senate seat in a special election to replace the late Edward M. Kennedy. That cost Democrats the 60-vote supermajority needed to overcome Republican procedural obstacles and pass major legislation.

Public skepticism about the health care plan was seen as contributing to the Republican victory in Massachusetts, an overwhelmingly Democratic state. With the supermajority lost and Democrats getting nervous, the White House had been expected to shift its attention to job creation, an issue more likely to resonate with voters.

RELATED: Why Racial Disparities In Health Care Persist

Disagreements were not always expressed diplomatically on Thursday.

The forum at one point yielded a testy exchange between the president and his former opponent Sen. John McCain, who complained that Obama reneged on a campaign promise to bring change to Washington for encouraging health care dealmaking behind close doors.

“We’re not campaigning any more. The election is over,” Obama snapped, prompting the Republican to retort that he’s “reminded of that every day.”

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander challenged Obama’s claim that insurance premiums would fall under the Democratic legislation. “You’re wrong,” he said. Responded Obama: “I’m pretty certain I’m not wrong.”

As with much in the complicated health care debate, both sides had a point. The Congressional Budget Office says average premiums for people buying insurance individually would be a little higher under the Senate legislation, as Alexander said. But the policies would cover more medical services, and around half of people could get government subsidies to defray the extra costs.

With such opposing positions well staked out before the meeting and no signs of them changing, the president and his Democratic allies prepared to move on alone.

Despite losing their supermajority, Democrats can still pass major health legislation by using special budget rules that require only a simple majority. They have been reluctant to use that process so far because it would enrage Republicans and likely further worsen the partisan divide.

Another alternative if bipartisan agreement eludes Obama on Thursday is going smaller, with a modest bill that would merely smooth some of the rough edges from the current system.

The White House developed the slimmed-down health care proposal so the president will know what the impact would be if he chooses that route, according to a Democratic official familiar with the discussions.

The slimmer backup plan was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The summit was held at Blair House, the elegant presidential guest quarters across the street from the White House. Leaders of both parties spoke, with Obama steering the debate as moderator.

It wasn’t a grand, or even particularly comfortable, setting. About 40 senators, representatives and administration officials were crowded around a large hollow square table in a cramped room, perched for the six-hour marathon on wooden chairs with thin cushions. Coffee breaks had been ruled out, so the only pause in the action would come during lunch.

The C-SPAN cable network carried complete coverage, while news operations from cable networks to public broadcasting were making it the focus of their day.

WASHINGTON — Making a last-ditch effort to save his health care overhaul, President Barack Obama on Monday put forward a nearly $1 trillion, 10-year compromise that would allow the government to deny or roll back egregious insurance premium increases that infuriated consumers.

Posted Monday morning on the White House Web site, the plan would provide coverage to more than 31 million Americans now uninsured without adding to the federal deficit. It comes just four days before Obama’s one-of-a-kind, televised health care summit with Democrats and Republicans.

Even with the latest changes, it’s highly uncertain such an ambitious proposal can get through Congress. Republicans are virtually all opposed, and some Democrats who last year supported sweeping health care changes are having second thoughts in an election year. After a year in pursuit of what was once his top domestic priority, Obama may have to settle for a modest fallback.

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Weeks ago, the president and congressional Democrats were on the verge of an historic step — a long-sought remake of the nation’s health care system after a half-century of unsuccessful attempts by scores of politicians. Then Republican Scott Brown stunned Washington with an upset win in the Massachusetts Senate race, denying Democrats their 60-seat majority and reversing any political momentum.

Determined to avoid facing voters empty-handed, Obama offered a fresh proposal based on Democratic-passed bills.

The plan conspicuously omits a government insurance plan sought by liberals and viewed as a non-starter by conservatives and some congressional moderates. It includes Senate-passed restrictions on federal funding for abortion adamantly opposed by abortion foes as well as abortion rights supporters.

RELATED: Obama To Offer Own Health Care Bill To Ease Impasse

The new White House plan would give the federal government the power to regulate the health insurance industry much like a public utility. The Health and Human Services Department — in conjunction with state authorities — would be able to deny egregious premium increases, limit them or demand rebates for consumers.

Obama, who deferred to Congress on the specifics for more than a year, has finally put forward a detailed plan of his own. By and large, it follows the bill passed by Senate Democrats on Christmas Eve, with changes intended to make it acceptable to their House counterparts.

It would require most Americans to carry health insurance coverage, with federal subsidies to help many afford the premiums. Insurance companies would be barred from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more.

The plan dramatically scales back a Senate tax on high-cost health insurance plans objected to by House Democrats — and labor unions. Instead of raising $150 billion over 10 years, it would bring in just $30 billion, the administration said. A Medicare payroll tax increase on upper-income earners would help plug the revenue gap. For the first time, Medicare taxes would be assessed on investment income, not just wages.

Like the Senate bill, the Obama plan would create competitive insurance markets in each state for small businesses and people buying their own coverage. But it would strip out special Medicaid deals the Senate bill granted to certain states, gradually close the Medicare prescription coverage gap, make newly available coverage for working families more affordable. Those changes move in the direction of the House bill.

RELATED: Why Racial Disparities In Health Care Persist

Estimated to cost about $1 trillion over 10 years, Obama’s plan would be paid for by a mix of Medicare cuts, tax increases and new fees on health care industries.

Oversight of insurance companies has traditionally been a state responsibility. Obama’s proposal for a new federal role calls for setting up a seven-member Health Insurance Rate Authority to monitor insurance industry practices and issue an annual report. States that beef up their consumer protection programs would be eligible for a share of $250 million in federal grants.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., declined to say that House leaders have the votes now to pass the new plan, but said some of the concerns of House members were addressed by the changes Obama is proposing.

“So I do believe that there is more fertile soil today than when we first took this up,” Clyburn said.

Democrats, who now hold 255 of the House’s 435 seats, drew only one GOP ally when the House passed its health care bill, 220-215, last November. Since then, one Democrat who voted for the bill has resigned, one has died and a third plans to leave office Feb. 28.

From NYTimes.com:

WASHINGTON — President Obama will put forward comprehensive health care legislation intended to bridge differences between Senate and House Democrats ahead of a summit meeting with Republicans next week, senior administration officials and Congressional aides said Thursday.

Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.

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Congressional Democrats, however, have not yet seen the proposal or signed on.

The House and the Senate each adopted a version of sweeping health care legislation late last year. But efforts to combine the measures stalled after a Republican, Scott Brown, won a special Senate election in Massachusetts on Jan. 19, effectively stripping the Democrats of the 60th vote they needed to overcome Republican filibusters.

“It will be a reconciliation bill,” one Democratic aide said. “If Republicans don’t come with any substantial offers, this is what we would do.”

Click here to read more.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

Zumante Lucero, a 9 year-old Denver boy with asthma, died in July after a severe attack. His family had previously been on Medicaid, but was unexpectedly cut off from the program, and lost access to medication as a result. Zumante’s doctors believe that access to a prescription that helped control inflaming in his lungs could have saved his life.

Since Zumante’s death, it has become clear that the Lucero family should have had prescription drug benefits under Medicaid, and the State of Colorado erred in cutting them off of coverage.

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According to Zuton Lucero, Zumante’s mother, she called Denver Human Services every few days for months. Human Services responded by affirming that all of her children were in fact covered under Medicaid. However, when local pharmacists’ computers did not register the family as having prescription drug coverage. This pattern continued until Zumante’s death in July.

Click here to read more.

WATCH Zumante’s sister tell his story:

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Obama Gives Health Care To 4 Million Uninsured Children

What Would MLK Say About The Health Care Debate?

Roland Martin calculates that the common denominator between Clinton Administration health care reform and Obama’s attempt at it is Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Martin poses this very interesting question to the panel: Should Emmanuel get canned?

Find out what the panel had to say here:

Catch this week’s FULL episode tomorrow at 5pm & 11pm on TV One!

ALSO:

Have something you want to share with Smokey or Roland? Submit your video questions and comments HERE!

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, eager to sign a health care overhaul bill into law, on Saturday highlighted some of the changes that would come in the first year and permanently ban “the worst practices of the insurance industry.”

Obama acknowledged it would take several years — until 2014 in some instances — for some of the changes to be fully implemented, and that has disappointed consumers and their advocates. He used his weekly radio and Internet address to play up the brighter side of the overhaul he hopes to sign in time for his first State of the Unionaddress to a joint session of Congress in a matter of weeks.

“Now, it’ll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way,” the president said. “But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year.”

RELATED: Senate Passes Landmark Health Care Bill

Among them, Obama said:

_People with pre-existing illnesses or conditions will be able to buyaffordable health insurance.

_Children with such conditions will no longer be denied coverage.

_Small-business owners who can’t afford to cover their employees will get tax credits to help them do so.

_Insurance companies will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers and will be prohibited from dropping coverage when someone becomes ill.

RELATED: Civil Rights Group Launches Health Care Reform Ad Campaign

“In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over theirhealth care decisions and insurance company bureaucrats will have less,” Obama said. “All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known.”

House and Senate versions of the overhaul would require nearly all Americans to get coverage and provide subsidies for many who can’t afford the cost, but they differ on the details. Among the remaining sticking points are whom to tax, how many people to cover, how to restrict taxpayer funding for abortion and whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to use their own money to buy coverage in new insurance markets.

Obama had several meetings with Democratic lawmakers at the White House this week to help resolve those differences. In one instance, he signaled to House Democratic leaders that they must drop their opposition to taxing high-end insurance plans to pay to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people. The tax, which is in the Senate bill, is largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care To Slaves’ Freedom

Obama and lawmakers also agreed to bypass formal negotiations as they reach for a deal.

Republican lawmakers, saying the bills cost too much and impose too much government control, are near unanimous in opposing the legislation.

WASHINGTON – House Democrats aren’t optimistic that a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, will survive negotiations with the Senate.

While insisting “it’s not dead,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Sunday he recognizes realities in the Senate, where Democrats had to scrape up every vote from their side to pass a bill — even one without a government plan to compete in the private insurance marketplace.

“Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums,” said Van Hollen. “We’ve got to make sure that the final product is affordable.”

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.

RELATED: Senate Passes Landmark Health Care Bill

“We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs,” Clyburn said. “So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I’m all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence.”

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored the divisions Democrats will need to bridge when negotiators from the House and Senate meet next month to reconcile the two bills. He said there will need to be more give on the House side than the Senate, which took weeks to find the 60 votes needed for passage.

“If we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version,” Menendez asserted.

The Senate’s Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it’s been for generations to a new order in health insurance. It would eventually require nearly all Americans to get coverage, help many pay for it and restrict onerous insurance company practicessuch as denying coverage to people with pre-existing sickness.

But nothing will change for anyone until the House and Senate can settle on common legislation, pass it and send it to Obama to sign.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care Reform To Slaves’ Freedom

The high stakes have both parties hoping they can find a few converts from the other side. Nearly every Republican in Congress has opposed the measures.

“If some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions — offer a vote or two, or three or four — to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you’d have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship,” said Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, himself a party switcher.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voiced similar hope, to opposite ends: “a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn’t before and help us stop this thing.”

DeMint, Van Hollen, Menendez and Specter spoke on “Fox News Sunday.” Clyburn was on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”

From the Huffington Post:

While many Americans are wrapping gifts, President Barack Obama is pledging to personally wrap up health-care reform.

The Senate expects to pass a health care bill on Christmas Eve, and Obama told PBS’s Jim Lehrer that he would ‘absolutely’ take a hands-on role in merging it with the House version.

“We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session,” he said.

This comes after the president has taken some criticism for being too passive and allowing too many aspects of health care reform to be compromised.

Click here to read more.

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WASHINGTON — From the White House to Capitol Hill, Democrats confidently predicted Senate passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul Tuesday after the bill cleared its second 60-vote test and the time was set for a final tally.

Coming to the Senate floor in the middle of the afternoon, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced an agreement to vote on final passage at 8 a.m. Thursday morning, Christmas Eve. It would mark the 25th consecutive day of Senate deliberation on health care.

RELATED: Health Care Bill Clears Key Senate Test

“The finish line is in sight,” Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at a news conference with other Senate leaders and cheering supporters. “We’re not the first to attempt such reforms but we will be the first to succeed.”

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs declared: “Health care reform is not a matter of if. Health care reform is now a matter of when.”

Obama said the Senate legislation accomplishes “95 percent” of what he wanted on health care. “Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill,” the president said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Senate Democrats remained united early Tuesday behind their compromise bill over steadfast Republican opposition. A motion to shut off debate and move to a vote on a package of changes by Reid passed 60-39.

The final 60-vote hurdle, limiting debate on the bill itself, is expected to be cleared Wednesday afternoon, setting up the Thursday morning-before-Christmas vote on the legislation, which at that point will need only a simple majority to pass.

The Senate has been voting at odd hours since Monday around 1 a.m. because Republicans have insisted on using all the time allowed under Senate rules to delay the bill. Not to be thwarted, Reid has refused to postpone action until after the holidays. On Tuesday, they started voting at sunrise.

With fatigue and frustration rising, Reid appealed to his colleagues to set aside acrimony and reach for some holiday spirit.

“I would hope everybody will keep in mind that this is a time when we reflect on peace and good things,” he said. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he, too, wanted to close the debate. After conferring with McConnell, Reid announced the timing of the final vote.

Even so, partisan fires were burning.

RELATED: Obama Visits Senate To Push Health Care Bill

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina denounced concessions won by conservative Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, whose support gave Democrats the 60th and final vote they need. Among other things, Nelson got an agreement that the federal government will pay to expand Medicaid services in Nebraska.

“That’s not change you can believe in. That’s sleazy,” Graham said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa defended the concessions, saying: “The one that’s being talked about for Nebraska, it also benefits other states. It’s not just Nebraska.”

He also said he would vote for the package even if it didn’t contain concessions for Iowa. “The principle of this bill overrides everything,” Harkin told CBS’ “Early Show.”

Moderate Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who has also been criticized after securing a boost in Medicaid for her state, defended the concessions she got, saying they benefited low-income families small businesses.

The Senate measure would still have to be harmonized with the health care bill passed by the House in November before final legislation would go to Obama.

There are significant differences between the two bills, including stricter abortion language in the House bill, a new government-run insurance plan in the House bill that’s missing from the Senate version, and a tax on high-value insurance plans embraced by the Senate but strongly opposed by many House Democrats.

Senate moderates have served notice they won’t support a final deal if government-run insurance comes back. And Democratic abortion opponents in the House say a Senate compromise on the volatile issue is unacceptable.

But there’s considerable pressure on Democrats to avoid messy negotiations over a final bill. Public support for the legislation continues to sink in opinion polls.

The bills probably have more in common than differences. Each costs around $1 trillion over 10 years and installs new requirements for nearly all Americans to buy insurance, providing subsidies to help lower-income people do so. They’re paid for by a combination of tax and fee increases and cuts in projected Medicare spending.

Unpopular insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with existing health conditions would be banned. Uninsured or self-employed Americans would have a new way to buy health insurance, via marketplaces called exchanges where private insurers would sell health plans required to meet certain minimum standards.

WASHINGTON – Landmark health care legislation backed byPresident Barack Obama passed its sternest Senate test in the pre-dawn hours early Monday, overcoming Republican delaying tactics on a 60-40 vote that all but assures its passage by Christmas.

“Let’s make history,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, shortly before the bill’s supporters demonstrated their command of the Senate floor in an extraordinary holiday season showdown.

The bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who now lack it, while banning insurance company practices such as denial of benefits on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

RELATED: OPINION: Health Care Reform Is America’s Anti-Theft Device

The atmosphere was intensely partisan, but the outcome preordained as senators cast their votes from their desks, a practice reserved for issues of particular importance. Administration officials who have worked intensely on the issue watched from the visitor’s gallery despite the hour. So, too, Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who championed health care across a Senate career that spanned more than 40 years.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson’s announcement Saturday that he had decided to support the bill — in exchange for a variety of concessions — cemented the Democrats’ 60-vote majority behind a bill assembled at the direction of Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Republicans conceded Democrats had the votes, but said they hadn’t heard the end of it.

“One can stop it, or everyone will own it,” said Sen. Mitch McConnellof Kentucky, the Republican leader, a thinly disguised warning that his party will use the issue in the 2010 midterm elections.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care Reform To Slaves’ Freedom

In a strong attack on Obama, he said, “a president who was voted into office on the promise of change said he wanted lower premiums. That changed. He said he wouldn’t raise taxes. That changed. He said he wanted lower costs. That changed. He said he wouldn’t cut Medicare benefits. That changed.”

But Reid countered with a list of Nevadans whom he said have suffered at the hands of insurance companies. “On average, an American dies from lack of health insurance every 10 minutes. That means that in the short time I have been speaking, our broken system has claimed another life.”

Still, McConnell called the vote the culmination of a long debate, an acknowledgment that it was the single most important vote. Democrats must post 60 votes twice more, and Republicans can delay final passage until Christmas, but not prevent it.

Nelson came in for strong criticism from Republicans in Washington, who complained that he had won favorable treatment for his home state’s Medicaid program. In a bit of political theater, they sought to open the bill up to extend it to all 50 states, but Democrats objected.

Nelson’s agreement to an abortion-related change in the bill drew criticism from Nebraska Right to Life, a longtime supporter, and the state’s Catholic bishops, who issued a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” in him.

His rebuttal came in the form of his vote, as well as a statement. “Too many Nebraskans struggle more each year to pay rising health care costs,” he said. “Too many fear or face bankruptcy and too many are left behind, unable to obtain basic health coverage for themselves and their families.”

The House has already passed legislation, and attempts to work out a compromise are expected to begin in the days after Christmas.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the legislation would reduce deficits by about $132 billion over a decade, and possibly much more in the 10 years that follow. Republicans counter those figures are illusory, because they depend on cuts to Medicare that will never take place.

At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complies with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with subsidies available to help families making up to $88,000 in income afford the cost.

RELATED: Civil Rights Group Launches Health Care Reform Ad Campaign

In a bow to Senate moderates, the measure lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats placed in their bill. Instead, the estimated 26 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for privately owned, nonprofit nationwide plans overseen by the same federal agency office that supervises the system used by federal employees and members of Congress.

The full extent of Reid’s maneuvering was still unclear.

Nelson won numerous changes, including tougher restrictions on abortion coverage and an estimated $45 million in federal Medicaid funds, enough to completely cover his state’s costs of complying with an expansion of the program mandated by the bill.

Vermont and Massachusetts also won additional Medicaid funds; plastic surgeons were persuasive in their bid to strip out a proposed tax on elective plastic surgery; hospitals in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana won additional Medicare funds; and there was more money for hospitals in Hawaii to treat the uninsured.

While Nelson’s vote was the decisive one to fall into place for the Democrats, only an unpredictable series of events has left them with the ability to gain 60 without any help from Republicans.

They began the year with a caucus of 58, including 56 Democrats and two independents. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter added to their ranks in April when he suddenly bolted from the Republican party, and Sen. Al Franken made it 60 when he was sworn into office in July after a long Minnesota recount.

It was only a few weeks before Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a longtime advocate of universal health care, succumbed after a long battle with brain cancer and Democrats reverted to 59 seats.

With a heavy push from Reid and the White House, and a request Kennedy wrote not long before his death, Democrats in the Massachusetts Legislature quickly changed state law so Gov. Deval Patrick could appoint a temporary replacement.

Paul Kirk, a longtime Kennedy associate and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was sworn in Sept. 25. “We’re prepared to go to work,” he said.

Democratic officials say Sen. Ben Nelson intends to support health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama, giving the measure a 60th and decisive vote.

These officials say the Nebraska Democrat will make an announcement later Saturday. Marathon negotiations with the White House and Senate Democratic leaders produced fresh concessions that will mean additional abortion restrictions in the legislation.

RELATED: VIDEO: Will Abortion Sink Health Reform?

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Nelson hadn’t announced his decision.

Word of Nelson’s decision came as Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled a final series of revisions to the health care bill, and Republicans dug in to prevent its passage for as long as possible.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care Reform To Slaves’ Freedom

WATCH:

Both were contentious issues argued about on the Senate floor; both were issues affecting Black people disproportionately; both freaked White people out enough to have them screaming bloody murder at the mere mention of “federal government.”

Seems like a sound enough argument to me! But wait… could there be a disconcerting undertone to all this? What’s race got to do with healthcare, anyway?

(A lot. You’d want to check this, this & this out to learn more.)

All this is to say that there seems to be a definite & palpable hypothesis the Democratic party is trying to advance: if you’re against healthcare, you’re a racist. And, with a Black president, you certainly don’t wanna be caught with that glove on. Do you?

Seemingly in response to this, there’s a great YouTube campaign going on called, “I Guess I’m A Racist.”

WATCH:

If I’m honest, I stopped caring about healthcare when I realized it’s the “Hope&Change” trojan horse. You know, except it’s filled with crazy-eyed lobbyists that are hell-bent on making sure D.C. continues on the “More Of The Same” bus we all thought we de-boarded on November 4, 2008.

SURPRISE! (?)

But my favorite part of this “I Guess I’m A Racist,” thing is how they cleverly get a couple Black people in there. Like, “Hey, see, it’s a Black person.. against healthcare.. I guess you think this BLACK PERSON is racist toooo, Harry Reid?! *scoff scoff scoff*.” The people behind this video really, truly understand race politics in this country. (GROAN)

What do you think? Is it racist to be against health care reform? Is there a real comparison to be drawn between slavery & health care? Does race even play a role here or is everyone just going nuts?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said Tuesday night that he and a group of 10 Democratic senators had reached “a broad agreement” to resolve a dispute over a proposed government-run health insurance plan, which has posed the biggest obstacle to passage of sweeping health care legislation.

Mr. Reid refused to provide details. Other senators said the tentative agreement would sideline but not kill the “public option” championed by President Obama and liberal Democrats in Congress.

Under the agreement, people ages 55 to 64 could “buy in” to Medicare. And a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress.

If these private plans did not meet certain goals for making affordable coverage available to all Americans, Senate Democratic aides said, then the government itself would offer a new insurance plan, somewhat like the “public option” in the bill Mr. Reid unveiled three weeks ago.

Click here to read more.

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From Politico:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) upped the rhetorical ante this morning by comparing opponents of health care reform to conservatives who tried to block emancipation and equal rights — prompting the Republican national chairman to question his sanity.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Reid blasted GOP leaders who have urged Democrats opt for a slower, incremental approach to reform instead of the mega-bill the majority hopes to push through the Senate by Christmas

Reid started by mimicking Republicans whom he claims have said: “‘Slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.”

“You think you’ve heard these same excuses before? You’re right,” he continued. “In this country…there were those who dug in their heels and said, ‘Slow down, it’s too early. Let’s wait. Things aren’t bad enough’ ” – about slavery.

When women wanted to vote, he went on, opponents said, ” ‘Slow down, there will be a better day to do that — the day isn’t quite right.’ ”

He finished with: “When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

Click here to read more.

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Obama Visits Senate To Push Health Care Bill

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is paying a rare weekend visit to Capitol Hill to urge Senate Democrats forward as they work through the weekend to try to resolve their differences on his sweeping health care overhaul.

The president’s planned appearance at a Senate Democratic caucus meeting Sunday afternoon answers appeals from a number of lawmakers eager for him to step in and help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finish the job in pushing forward his top domestic policy priority.

“The president is going to come in and urge us to bring this ball across the line, to finish this, as he should. This is an historic opportunity,” said Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat.

RELATED: Health Care Bill Clears Key Hurdle In Senate

Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, viewed Obama’s closed-door visit with Democrats differently.

“I regret that the president is going to continue what has been a partisan approach to health care reform,” Cornyn said. “Obviously, the president and Senate Democrats have made a decision to do it their way without accepting input from Republicans.”

Obama and Reid must unite liberals and moderates in the 60-member caucus in the face of near-solid Republican opposition, even as moderates balk over abortion and a proposal for the government to sell health insurance in competition with the private market. Sixty is the precise number needed to overcome Republican stalling tactics in the 100-member Senate, so Reid doesn’t have a vote to spare.

“I think if we don’t deliver, we’ve got a problem,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, when asked on a Sunday talk show about the political consquences for Democrats should they fail to produce a bill.

Moderate and liberal lawmakers met throughout the day Saturday to try to find a compromise on the government insurance plan, or public option, that they could all support and that could also potentially attract Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the one Republican to vote for the Democrats’ health overhaul bill in committee.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Senate Republican leader, said that right now his party remained united against the Democratic bill, which he complained would “get the government very deeply involved into health care at an enormous expense.”

A new idea being discussed was national nonprofit insurance plans that would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the well-liked Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, a key centrist Democrat, was enthusiastic about the idea, which she’s proposed in different forms in the past. “I think it bodes well for being able to do what we want to do, which is to create greater choice and options in the marketplace,” she said.

Liberal Democratic senators were cool to the proposal, holding out for a fully government-run plan.

“I’m willing to talk to anybody about anything but they haven’t sold it yet,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. “We have compromised enough on the public option.”

Someone will have to give. But despite the apparent divide, lawmakers and White House officials sounded increasingly optimistic.

RELATED: Senate Health Care Plan Will Reportedly Cost $849 Billion

“It’s going really well. They’re having a lot of really productive meetings,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, told reporters in the Capitol Saturday. “It’s about where it should be at this point in the legislative process.”

Reid called the unusual weekend sessions as he races to finish the sweeping bill by Christmas.

The nearly $1 trillion, 10-year legislation being debated in the Senate would provide coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. There would be new marketplaces where people could shop for and compare insurance plans, and lower-income people would get subsidies to help them afford coverage. The federal-state Medicaid program for the poor would grow, and there would be a ban on unpopular insurance company practices such as pulling coverage when someone gets sick.

Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance or are underinsured, either because their employers do not provide it or they are out of work. The United States is the only developed industrialized nation that does not have a comprehensive national health care plan.

The House of Representatives passed its version of health care reform legislation last month. Assuming the Senate passes some version of health care overhaul, a House-Senate conference committee would try to resolve the differences. Then both chambers would vote on the final product and, if they approve it, send it to Obama’s desk for signing.

Durbin and Cornyn spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” while Feinstein and Kyl were on CNN’s “State of the Union.”