The latest Senate health bill will cost $829 billion over the next decade AND slightly reduce the federal budget deficit.
That's according to the official scorekeepers of such things, the Congressional Budget Office. It said the legislation coming out of Max Baucus Finance Committee would also cover 94% of nonelderly legal U.S. citizens, up from about 83% right now – and it would cut the deficit by $81 billion over the next decade.
What does this mean? Theoretically, it should give cover to moderate Democrats, who are freaking out that the legislation would increase the deficit.
And who knows, maybe there might be a stray Republican in the Senate who could join the lonely Olympia Snowe – not that anybody should take her vote for granted.
Mind you, the Baucus bill does NOT contain a government run public option, which many House Democrats, including Tampa's Kathy Castor, have been on the record saying they wouldn't vote for.
Another ignominious statistic for Florida. We rank 50th among the states and D.C. in its percentage of its children covered by health insurance, according to a new report.
It comes from the Commonwealth Fund, is a New York-based nonprofit foundation focused on improving health care access.
Most disturbingly, the report finds that most states showed an improvement in the percentage of children covered by health insurance – but not in Florida,where coverage of kids fell by 2 percent since 2005.
The killer paragraph in the story in today's Palm Beach Post is this:
Eighteen percent of children in Florida lacked health insurance, compared to only 3.2 percent in Massachusetts, where health insurance has been mandatory for the past three years. The national median was 8.6 percent.
Meanwhile, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning, where he talked a lot about deteriorating relations between the political parties in Washington.
He did take a couple of slaps at Barack Obama, saying he thinks that the President has an opportunity to find common ground with his opponents, but "doesn't see like he's ready to take on that challenge. I think there would be huge support for him to move away from the orthodoxy of his party on some positions, and move to a third way".
Yet later on in the conversation, Bush gave props to the Prez and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, saying he was "encouraged and excited " that Obama has taken on the teachers unions and demanded accountability, saying he and Duncan are deserving of high praise on that front.
On health care reform, the former Governor wasn't nearly so magnanimous, calling the proposals in Congress 'missed opportunities".
Speaking of MSNBC and health care reform, one of that cable networks stars, and a hero amongst much of the left wing in the U.S., Keith Olbermann went over the top last night with an hour long "Special Comment" special devoted to him talking about the health care debate.
I only saw a few moments of it, but this review in Salon.Com seems to capture its essence, calling it "Olbermann's Wasted Moment".
Last but not least, the Hillsborough County Commission deadlocked yesterday on a proposal to sue Kevin White to recoup some of their financial losses due to his conviction on sexual harassment charges.
But as I noted in my blog posting on this yesterday, an interesting little event occurred at the end of the vote on Commissioner White's financial situation yesterday.
That is a new Ordinance that the County Commission will need to approve on issues like sexual harassment, which is a major reason why a Federal Judge ruled that the County was liable in the White lawsuit.
Commissioner Kevin Beckner asked Attorney Renee Lee to see if protections could be expanded for sexual orientation and gender identity could be included.
Lee responded that that could be added. But then Commissioner Jim Norman objected, saying he was disturbed by that exchange, calling it a 'back door attempt' to change the language in the County's Human Rights Ordinance. Norman said he'd call for full blown hearings if that were to be the case.
In a brief interview late yesterday, Commissioner Beckner told CL that he thought Norman overreacted to his suggestion. This story isn't over.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.