In my ePluribus Media Journal article, I write about my meeting with Jeff Merkley, Speaker of Oregon House of Representatives. Merkley has a history of backing progressive legislation to improve access to health care. He ushered The Healthy Kids Act (HB 2201), a universal access bill for children, through the Oregon House despite resistance from the tobacco industry. The payment source for the program would have been an increase in cigarette taxes, a policy proven by research to discourage youth from smoking. In the industry's euphemism, cigarette taxes hinder efforts to generate "replacement smokers," the new young addicts needed to take the place of older ranks killed by lung and heart disease.

Read the full interview on the Journal.

You can learn more about Jeff Merkley by visiting his website and donate to his campaign. Don't forget to add a penny to your donation to identify yourself as a member of our growing netroots nation.

originally posted 2008-06-11 18:24:22, bumped -- cho

Is Compassionate Conservatism Right for America?

In an ongoing effort to make their colleagues unelectable, and to provide Democrats with an unassailable platform in November, House Republicans are dismantling and blocking some of the most popular provisions of the Iraq spending bill. Today they blocked passage of extended unemployment benefits despite rising unemployment. And, as we speak, they are working to remove a moratorium on seven Medicaid Rules changes proposed by Bush.

originally posted 2008-05-21 13:27:55 -- bumped, cho

George W. Bush appears to desire the complete destruction of the Republican Party for the next forty years even more ardently than he wants to fund his war in Iraq. Or so I am lead to believe by a recent spate of incomprehensible policy decisions. He has given the Democratic Party an arsenal of tools to use against both John McCain, and nearly every Republican incumbent up for re-election in the Senate. It is July 4 in May!

Democrats in the Senate have been unable to pass a series of extremely popular and necessary programs due to stiff opposition from the Bush Administration and Senate Republican leadership. Instead of giving up, Democratic Leadership has attached the programs to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill which funds the War in Iraq. The President, who has suddenly discovered "fiscal responsibility," is threatening to veto the bill unless the offensive amendments are removed. His water carriers, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) are working hard behind the scenes to insure that Republicans uphold the President's veto.

Senate Republicans who are up for re-election in November (or ever) face an unsettling dilemma.

Over the past several months, I have diaried attempts by the Bush administration to gut our public health safety net through a proposed set of arcane rules changes. If implemented May 25 as planned, the rules changes will limit federal subsidies to public hospitals, indigent hospital care, emergency rooms, outpatient clinics, school-based health care, graduate medical education, case management, rehabilitation services, and children'a Medicaid enrollment.

I have also diaried the efforts of health care activists to prevent these rules from going into effect. It is coming down to the wire now. The moratorium on the rules goes before the full Senate this week, probably as an attachment to the Iraq spending bill. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Charles Grassley (R-IA), and administration officials have vowed to kill the moratorium. Find out how you can help below the break.

Are we witnessing a hostile corporate takeover of the United States of America?

The Bush Administration has been quietly and incrementally liquidating our public health safety net in a manner reminiscent of the hostile takeovers so prevalent among corporations in the 1980s and 1990s. A proposed set of arcane regulation changes unilaterally imposed by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) will go into effect between now and May 25, if not stopped by Congress. CMS estimates that the new rules will result in a "cost savings" of $15 billion dollars over five years.

But who will benefit from these "savings"? The rules changes will cause widespread cutbacks and closures of the emergency rooms, hospitals, and outpatient and school-based clinics currently serving most Americans. The cash raised by liquidating America's public health safety net is, according to the Washington Post, equivqalent to five weeks of war in Iraq. It represents just 3% of the $500 billion dollar bail-out the president has promised to financiers.

It is money and effort taken from the American people and redistributed to wealthy corporate interests.

The Bush Administration has published a list of twelve proposed Medicaid Rules changes which will cut at least $15 billion over five years from our public health budget. If the rules changes go into effect in March and May as scheduled, they will result in closures or scaling back of Emergency Rooms, outpatient clinics, teaching hospitals, school based clinics, public hospitals, services to the disabled and case management. I have previously diaried the rules changes in detail.

While most of us are focused on universal care, the Bush Administration has been incrementally shredding our existing public health safety net in ways that have yet to become apparent. The most recent assault on our public health care infrastructure is escaping the notice of mainstream media and citizen journalists alike, probably because it is not easily explained. I am referring to a proposed set of arcane regulation changes by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) which, if enacted, will result in $15 billion dollars in cuts over five years to service providers.

I am travelling to DC next week to draw attantion to a series of Medicaid Rules Changes proposed by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). I have previously diaried one of the Rules Changes on e Pluribus Media here and my proposed action here. I will be diarying the issue again one more time prior to leaving for DC. It should appear on an epm station in your hometown (as well as your state's progressive blog site) within the next 48 hours.

Now, I need to ask for some help from you. I plan to drop in, cameraman in tow, to several less than friendly MSM offices while I am in DC to ask them why they are not covering this story. Is there a lawyer in the house who can help me if I either get arrested, or if my camcorder is confiscated? I am not wealthy and so I must ask for your pro bono assistance if at all possible.

-originally posted 2008-02-14 16:54:24- bumped. TheFatLadySings calls the New Mexico Secretary of State to find out what gives about the high number of provisional votes!

Voter disenfranchisement is a fact in New Mexico.

Although the Gubenatorial Mansion and both houses of the state legislature are comfortably controlled by Democrats, the systematic disenfranchisement that tossed New Mexico to Bush in 2004 threatens to throw the 2008 presidential election results to the Republicans as well.

Systematic voter disenfranchisement in 2004 occured in two stages. First, Governor Bill Richardson ushered a bill through the legislature establishing a February presidential "caucus" in advance of the traditional late primary. The "caucus" was actually a limited primary run by the Democratic Party rather than the state.

Richardson probably favored the "caucus" as a means of improving his own chances at the presidency by pushing New Mexico to the front of the voting pack.

In early December, I diaried a proposed Medicaid Rules change, which, if it goes into effect in May as scheduled, will result in draconian cuts to public and teaching hospitals. This is a non-partisan issue: the US v. the Bush Administration. Representatives Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Sue Myrick (R-NC) have introduced HR 3533, the Preserve Our Public and Teaching Hospitals Act into the house to block the odious rules change. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)have attemtped to introduce a moratorium on the rule in the senate.

Unfortunately, the good guys have not been able to muster the votes to extend an existing moratorium on the rules change, which would spare our frayed public health care infrastructure a possibly mortal blow for at least another year.