Good morning, guten morgen and all that. Today is Saturday, July 18, 2009, and here's a smattering of items that may be of interest.

First, we remember Walter Cronkite, who passed away yesterday, only two days before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing:

Image credit: CBS News, via NASA website.

Image is of the Apollo 14 landing site. Hat-tip LA Times.

NASA has a fitting tribute to Mr. Cronkite here.

Second, from Campaign for America's Future:

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1. Don't Tax Benefits
OpEd by Roger Hickey
The New York Times
Opinion Section, Sunday, June 12, 2009.
Click for source

Americans are demanding health care reform that guarantees them quality, affordable insurance, reduces the burden of health costs on employers and individuals and provides backup coverage through a public health insurance option.

But the suggestion that we pay for these needed reforms by taxing the health benefits that millions of us get through our employers is very unpopular - Americans fear that it could undo the one part of our health care system that now works (sort of). And we worry about new tax burdens on people who have worked hard to get and keep decent health coverage. If Democrats want to avoid a serious reaction against their important reform efforts, they should heed these concerns.
Read more here

2. Reid to Baucus: Stop Chasing GOP Votes on Health Care
By David Drucker and Emily Pierce
Roll Call
Click for source

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday ordered Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.

Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning's regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.
 
According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn't worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.
Read more here (Roll Call subscription needed)

3. Progressive Revenue Options to Fund Health Care Reform
Citizens for Tax Justice
Click for source

Politicians and pundits have lately written or spoken of the "difficult choices" and "sacrifices" that will be necessary if the United States is to find a way to fund health care reform in a fiscally responsible way. Some have suggested new taxes on health insurance premiums. A few have even proposed a highly regressive national sales tax, or its cousin, a value-added tax.1 In fact, however, there are straightforward ways to raise revenue that will not be overly burdensome for taxpayers and which will not harm the economy. They involve eliminating or reducing several subsidies and preferences provided in the federal tax code to the wealthiest and most powerful among us. Combined with savings in the existing health care system, these measures could raise enough revenue to adequately fund health care reform.

Americans may not know the details of every tax break enjoyed by corporations or wealthy individuals, but they might be particularly keen to focus on them after providing Wall Street (and thus the richest people in America) the biggest taxpayer-funded bailout in history.
Click for source

4. Taxing the Top to Pay for Healthcare Reform
By Chuck Collins
Huffington Post
Click for source

Hallelujah. Finally someone in Congress has the courage to propose a reasonable tax on the wealthy to help improve our nation's broken health care system.

Last Friday members of the House Ways and Means Committee released a plan to introduce a graduated surcharge with stepped up rates from 1-3 percent on household incomes over $350,000 (or $280,000 for an individual) to help finance health care reform.

The proposed surcharge is wholly appropriate. For one thing, it would impact those with the greatest capacity to pay it, about 1 out of 100 taxpayers. It would raise $540-550 billion over 10 years with no impact on poor and middle class households, according to a report just released by Citizens for Tax Justice.

More importantly, plenty of people who would pay the tax recognize its importance and support it.
Read more here

5. A Simple Answer: Yes
By Angela Glover Blackwell
The Washington Post
Click for source

Should wealthy Americans see their taxes stepped up by a modest 1 to 3 percent in order to help dramatically overhaul a health-care system that is torpedoing our economy and leaving tens of millions of our neighbors sick and scared?

The simple answer: yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Health reform must be one of the nation's top economic and social priorities. We have seen how all of us -- from our industries to our families -- have been hurt by fast-rising premiums and increasingly inadequate health care. But we must find a way to pay for the reform we desperately need.
Read more here


6. AMA endorses House Democrats' health care bill
By Lindsey Tanner
The Associated Press
Click for source

The American Medical Association on Thursday endorsed a liberal health overhaul bill that includes a public insurance option, a bold step for a traditionally conservative group with a checkered past on health reforms.

In its strongest action yet signaling support for President Barack Obama's vow to reform health care, the nation's largest doctors' group sent letters to three House committees behind the bill. The letters, signed by AMA's executive vice president, Dr. Michael Maves, said the AMA appreciates and supports what is being called America's Affordable Health Choices Act.

The bill would create a health insurance exchange, or "marketplace for individuals and small employers to comparison shop among private and public insurers." It wouldn't force patients or doctors into plans - a fear some physicians have had about the concept of public health insurance.

Another selling point is the bill's proposed Medicare reforms, including repeal of what AMA considers a flawed formula that has annually reduced Medicare reimbursements to physicians.
Read more here

7.IAF Launches Health Experts Resource for Media, Health Group
The Institute for America's Future
Click for source

As the health reform debate heats up in Congress, the Institute for America's Future has collected the names and contacts of prominent health care experts and economists available for analysis and interviews.

All the experts favor a public health insurance option to compete with private plans. And they are good sources on all developing issues related to the health care debate.

Conservatives and health industry forces are putting forward their experts to attack the public insurance option. The Institute for America's Future wants to make sure the media has ready access to experts who see the public insurance option as critical to health reform and cost control. These experts don't agree on everything, but they have helped shape key elements of reform - the public option, affordability, universal coverage, regulation of insurance companies and equal access to good benefits.
Click here to see the Experts Bureau
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Next, you may want to visit Artlyn's blog for information about how FOCUS Breaks GLAAD/YouTube Story (this link goes to a brief blurb he posted here on ePM, which identifies the story and provides the link to his blog).

So, what's happening in your neck of the woods? As mentioned above, this is an Open Thread.