The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day.
Bipartisan Deal Would Save Money By Covering Fewer People
Preliminary Baucus caucus deal has no public option and covers less people than current bills. W. Post: "The emerging Finance Committee bill would shave about $100 billion off the projected trillion-dollar cost of the legislation over the next decade and eventually provide coverage to 94 percent of Americans, according to participants in the talks. It would expand Medicaid, crack down on insurers, abandon the government insurance option that President Obama is seeking and, for the first time, tax health-care benefits under the most generous plans. ... Three Democrats and three Republicans from the Senate Finance Committee will brief Obama on Thursday..."
Other House and Senate legislation would cover 97% of the population.
President tells NBC bipartisan talks have until September: "Obama said he still hoped for a bipartisan approach but that if congressional Republicans continued to fight him, 'some time in September we are just going to have to make an assessment' about whether to ram through a Democratic-only bill."
Jim Marks from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation explains why CBO can't dictate reform: "...according to its mandate, the CBO does not look at any return on investment beyond 10 years ... When the CBO scores a bill it gets to apply the savings, if any, that occur during the 10-year window to offset the costs. This 10-year rule means that the value of the return on almost every dollar government invests in our young children, say for their education, or for investments in preventive and public health, cannot be reflected in CBO scoring. ... Just think of the value of helping children become healthier and more productive adults. This really pays off when they are adults, well beyond a 10-year window."
WH admits deal with Big Pharma includes maintaining ban on negotiating lower drug prices. NYT: "Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion. Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers. In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul."
FireDogLake's Scarecrow criticizes drug deal: "the price of that cooperation will be to allow the drug companies to sustain drug costs for Americans well above levels that could be justified by competition"
Time's Kate Pickert analyzes what insurance lobby really wants when it says it wants reform, age discrimination: "...their opposition to Democratic reform proposals goes far beyond the public option, which they believe will have an unfair, government-afforded advantage over them, and they are quietly lobbying for legislative language changes that could have major consequences. Insurers have agreed to discontinue practices like turning down customers in the individual and small group market with expensive pre-existing conditions and basing premium rates on health status or gender. But one variable that will persist is age, since older enrollees represent more health risks than younger enrollees, and insurers are doing their best to retain the most flexibility in that area."
Brave New Films releases "Sick for Profit" hitting obscene insurance company earnings:
Progressives Gear Up To Take Back Town Halls
Health Care for America Now's Richard Kirsch unveils citizen's guide to take back the town halls: "Health Care for America Now is joining with progressive groups throughout the country to out-gun the tea-baggers in August. Members of Congress are spending their time at home trying to gauge public support for reform before returning to Washington after Labor Day. It will be a contest all month long, and we have to take it on with all the urgency that the historical task at hand demands. We've launched a new page on our website to help you take action in August: www.healthcareforamericanow.org/fight."
FireDogLake offers August town hall calendar
LIberals exerting pressure at town halls too, while also acting like adults. Politico: "To watch the news, the only grass-roots action in the health care debate involves opponents shouting down Democrats at town halls and grocery stores. But Democrats — especially those who have expressed anything less than full-blown support for the legislation before Congress — are getting back-home pressure from the left, too. It’s just usually a bit more civil."
Threats of violence may prevent future town halls. TPMDC reports: "Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) will not be hosting any town hall events this August -- instead, he's making himself available to constituents for one-on-one meetings about health care reform -- and at least part of the reason is this: His offices have received threatening phone calls, including at least one direct threat against his life." Politico adds: "Virtual town halls gaining popularity"
ThinkProgress: "Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the president of the freshman Democratic class has revealed that 'at least one freshman Democrat' has already been 'physically assaulted at a local event.' Connolly warned that conservative groups had taken things to a 'dangerous level.'"
Salon.com debunks five right-wing myths about health care reform
CQ's David Nather reports conservatives try to block WH from tracking right-wing misinformation: "The White House, fighting back against various disinformation campaigns now circulating in conservative circles about the health care bill, set up an e-mail address to allow sympathetic people to report e-mails or Web site claims that seem 'fishy.' ... NetRightNation.com, a conservative blog aggregator site run by Americans for Limited Government, sent a mass e-mail urging 'fellow bloggers' to — you guessed it — disrupt the e-mail address by flooding the inbox."
Cash for Clunkers Extension Should Pass Today
NYT reports Senate should pass House bill and quickly send to President: "As part of the deal in the Senate, the Democratic leadership agreed to allow debate on seven amendments to the bill, six from Republicans ... Democratic aides said they were confident that they had the votes needed to defeat the amendments and extend the program."
Battery Grants Announced
WSJ on who is getting the advanced battery technology stimulus grants: "As expected, A123 Systems and Johnson Controls were among the big winners. Johnson Controls landed $299 million for its battery production in Michigan and Oregon; A123 snagged $249 million for its operations in Michigan. A spate of smaller companies and research institutions snagged awards ranging from $500,000 to $160 million. Among the states, Michigan scooped up more funding than any other state. ... But the biggest winner seems to be the new GM, which is controlled by the government. GM landed $240 million in direct grants, to cover the manufacture of battery packs, work on electric drive-trains for new cars, and to cover the purchase of 625 Chevy Volts for testing purposes. LG Chem, which will make the batteries for the Chevy Volt, also landed $151 million. Of course, the real question is whether the U.S. can catch up to Asian companies who stole a lead in battery manufacturing thanks to experience with consumer electronics."
Earth2Tech focuses on start-up A123: "Less than a year after startup A123Systems lost a battle for what could be one of the biggest plug-in vehicle battery supply deals in the country — General Motors’ Chevy Volt — the Massachusetts-based company has snagged a $249 million grant from the Department of Energy to help carry out a plan for setting up commercial manufacturing in the United States. It’s the second-largest award for any one project under a program that according to the DOE, “marks the single largest investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles ever made.”"
Dirty Energy Lobby Hard At Work
Center for Public Intergrity's Marianne Lavelle uncovers how dirty energy is fighting climate legislation, through Newt: "The world’s largest coal company and one of the nation’s top fossil-fueled power companies are among the leading donors so far this year to Newt Gingrich’s political advocacy group, which has been fighting climate legislation on Capitol Hill with a “Stop the Energy Tax” phone-in campaign to Senate offices. Peabody Energy, the St. Louis-based coal giant, gave $250,000 to American Solutions for Winning the Future in February, putting it atop the Gingrich-led group’s big contributors for the first half of 2009 ... More surprising, perhaps, is the $100,000 donation in May from American Electric Power, of Columbus, Ohio."
Wonk Room's Stacy Morford on who has bought the Senate's climate bill skeptics: "the top ten Senate recipients of electric utility contributions so far this cycle have staked out positions on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act that range from skepticism to virulent opposition."
ClimateWire reports shale gas development may be needed to attract moderate Dem support for climate bill: "'If you took a map of swing-state senators and look at where these new gas finds are, they match,' said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.). 'It's more than ironic.'"
Grist updates on the coal lobby forged letter scandal: "Markey demands info on coal group’s role in forged climate-bill letters"
Mixed signals from China. NYT: "China’s envoy to global negotiations on climate change expressed optimism on Wednesday that a new agreement to reduce greenhouse gases would be reached this year ... [but he] also underscored China’s opposition to placing a ceiling on its emissions of greenhouse gases, a step that some experts have called crucial to efforts to slow global warming."
Fighting Excessive Exec Comp
FDIC chair backs stronger compensation rules. Bloomberg: "Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, citing 'eye-popping' salaries at U.S. banks, joined House Democrats and the New York attorney general in seeking tougher compensation standards for lenders. Bank regulators should use their authority to set pay standards that are 'principles-based,' without establishing specific limits, Bair said ... Guidelines should cover workers such as mortgage brokers along with top executives..."
NYT raises questions about Goldman Sachs' runaway profits following the bailout: "Goldman executives are dismissive, even defiant, when critics argue that the bank is playing a heads-we-win, tails-you-lose game with American taxpayers. And yet the questions keep coming ... After so many wrenching changes on Wall Street and in the economy, it might come as a surprise that the post-bailout Goldman is virtually indistinguishable from the pre-bailout one."
Mortgage Muddle
Salon.com explores how the Obama mortgage crisis plan works in practice: "Under the Obama plan, unlike the Bush plan, servicers don't get to pick and choose who gets offered relief, or the terms of the relief. If a borrower meets the standards, she has to be enrolled in the program. The criteria are straightforward: The borrower has to live in her home and must actually be having trouble paying off her mortgage. Modifying the loan to the program's standards must be cheaper for investors than foreclosure. The program provides servicers with two incentives to make modifications. If the servicer will reduce the borrower's payment to 38 percent of her monthly income, the government will fund the reduction to 31 percent. Taxpayers are also paying servicers $1,000 for every mortgage modified under the plan. 'There's more meat on the bone, but it's in the form of sweeteners and encouragement,' says NCRC president John Taylor. 'It's all carrot and no stick.'"
Fannie/Freddie overhaul planned. W. Post: "The Obama administration is considering an overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would strip the mortgage finance giants of hundreds of billions of dollars in troubled loans and create a new structure to support the home-loan market, government officials said. The bad debts the firms own would be placed in new government-backed financial institutions -- so-called bad banks -- that would take responsibility for collecting as much of the outstanding balance as possible. What would be left would be two healthy financial companies with a clean slate ... The proposal, which is preliminary and one of several under discussion, is scheduled to be taken up by the White House's National Economic Council on Thursday.
Terrance Heath contributed to the making of this Breakfast
