U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) says President Obama did a great job of conveying the message that healthcare reform is about helping the nation as a whole in his address to a joint session of Congress. (:22)
By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service
Doctors from around the country visited the U.S. Capitol Thursday to promote health care reform and to present their diagnoses on the current health care system.
“We are too close to achieving health care reform to stop now,” said Dr. Jim King, a family physician. “Family physicians cannot understand why we would ever want to continue a health care system that reduces productivity, accelerates costs increases and promotes inefficiency. Why would this status quo be acceptable to anyone?”
King said health care in this country will deteriorate greatly if Congress doesn’t produce a system that works for everybody.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) issued a diagnosis of his own, saying, “Our health care system is chronically ill. It cannot survive as it currently exists.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said both the doctors and the American public know that the nation needs reform. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) agreed, but noted that Congress can’t be expected to snap its fingers and have it done. Rather, real change will take time, he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he believed the media had created a false deadline for getting legislation passed before the August recess. Reid said he wants the bill passed before the end of the year.
Reid added that his focus is working on coming up with enough votes in the Senate to override a filibuster.
“I’m pretty good at arithmetic. I know how to count to 60,” he quipped.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) says folks with quality health insurance are currently paying more in premiums because the current system doesn’t cover everyone. (0:23)
By Courtney Ann Jackson – Talk Radio News Service
The health care debate has taken on many angles, but today the focus of Democratic leaders in the Senate was on uninsured families. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-N.V.) welcomed two families directly affected by health care issues to a press conference Thursday to represent the many families being affected everyday.
“Our opponents aren’t talking about the real families and the real problems these families have,” said Reid. “Reforming health care is not abstract because health care is not theoretical…It’s about people, real people.”
Reid was joined by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). The Senators noted that the families in attendance know the real costs of health care due to personal experiences. Reid repeated the phrase, “we’re talking about people,” multiple times in his opening statement.
Murray said she’s asked constituents in her home state to share their personal stories about health care and why they feel health care reform is needed. So far, she said she’s received over 5,000 e-mails in two weeks.
Murray highlighted the need to control the costs for family health insurance, noting that people with quality health insurance are paying more in premiums because the system as a whole does not cover everyone.
“Overcome the obstacles and get something done. We have to get something done,” said Schumer. “The system just isn’t working or it’s getting to the point that it won’t work in the next decade.”
Durbin said stories about ordinary Americans losing health insurance are not uncommon because 14,000 people lose health care everyday. He said that if nothing is done now, the problem won’t just go away, and that’s why health reform must happen this year.
The Senators said they will give the legislation more time so that Republicans who oppose the plan can review what Reid described as a “complex difficult issue.” They said they would continue to work on the bill when they return from recess in the fall.
“I’ve had conversations with them [Republicans] and I’ll have future conversations to give them assurances that we’ll take everything they do and we’ll do what we can to make sure their issues aren’t buried,” said Reid.
Reid expressed confidence that all 60 Democrats in the Senate are prepared to vote for the legislation.
By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service
Senate Democrats are pushing to get a health care reform bill moving forward and closer to passage. Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) held a press conference Wednesday to discuss the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s efforts to improve the healthcare system. Dodd is leading the committee’s mark-up of the health reform bill and said over 200 amendments to the bill have been made in the past five days.
The Senators appeared in front of an ambulance that featured the words “Pass Health Care Reform.” The ambulance from Families USA included a ticker of the number of families losing health care coverage.
“The present situation on health care is not just unacceptable, it’s unsustainable from an economic standpoint. You cannot have as much of our gross domestic product be consumed by health care costs [that are] mounting everyday in this nation and expect our economy to thrive and prosper in the years ahead. This is the issue that makes our economic recovery, in the long term, the most difficult,” said Dodd.
Murray said reform is not just for the uninsured since families with health care coverage are having to pay for those without. The current system is not working, according to Murray, who assured that Congress will “do what’s right for America.”
Dodd said he would like to have the bill out of the committee before the Senate’s July 4th recess, but noted that doing so may pose a challenge.
“I would love to complete all of it but realistically it may be impossible to get all of that done,” said Dodd. “I hope during the 4th of July break what we have done already could be melded with what the Finance Committee is dealing with so they don’t lose the opportunity of time over the following week.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) says the health care system is currently broken but that is why the Senate is working to “do what’s right for America.” (0:23)
By Suzia van Swol-University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
It is time to focus less on Wall Street and more on Main Street said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today. Reid hopes to accomplish his goal with housing legislation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees safe deposits and that transactions are fully insured.
Although banks have come down on proposed legislation, arguing that it will increase primary mortgage rates, the general consensus among four Democratic Senators today was that by reducing by foreclosures, banks will start lending and the economy will start moving again.
When dealing with credit cards, “disclosure doesn’t work anymore,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). Credit card companies have become so good that more is needed to make customers aware of how much interest rates will actually cost them.
From Starbucks to Microsoft, people are experiencing job loss and it is time to be “focused on getting some confidence and stability back to families,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). She said that it is time to help Americans and deal with the foreclosure crisis.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) said that he is sick and tired of being asked to give billions to banks who have no sympathy for struggling families, and if they have no sympathy than “I don’t have any sympathy for them.”
Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News
“The annual budget process is really the truest test of priorities that the President and Congress engage in,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), as she, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) met to define what those priorities are for the Senate Democrats. “We want to put the middle class first by cutting taxes and making key investments to bring this country out of this recession,” she said. The three then defined what those key investments are.
Murray spoke for education, “To revive the American economy and compete in this global economy, we have to expand educational opportunities for all Americans. Investing in education is one of the most certain ways to prepare a skilled and ready workforce.”
She introduced Jaim Foster, a second grade teacher from Alexandria, Va., who described teachers facing cutbacks and uncertain employment, as well as increased responsibilities as school nurses also were cut.
Sanders said, “For decades, politicians have been giving speeches about the need for energy independence.” We send hundreds of billions of dollars a year” out of the U.S., often to more or less unfriendly countries. “Finally the American people have said ‘enough is enough, we have got to do something real,’” he said. “The time is now to break our dependence on fossil fuel, and that is what we are going to do.”
He said the expert consensus is that we must address climate change, and that we are already seeing its effects. The budget will create “millions of good paying American jobs as we move to new kinds of energy,” he said, citing geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass.
He introduced James Walker, President, American Wind Energy Association, who said the industry went from $700 million in 2004 to $17 Billion in 2008, creating over 85,000 jobs. When it reaches its projected potential of 20 percent of our total energy needs, it will be the equivalent of removing 140 million cars, and will have created over 500,000 jobs, he said.
Merkley took healthcare. “I think everyone understands how broken healthcare is,” he said, citing 50 million uninsured, many more who are under-insured, and families whose top concern is “whether or not
they can maintain health insurance”. “The stress is continuous,” he said.
Merkley said that “every single year, double digit increases” in premiums cause more small businesses to stop offering health insurance. He said even larger businesses are now advocating for change.
Sanders finished with, “Ask Sen. (Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)) if he still supports the repeal of the estate tax, which would give one trillion dollars to the wealthiest three tenths of one percent. That’s OK, but when you fund energy, when you fund healthcare, when you fund education, when you put Americans to work to improve the quality of life for our families, somehow that’s a terrible idea.”
Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,(D- Nev.), Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D- N.Y) Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wash.), and Sen. Dick Durbin, (D- Ill.), presented a favorable Senate Majority response to President Obama’s budget proposal. ($3.5 trillion, according to the Christian Science Monitor)
Reid feels the president’s budget is “in keeping with the message he delivered on Tuesday night, a message of hope, a message that directs his priorities: education, healthcare, and energy. “
“I salute the president on, I think, an excellent budget,” Schumer said.
Murray said, “He’s following up his words by putting into this budget investments that will make our economy stronger, reducing our dependence on oil, investing in healthcare policy, and investing in education.”
“Even more important,” she added, “I appreciate his honesty about the underlying fundamentals of this bill.” She finds criticisms ironic coming from those who did not put the cost of the war into their budget. “We did not get budgets that were honest about the real costs we knew were going to be out there.” This one is, she finished.
But, what about cuts? “We inherited the deepest economic hole that we’ve had since the great depression,” Reid said, adding, “This budget will cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. Anyone making less than $250,000 will pay no new taxes. We’re giving tax breaks to the people that need them the most, middle class Americans.”
It will cut the deficit in half over the first term, he promised. “We now have adopted the pay-as-you-go program that we had during the Clinton years, and during the Clinton years the deficit was reduced by $600 billion.” There will be $2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years.
Schumer added, “We will have a more active government but, at the same time, a more responsible government that eliminates waste. This budget is aimed at the middle class like a laser. The days are over when Republicans used to give 90 percent of the tax cuts to the very wealthy and say they’re giving tax cuts to everybody.”
Asked if he thought Congress was moving too slowly, Reid said: “In a very short period of time we’ve passed a huge land bill, we’ve passed the Lilly Ledbetter matter, we passed the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the economic recovery package,” and the pace is not slowing.
Schumer added that they are making “Making Work Pay” permanent, continuing tax cuts for families with children, and the job tax credit. “Something I feel very good about, the 2,500 dollar American Opportunity Tax Credit for college…he makes that permanent,” in the form of a tax deduction for tuition.
Schumer went on to say, “I’ve always seen a housing bill (pending reforms to limit foreclosures) as a matter of fairness, now it’s a matter of fairness and urgency.” Critics of this reform, he added, don’t realize how many homes have been lost, “and 99 percent of the time, the bank gets the house and the attendant responsibilities, and have to hope they can sell them to somebody. “We’re trying to give that family a fighting chance to stay in that home.”
Reid said that bankruptcy courts could renegotiate vacation homes, but not primary residences.
Democrats remain confident that the new economic recovery plan will have enough votes to succeed. Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) held a press conference today discussing the new plan.
Although the Republicans threaten to stall with filibusters, Senator Schumer said, “Has bipartisanship been a failure? Well so far its not working but it takes two to tango and the Republicans aren’t dancing.” The Republicans are trying to “lob off” parts of the bill said Sen. Schumer, but he stated that every time we lob off of the bill, we lob off jobs.
Schumer stated that the only people who oppose this bill are Republicans in the house and senate that are holding on to a doctrine that’s “been tossed out by the voters and tossed out by experience.” He further stated that he would rather pass a good bill with 65 votes, then a bad bill with 80 votes. “the key is the number of jobs created, not the votes” said Schumer
Schumer said that McCain’s mortgage plan, which focuses on re-financing is “totally flawed”. He says that, “Instead of re-financing mortgages and making the bank the gatekeeper, we should just give people the money in a direct way, which is what the Obama plan does.”
Senator Murray concluded with “a 4% mortgage does you absolutely no good if you don’t feel confident that you have a job and an income.”
by Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service
