Thursday morning: SENATE PASSES HEALTH CARE, OBAMA HAILS DECISION

Senator Robert Byrd votes “Yes” to honor the late Teddy Kennedy. (Mrs. Kennedy Was in the Chamber.) Majority Leader Harry Reid —believe it or not—votes “NO” and then changes vote: watch video below.

RELATED:

• Missing Ted Kennedy: Health Care Reform Package Would Have Been So Different

• Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul Bill

NYT: On a vote of 60 to 39, the U.S. Senate passed Thursday morning a landmark health-care bill that extends insurance coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and begins to refashion Medicare and the private insurance market. [More here →]

Obama has said there is only a 5% difference with the House Bill. Reconciliation in a Conference Committee to occur in January.

• Powerful House Rep. Slaughter: Senate Went off the Rails and Passed a Weak Health Care Bill

[snip]

“But under the Senate plan, millions of Americans will be forced into private insurance company plans, which will be subsidized by taxpayers. That alternative will do almost nothing to reform health care but will be a windfall for insurance companies. Is it any surprise that stock prices for some of those insurers are up recently? [More here →]

• Sen. Sanders Explains His Decision to Support the Health Care Bill

• Health Reform Scorecard

Slate kept a cumulative daily scorecard of amendments, presented here with sponsors’ names, plain-English descriptions, links to texts and summaries, and roll call votes, with the most recent at the top. The bill now goes to House-Senate conference. The conference report will be voted on in the House and Senate in January, or possibly February. [More here →]

• Demonizing Dean Won’t Absolve This Health Care Sham by Robert Scheer

Howard Dean was roundly condemned for casting aspersions on what even many of its more ardent supporters admit is an obviously flawed bill. [More here →]

• Positioning Already Beginning For Conference Committee

• They’re Done! (Almost)–What Happens Now That The Senate Has Passed Health Care Reform

• Poll: Lieberman’s favorability rating has plummeted in the past two weeks.

• GRITtv.com: Year In Review/Decade In Review

The year is almost over, and it’s certainly been an eventful one. We’ve seen a new president, some huge bank bailouts, a dramatic election season and we’re closer than we’ve ever been to national health care reform–whether that’s a good thing or not.

It’s also about to be 2010 and the end of a decade that Time magazine suggested might’ve been the worst ever. Hyperbole? We’ll discuss the year that was and the decade that was with a roundtable of our favorite guests, including Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Mark Green of Air America, Danny Schechter of News Dissector, Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion, Faye Wattleton of the Center for the Advancement of Women, and Nancy Giles of CBS News Sunday Morning.

We’ll also have an interview with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films on progressive organizing through media.

• 9-year-old Sean Goldman reunited with father in US Consulate in Rio; heading to New Jersey.

Earlier report:

UPDATE ON SENATE VOTE
WHY I MADE NEW FILM, PLUNDER THE CRIME OF OUR TIME
THE P.U.-PULITZERS BY SOLOMON AND COHEN

PBS Newshour reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that a vote on final passage of a health-care reform bill will take place at 8 a.m. Dec. 24. It will be followed by a vote on increasing the federal debt ceiling, the leaders said. [More here →]

FROM DENNIS KUCINICH: HEALTH INSURANCE STOCKS RISE

Wall Street is celebrating “Health Care Reform.” According to an industry insider report yesterday by MarketWatch (Gibson and Britt) health care stocks rallied as the bill moved through the Senate, particularly since there is no public option in the bill to compete or compare with insurance company rate-making.

“Health care investors find themselves having confronted their greatest fear, and, while there will be legislation, it will be significantly watered down …” said Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at BTIG LLC. As a result, shares of Aetna gained 4.7%, while Cigna rose 3.9%. United Health and Wellpoint “rallied to 52-week highs.”

Once the bill becomes law, insurance companies will gain at least 26 million new customers and as much as $50 billion in new annual revenue from private-pay and from government subsidies as people will be required by law to purchase private insurance. While certain expenses are capped in the bill, it appears that premium costs are not.

The Senate’s move prompted Gregory Nersessian of Credit Suisse to raise his price targets [predicting greater strength of stock performance] on seven insurers: Aetna, Cigna, Amerigroup Corp., Humana Inc., Molina Healthcare Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Wellcare Health Plans Inc.

” … the [bill] is a positive first step” Nersessian said in a note to clients. “The heavy lifting will come when Congress is forced to slow the rate of medical cost growth through more aggressive payment restrictions and utilization controls down the road,” he said – meaning that this particular industry insider is predicting limitations on benefits.

Marketwatch also wrote that none of the new standards on how much the industry must spend on medical expenses will “impose great hardship on any insurers.”

Tomorrow: My analysis of the health care legislation as it currently stands.

Sincerely,
Dennis

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• Ellen Brown: “Let Them Eat Cake: The Anomaly of Compulsory Private Health Insurance”

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