Amy’s Yard

WASHINGTON — Jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote for historic health care legislation Saturday, putting President Barack Obama's signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage.

At the White House, Obama swiftly welcomed the breakthrough, saying, "After a nearly centurylong struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America."

In the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid smiled broadly when asked if Nelson's decision gave him the 60-vote majority necessary to overcome solid Republican opposition. "Seems that way," he said. The Nevada Democrat agreed to a series of concessions on abortion and other issues demanded by Nelson in daylong talks on Friday, then informed Obama of the agreement in a late night phone call as the president flew home from climate talks in Copenhagen.

The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that "arbitrarily jack up prices" in advance of the legislation taking effect.

CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.

The developments unfolded on a day of improbables – a snowstorm enveloped the Capitol, creating whiteout conditions outside; while inside senators staged dueling news conferences as if their presence on the Saturday before Christmas was the rule rather than the rarest of exceptions.

At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complied with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with federal subsidies available to help defray the cost for lower and middle income individuals and families.

In a concession to Nelson and other moderates, the bill lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats inserted into theirs. In a final defeat for liberals, a proposed Medicare expansion was also jettisoned in the past several days as Reid and the White House maneuvered for 60 votes.

Outnumbered Republicans unleashed a new series of attacks against the legislation and vowed to delay its passage as long as possible. The next – and most critical – test vote was set for about 1 a.m. Monday.

"This bill is a legislative train wreck of historic proportions," the party's leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said at a news conference. He pointed to cuts to Medicare that CBO said totaled more than $470 billion over a decade, with reductions in planned payments to home health care agencies and hospices. He also said the bill includes "massive tax increases" at a time of double-digit unemployment.

Republicans also noted that CBO concluded that under the bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care."

True to their word, Republicans objected when Reid sought permission for Nelson to announce his decision in a speech on the Senate floor, then insisted clerks read aloud 383 pages of last-minute changes the majority leader unveiled.

Many of Reid's revisions were designed to secure the 60 votes needed to steer the bill past the GOP filibuster.

Those drafted at Nelson's behest drew the most attention, and included further restrictions on abortion coverage in policies sold inside the exchanges.

States would be permitted to ban insurance coverage of abortions in policies sold in the exchange, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. In states where such coverage is permitted, consumers must notify their insurance company they want it, and pay for it separately.

The Nebraskan also won increased federal funds to cover his state's cost of covering an expanded Medicaid population at a cost that one Democratic official put at $45 million over a decade, and took credit for easing the bill's impact as well as other, smaller changes.

When he finally announced his decision, Nelson did so at a news conference in a Capitol corridor, rather than from his Senate desk as Democrats had preferred. Noting the bruising negotiations over abortion, he said, "I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree. But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions."

Senators who support abortion rights accepted the changes reluctantly, but conservative Republicans and the National Right to Life Committee criticized them as a step backward from the equivalent part of the House bill.

Nelson, Nebraska's former state insurance commissioner, wasn't the only squeaky senatorial wheel within the 60-member Democratic caucus.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., claimed credit for a last-minute, $10 billion increase in funding for community health centers nationwide, which he said would create new or expanded facilities in 10,000 areas and provide primary care for 25 million more Americans.

Sanders made an impassioned speech on the Senate floor earlier in the week on behalf of a doomed proposal for government-run health care. In an interview, he said he only agreed to vote for the legislation on Friday, when Reid told him additional billions for the health centers would be included.

Another provision in Reid's changes provides additional federal funding for hospitals in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming and the Dakotas, although no cost estimate was available.

The House passed its version of the bill in November, and final compromise talks are expected to begin after a brief break for the holidays. Numerous issues must be resolved – including the role of government in the new insurance market and abortion restrictions. But Democrats have made a point all year of compromising on difficult issues in the name of the most far-reaching changes in the nation's health care system in generations, and hope to have a bill for Obama to sign before next month's State of the Union address to Congress.

In place of a government-run insurance option, the estimated 30 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the same office that manages health coverage for federal employees and members of Congress. Those plans would be privately owned, but operated on a nonprofit basis, as many Blue Cross Blue Shield plans are now.

Insurance companies would be barred immediately from denying coverage to children because of a pre-existing health condition. The prohibition on denial of coverage for adults would not take effect in the Senate bill until 2014, a disappointment for consumer advocates.

Among the changes Reid incorporated was dropping a proposed tax on cosmetic surgical procedures, including Botox injections. Instead, Senate Democrats are proposing a 10 percent sales tax on tanning salons, to be paid by the person soaking up the rays. The Food and Drug Administration says ultraviolet radiation from tanning can increase the risk of skin cancer.

The revised bill also calls for a .9 percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Reid's earlier bill had a smaller hike, .5 percent.

The bill also taxes high-cost insurance plans as part of a plan to put downward pressure on health care use.

______

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Andrew Taylor, Donna Cassata and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

The bill is far from perfect. I would have preferred single payer or a strong public option, but I feel in my gut it is a big step in the right direction, in the the direction of true reform and acceptance of a national responsibility for providing affordable access to health care to all Americans...and hopefully some accountability by the insurance industry. I saw Debbie Wasserman Schultz speak in Charlottesville 2 weeks ago and as she rightly pointed out, this won't be the last bill, but it's a start.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Susan G. Komen for the Cure are driving forces in funding breast cancer research.  Each year they take in hundreds of millions of dollars from people who want to end the suffering of those who are fighting breast cancer.

How these donations are channeled, therefore, is of great concern to those those who have invested untold amounts of money and support in its work.

It has come to my attention via an article by Joe Conason in Salon that Hadassah Lieberman – wife of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) – is currently a compensated “Global Ambassador” for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It is widely known, however, that not only has Senator Lieberman been an instrument of obstruction to the kind of health care reform advocated by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, but that Mrs. Lieberman is also a former lobbyist for APCO Associates, which represents the interests of the same major, private health insurance and pharmaceutical companies which Mr. Lieberman seeks to protect.

Mrs. Lieberman’s relationship with Susan G. Komen for the Cure is unethical and misleading. Important and often very personal donations made to Susan G. Komen for the Cure to benefit the sick and dying are essentially undermining their intended use. And as Hadassah travels the globe under the banner of Susan G. Komen for the cure, decrying the inadequacies of our health care system and the desperate need to reform it, her husband is at home to kill the reform efforts we so desperately need.

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

More on a topic I touched upon last week: the shrinking middle class, thanks in part, to wage disparity. The truth is, the last few boom cycles in the US have only been a boom for the wealthy. For the middle class, what appeared to be a boom was, in reality, a credit crisis in the making: living the life without paying the tab, while real wages stagnate and decline and security erodes.

New Orleans, La. — - It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. "She's decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances," the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: "It's stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors." I don't know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.

Just how sick this country is.

If you think we don't need universal health CARE now, get your head out of the sand.

Thanks for the tipoff @mollyfulton.

Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.

It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?

About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

Some members also worry that a public option (an effective way to bring competition to the insurance market) would compete unfairly with private companies and amount to a step toward socialism. If they object so passionately to “socialized health,” why don’t they block their 911 service to socialized police and fire services, disconnect themselves from socialized sewers and avoid socialized interstate highways?

I wouldn’t wish the trauma of losing health insurance on anyone, but our politicians’ failure to assure health care for all citizens is such a longstanding and grievous breach of their responsibility that they deserve it. In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance." More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction.

Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for national health insurance in 1912. Richard Nixon tried for universal coverage in 1974. Yet, even now, nearly half of Congress is vigorously opposed to such a plan.

Health care has often been debated as a technical or economic issue. That has been a mistake, I believe. At root, universal health care is not an economic or technical question but a moral one.

We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.

The obstacle isn’t so much money as priorities. America made it a priority to provide tax breaks, largely to the wealthy, in the Bush years, at a 10-year cost including interest of $2.4 trillion. Allocating less than half that much to assure equal access to health care isn’t deemed an equal priority.

The plan emerging in the Senate is no panacea. America needs to promote exercise and discourage sugary drinks to hold down the rise in obesity, diabetes and medical bills. We need more competition among insurance companies. And conservatives are right to call for tort reform to reduce the costs of malpractice insurance and defensive medicine.

But those steps are not a substitute for guaranteed health coverage for all Americans. And if health reform fails this year, then hopes for universal coverage will recede again. There was a lag of 19 years after the Nixon plan before another serious try, and a 16-year lag after the Clinton effort of 1993. Another 16-year delay would be accompanied by more than 700,000 unnecessary deaths. That’s more Americans than died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.

The collapse of health reform would be a political and policy failure, but it would also be a profound moral failure. Periodically, there are political questions that are fundamentally moral, including slavery in the 19th century and civil rights battles in the 1950s and ’60s. In the same way, allowing tens of thousands of Americans to die each year because they are uninsured is not simply unwise and unfortunate. It is also wrong — a moral blot on a great nation.

•

I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

\

Schwarzenegger supports health overhaul goals

By ERICA WERNER (AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised President Barack Obama's drive to overhaul the nation's health care system on Tuesday and urged fellow Republicans to join in efforts to finish the job this year.

Although Schwarzenegger stopped short of embracing a Democratic bill, his words of encouragement came on the heels of similar statements from other Republicans outside Congress, including former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist. The White House and Democrats highlighted them as evidence of momentum and division within GOP ranks. Congressional Republicans have been nearly unanimous in opposition to Democratic legislation.

Schwarzenegger, who two years ago tried but failed to pass a universal health care plan in California, said in a statement that he appreciated Obama's partnership with the states and his effort to hold down costs and improve quality. He urged lawmakers from both parties to "move forward and accomplish these vital goals for the American people."

I'm sure the right has always found that guy suspicious, given he's a Kennedy by marriage!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The Attending Physician of the United States Congress is the physician responsible for the medical welfare of the members of the United States Congress (the 435 Representatives, five delegates, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, and 100 Senators) and the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Attending Physician is also tasked with emergency care for thousands of staff, security personnel and dignitaries, and implementation of the environmental health, public health, and occupational health programs of the Capitol Hill region (which includes the Capitol, the congressional office buildings, and the Supreme Court building). The Attending Physician is instrumental in security planning and works with the Architect of the Capitol, Senate Sergeant at Arms, House Sergeant at Arms, United States Capitol Police, and other congressional officials to ensure medical support during contingency operations.

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Routine care 3 List of Attending Physicians 4 Sources 5 References

[edit] History

The Office of Attending Physician (OAP) was established by congressional resolution in 1928 to meet the medical needs of Members of Congress.^[1] The OAP began serving the medical needs of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1929 and the following year, in 1930, began serving the U.S. Senate. The first Attending Physician, Dr. George Calver, served the Congress for approximately 37 years. The current attending physician of the United States Congress is Dr. Brian Monahan. He holds the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy. Dr. Monahan was appointed to the position by President Barack Obama in January 2009.

The Office of the Attending Physician under the leadership of Dr. John Francis Eisold played a central role in the 2001 anthrax attacks on Senator Tom Daschle's Senate office, taking nasal swabs from the nearly 6,000 staff, employees, and visitors that were potentially exposed to the harmful bacteria.^[2] Former Attending Physician Rear Admiral Dr. John Eisold and his staff also provided initial treatment to Senator Tim Johnson when he suffered from an intracerebral bleed caused by a cerebral arteriovenous malformation, prior to Johnson's admission to George Washington University Hospital.^[3]

[edit] Routine care

OAP provides members of Congress with physicals and routine examinations, on-site X-rays and lab work, physical therapy and referrals to medical specialists from military hospitals and private medical practices. When specialists are needed, they are brought to the Capitol, often at no charge to members of Congress.^[4]

Members of Congress do not pay for the individual services they receive at the OAP, nor do they submit claims through their federal employee health insurance policies. Instead, as of 2009, members pay a flat, annual fee of $503 for all the care they receive. The rest of the cost of their care is paid for by federal funding, from the U.S. Navy budget. The annual fee has not changed significantly since 1992.^[4]

[edit] List of Attending Physicians

Years	Attending Physician
1928-1966	George Calver
1966-1973	Rufus Pearson
1973-1986	Freeman Carey
1986-1990	William Narva
1990-1994	Robert Krasner
1994-2009	John Francis Eisold
2009-present	Brian Monahan

[edit] Sources

• United States Senate Historical Minute Essay: A Doctor's Warning, February 3, 1951
• United States House of Representatives Weekly Historical Highlights: October 11, 1966

[edit] References

1. ^ The Office of the Attending Physician in the U.S. Congress, Congressional Research Service, Report RS20305, Mildred Amer, Government and Finance Division (December 12, 2001)
2. ^ Statment of Senator Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, October 25, 2001
3. ^ Statment of Admiral John Eisold regarding Senator Johnson
4. ^ ^{a b} Jay Shaylor and Mark Abdelmalek (September 30, 2009). "Special Health Care for Congress: Lawmakers' Health Care Perks; Little Known Office on Capitol Hill Provides Quality Medical Care for Low Price". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8706655. 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attending_Physician_of_the_United_States_Congress"

Categories: Employees of the United States Congress

Gosh - wouldn't it be great if we all had the same care as our representatives: tax payer supported, on site at work - routine care and physical therapy included!