Senate Healthcare Deliberations and Votes: Live Blog

The healthcare just give us anything and we’ll declare victory health insurance industry gift bag reform discussions have reached a Senate showdown point.  The 60 votes needed on a procedural vote to move debate forward will be sought this evening, supposedly at 8pm; but another 60 will then be needed for cloture.  What will Harry [...]

Saturday Morning at The Confluence

Good morning everyone! What are you reading this morning? I recently started the new book by John Perkins, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–and What We Need to Do to Remake Them.
In the news, I’m half-heartedly following the health care bill’s progress and wondering what is going [...]

It’s your body… what do you think?

Most of you probably know that I’m a 19 year survivor of a extremely rare form of cervical cancer. The Pap smear came back perfectly normal for me when I had 4th stage, invasive Cancer. As a result of all that I have a doctor daughter doing her residency as an ob/gyn and [...]

Congressional Dems get their marching orders on healthcare from the WH: “Just give us anything and we’ll declare victory.”

This morning on my way to work I was listening to the Bill Press radio show.  I know, I know, he’s a kool-aid slurper supreme.  But this morning, his guest John Conyers (D-MI) dropped several bombs on the show and exposed some significant disenchantment with the president.  Let’s just say there were “oh snap!” moments [...]

Monday Morning News and Views

Good Morning Conflucians! I’m a little bit pressed for time this morning, because I have to get out of here earlier than usual to make copies of an exam for my class this afternoon. Nevertheless, I have a few stories to share with you before I rush out of here. You can [...]

Gross Evidence of Rent-Seeking

It’s not often that you get enough evidence of rent-seeking you can actually find it entered into a public record. Leave it to Stupakistan to show the incredible power of insurance and other nondepository financial institutions to leave their fingerprints without shame on the public policy debate over the healthcare payments system. It [...]

Friday Morning News and Views: Friday the 13th Edition

Good Morning Conflucians! It’s a gloomy Friday the 13th here in the Boston area. I guess we’ll be getting hit with the tail end of Hurricane Ida over the next couple of days. I’m feeling a bit lethargic this morning, but I’ll try to locate a few interesting news links nonetheless. [...]

Why is Health Care Reform Being Held Hostage by a Fundamentalist Cult?

No, I don’t mean the Catholic Church. I mean the super-secret, ultra-creepy fundamentalist sect that calls itself
“the Family,” or “the Fellowship,” and they consider themselves a “core” of men responsible for changing the world. “Hitler, Lenin, and many others understood the power of a small core of people,” instructs a document given to [...]

Coakley for President

It’s about damn time this started being said. (h/t Suburban Guerrilla):
Coakley, in her boldest gamble of the campaign, said that fighting for women’s access to abortions was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its aim of providing coverage for 36 million people, establishing a public insurance option, and prohibiting insurers from discriminating [...]

God Forbid we Should Change the Status Quo

Jake Tapper of ABC News had an “exclusive” interview with President Obama today. The first part of the interview was shown on ABC News hour tonight, more will be shown on Nightline tonight, and the rest on Good Morning America tomorrow. Tapper asked the President about the abortion language in the “health care [...]