Dennis Kucinich to Hold Press Conference Wednesday Morning
By Bronwyn's Harbor on March 16, 2010 at 11:05 PM in Current Affairs
I’m sure you all saw the TV reports of Dennis Kucinich departing Air Force One with President Obama when Obama visited Kucinich’s Ohio district yesterday.
To date, Kucinich has opposed Obamacare because he felt it didn’t go far enough in offering health care to enough Americans. Kucinich favors “Medicare for All.” The word is that, on Air Force One, Obama told Kucinich that it is vital to vote for Obamacare because he should view it as an opening, not the be-all-end-all, in legislation. (Conservatives have certainly warned everyone that Obama and his supporters view this health care bill as a first step in putting all health care under the control of the federal government.)
Dennis Kucinich is easy. He got to feel important, riding Air Force One into his home district. If Dennis Kucinich caves, more will come. For the past few days, I’ve thought Obama couldn’t get the votes, but now I’m wondering if he just may make it, at least if it’s that easy to impress these representatives.
No one knows what Kucinich will say tomorrow morning at his press conference.
Kucinich’s press release states that he “will announce his vote on health care reform” — but my gut reaction to the news is that Kucinich is announcing that his “no” is now a “yes” and he may even offer the view that Obamacare will open the door to more government offerings in health care, including a public option or, in the future, Medicare For All. Besides his love for being in the spotlight, I can’t imagine why Kucinich would hold a press conference to announce his vote unless he were going to change his position.
Lawrence O’Donnell, who’s subbing on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show (Olbermann’s father died), noted tonight that Kucinich recently announced that he was a firm “no” on Obamacare. However, Countdown guest Howard Fineman of Newsweek said he has sources who state that Kucinich will come out in support of Obamacare. Further, Fineman believes, if Kucinich announces his support for Obamacare, that it will provide “a heat shield” for Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others who’ve been battling with the far left who believe Obamacare is the wrong way to go about health care reform and are “dead set in favor of a public option.”
Fineman predicts that Kucinich will adopt Obama’s arguments to him on Air Force One: That Obamacare is a “first step,” and will begin much as other entitlements like Social Security began, as a step to more offerings, such as a public option.
O’Donnell’s next guest, Ezra Klein, concurred with O’Donnell that, to date, Nancy Pelosi’s “yes column” is around 200, with 216 needed to pass the bill. However, Klein pointed out, this is the time when representatives will lie to leadership in the hopes that they can get more goodies in order to gain their votes, which means that — given the right incentives — their votes can be won over.
Of course, all of this fretting about votes will be for naught if the House adopts the Louise Slaughter strategy of using the “deem and pass” rule that allows the House to provide passage of the Senate bill without actually having to vote on the bill. (Rep. Slaughter is the chair of the Rules Committee, and came up with the idea to use the “deem and pass” method to give House members an escape route from having to vote for the bill.) From the L.A. TImes story, “Democrats may use shortcut to pass healthcare overhaul“:
In the face of Republican attacks Tuesday, leading Democrats defended a controversial endgame maneuver that would allow them to pass the Senate version of a healthcare overhaul without taking a direct vote on the legislation’s most divisive provisions.
The stratagem, known in the arcane language of Congress as a “self-executing” rule or “deem and pass,” would allow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to skirt a roll-call vote, speeding passage of the bill and helping limit attacks on Democrats facing tough competition in an election year. …
This stinks to the high heavens. No momentous legislation should be rammed through via arcane rules, particularly since it is backed solely by one party, with not a single Republican in either the House or Senate voting for the bill, and affects such a large percentage of the U.S. economy (some say as much as 1/6th of the economy).
However, if Obama can persuade enough House members — as he’s apparently done by stroking Kucinich’s ego — he may not need the House to use trickery to avoid a vote.
Then there’s that, as other commentators today have noted, the American people may soon forget HOW the bill was passed. Further, once the bill is passed and the citizenry comes to view it as an entitlement, much like Social Security and Medicare, it will never be repealed, let alone made leaner.
It’s a long time from now until November. If the House and Senate manage to ram this bill through via parliamentary trickery, will Americans remember that come November when they’re voting for their representatives and senators? Or will they already be on the receiving end of some of the bill’s offerings?
I’m stunned by some of the promises that Obama and his minions are making. For example, they are claiming that the infamous “doughnut hole” in Medicare’s Plan D prescription insurance will be eliminated. From Kaiser Health News:
The amount seniors must pay in the coverage gap is projected to increase to $5,755 by 2018. In 2007, an estimated 3.4 million Part D enrollees hit the coverage gap. The Democrats’ health care legislation now being debated in Congress would gradually close the doughnut hole. The study said that previous research showed that some enrollees who reach the coverage gap sometimes skip needed medications when faced with the full cost.
Here’s more from the Money Watch story, “High Prescription Drug Costs Deliver Rude Awakening for Retirees“:
It’s a different story once you retire, reach age 65, and are covered by Medicare. Under standard Medicare Part D benefits covering prescription drugs, your annual out-of-pocket costs could easily be $1,000, $2,000 or more. And this doesn’t include the monthly premiums for Medicare Part D benefits, which can add another $300 to $500 per year. [Table of coverage gaps.]
For instance, suppose your prescription drugs have a total cost of $3,000. You’ve fallen into Medicare’s dreaded “donut hole” where you pay 100 percent of the cost of drugs in that range of total drug costs. Applying the above rules, your annual out-of-pocket expenses would be $1,110 (that’s $940 on the first $2,830 of your costs, plus 100 percent of the amount over that, or $170 in this case). If these are lifetime maintenance drugs, you’ll end up paying tens of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. …
Well, the Obamacare advocates’ claims that they’ll eliminate these very expensive doughnut holes are just not true. U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “emphasized the legislation’s efforts to close Medicare’s prescription drug “doughnut hole” and to “lower drug costs overall.”
Secretary Sebelius sidestepped the token improvements to closing the doughnut hole. I looked up what Obamacare will actually give seniors who hit the doughnut hole during the coming year. They will be eligible to get a check for $250. That’s it. $250 total. Which barely begins to cover the monthly costs for seniors whose prescription drugs cost hundreds, even thousands, per month. From “Hinchey Highlights Immediate Benefits of Heath Care Reform” (Hinchey is Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)):
Seniors who fall into the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap known as the “donut hole” will immediately have access to a $250 rebate, and preventative services and immunizations under Medicare will no longer require a co-payment.
First, that this is a rebate means that seniors will first have to purchase the drugs at full price, and then apply for reimbursement. Secondly, $250 scarcely begins to cover the monthly costs of most prescription drugs.
If Obamacare passes, and other promises currently being made turn out to be exaggerations — and the realization that many benefits won’t go into effect for several years — the American people will be even angrier.
Coda: Well, Americans will be angry if they’re tuned in. Sometimes I wonder. I have neighbors to whom I’ve spoken about the problems with Obamacare.
One day, when I mentioned Harry Reid, I was asked, “Who is he?” I fear that such non-involvement in the news of the day is endemic throughout this country. Such people will happily accept whatever government assistance comes their way, without ever questioning what it is doing to the economy or any awareness that there were better bi-partisan plans that would have provided far more substantive improvements. I digress.
But I wonder if most Americans are either oblivious to the rules trickery involved in ramming this bill through, or will simply forget as time passes. They’ll certainly not be aware of Dennis Kucinich’s press conference tomorrow, or what it symbolizes. Only we political junkies will be tuned in.
And maybe, come November, only we political junkies will remember the incessant daily news about the troubles Obama, Pelosi and Reid faced in getting their Democratic members to vote yes.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
