During a conference call with reporters on Friday, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) says Republicans have no intention of passing any health care bill, and that the House and Senate should move forward without them. (0:11)
Sherron Brown (D-Ohio) says Republicans need to understand that the healthcare reform bill does have a bipartisan flavor, adding that the GOP’s ideas that are in the bill won’t be taken out during reconciliation. (0:33)
During a conference call with reporters on Friday, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) says many Republicans are trying to ensure that President Barack Obama fails at passing health care reform. (0:17)
During a conference call with reporters on Friday, Nancy DeParle, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform, discusses a common practice within the insurance industry called purging that is designed to weed out people who are getting older and may have more health risks. (0:32)
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations permission to openly fund campaign ads, also gives unions similar rights. However, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) contends that this is not as pressing of a concern.
“I don’t think its the same problem,” said Brown. “Corporations in this country combined have sales of $10 trillion dollars. Total union dues amount to $6 billion.”
“That’s a difference between the span of my hand and the height of the Empire State Building,” added Brown. (0:14)
The same provision requiring candidates to identify their approval of campaign ads may soon be applied to CEOs as well.
“Corporate CEOs should face the camera and tell the public they sponsored the commercial,” said Brown during a conference call with reporters. “If a corporation uses a front group … then the funder of that association has to be on.” (0:18)
The same provision requiring candidates to state their approval of campaign ads may soon be applied to CEOs as well.
The requirement would be part of legislation introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) aimed at countering the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations permission to openly fund campaign ads.
“Corporate CEOs should face the camera and tell the public they sponsored the commercial,” said Brown during a conference call with reporters Thursday. “If a corporation uses a front group … then the funder of that association has to be on.”
If passed, the bill will also require the consent of shareholders prior to an ad’s production and prevent foreign companies or government from channeling money for campaign spots.
Although the Court’s 5-4 decision also allows unions to fund ads, Brown contends that this is not as pressing of a concern.
“I don’t think its the same problem,” Brown said. “Corporations in this country combined have sales of $10 trillion. Total union dues amount to $6 billion.”
Added Brown, “that’s a difference between the span of my hand and the height of the Empire State Building.”
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) discusses health care and insurance issues at a radio round table discussion during the America’s Future Now conference.
Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) announced the Promoting Innovation and Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act, to make generic alternatives available as “biologics” go out of parent.
Schumer joked that he couldn’t make an acronym out of the initials, then explained biologics are drugs produced from living cells, (such as Premarin from horses, vaccines from killed or weakened microbes, Insulin from bacteria, or the anticipated results of stem cell research).
Collins said the act is needed because currently the FDA has no pathway to evaluate and approve this class of drugs. Many lifesaving biologics are long out of patent, but are still expensive because generics can’t get approved. “The price tag (for insulin) might well drop by as much as 25 percent,” she said.
Brown and Martinez agreed that there was strong bipartisan support for the act.
“We probably have four different opinions here about here on the best way to proceed on healthcare reform, but everyone agrees a prerequisite is to bring costs down,” Schumer said.
The summary of the bill contained a clause limiting “exclusivity” (like a patent) to five years for the original molecule and three years for some modifications.
The Barack Obama campaign is focusing in on “battle ground” states and making sure what happened to John Kerry’s presidential bid in Ohio in 2004. “Ohio has the third most electoral votes of all the battleground states,” said Steve Hildebrand a deputy campaign manager for Obama during a call with the media. Hildebrand and Ohio campaign director Aaron Pickerell discussed the base that had been laid by the successful bids of Democrats Sen. Sherrod Brown and Governor Ted Strickland in 2006.
Pickrell said that the campaign is spending more time in traditionally Republican districts, following the strategy of Brown and Strickland to target the whole state instead of urban and suburban areas. Much like the Obama campaign organized in Iowa the Ohio strategy involves 1200 neighborhoods organized by resident neighborhood team leaders. Pickrell said that this campaign can build on the foundation of increased Democratic voting rates built by Strickland and Brown.
Strickland said that the manpower Obama has placed in the field will make a major difference. He also said that he is impressed at the efforts to court Clinton supporters and that he, along with Hillry and Bill Clinton, will do “anything and everything” he;s asked to do to support the Obama campaign.
Strickland said that Obama won’t win every region of the state, but he won’t repeat “the Kerry mistake.” Strickland said that he thinks that these effors in Ohio will increase the percentage of Democratic votes in some counties by 10 to 12 percent. Strickland will be a speaker at the upcoming Democratic National Convention; he said his speech will focus on the economy.
