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Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category

How to Search for and Find Stuff on H. R. 3590.

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Health Care, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on December 4, 2009| 2 Comments »

If you want to make your own evaluation of the health bill’s progress, go to Thomas at the Library of Congress. In fact, aside from information from pundits you trust, this is one of the best ways to avoid heart palpitations. That is because the amendments are numbered and entered before they are debated. That gives you a little time to read them for yourself and ponder a few questions. Here is how:

As we said, on November 21st the Senate agreed to debate H.R. 3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”.  That debate began on December 2nd. Since  HR. 3590 was amended by S.Amdt.2786, and changed to the health care act, as of this morning, another 91 amendments have been proposed. Several have been voted on and approved.

They are numbered and listed in numerical order as they arrive to the Senate Floor. Most of them do not yet have titles, but are to be given them at the time of their debate. They all have text and can be found and read by doing a search at the Library of Congress. If you want to try, it’s really pretty easy after you get the hang of it, and it is public information to which everyone is entitled. Go HERE.

This is the search page for all bills.  Type in where it says “word/phrase”, the title: “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, and hit the orange search button below.

Right now this search will give you a list of around 60 possible bills, with one at the top listed exactly as entered. That is H.R.3590.AS. Clicking on that link will take you to the index of the bill, from which you can do several interesting things. Click the link that says: “Bill Summary & Status file”. This will give you an overview of all the places the bill’s activity is being recorded.

Click “Amendments”. This will give you a list of 92, or possibly more, later in the day, with the first one, S.AMDT.2786 that changed the bill from a homeowners affordablity bill, to a health care bill at the top. It you want to read more about these later, or get the text just click on one of the amendment numbers.

However, let’s do a back click to the previous page. All the current information about the bill that the Library of Congress has can be gathered from this location. The current text can be downloaded from here; also cosponsors, dates, and related bills.

If you want to know what happened yesterday, The Congressional Record (CR) does what it’s title suggests; It records for posterity all the debate and action that occurred. So click the link that says “Congressional Record with Amendments”. This will take you to an index of all activity that H.R.3590 has received since it was first introduced to the Senate.

As an example, scroll down to 12/2/09 and AMDT.2808. It says it was proposed by Durbin for Vitter. The number below; CRS12152 is the link to the overview of  the index of the actual debate and speech as recorded in text. Don’t be fooled by the title, “SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009”, remember, that was the bill’s title before it was gutted and the health bill inserted. The CR must maintain the chain of information. Click on the top link dated “Senate – December 02, 2009”. There is the index. The debate for S.AMDT.2808 is index listed by page. Clicking a page will give you a word for word text of the debate till the next page.

Back clicking to the Congressional Record index and checking all the references for S.AMDT.2808, you will see that this amendment was voted on and passed. So, it is now a part of bill H.R. 3590.

Similarly, if you want to see what was said by Senator McCain, yesterday, in regards to Social Security, check out December 3rd. On November 30th he had recommended that the Bill be sent to the Finance Committee. That motion was voted down yesterday.

Try it out, and make up your own mind about what is happening.

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HR. 3590, Relabeled and New Stuffings, the Senate Health Bill Arrives

Posted in Children, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Health Care, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, NOW, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , , on November 21, 2009| 2 Comments »

I’ll have more in a bit, but the vote to cloture just ended and the Senate has passed it’s first hurdle. After debating whether to debate the bill they now agree, that they will. (I know, it seems redundant, but this is how this goes. The Senate had to decide if they and the bill were ready.)

Today’s debate over whether to introduce the Senate Health bill to the Floor, illustrates the circuitous route a bill sometimes takes. HR 3590 is a case in point.

HR 3590, was entitled “To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes”. It was agreed to and sent to the Senate for consideration on Oct 8th of this year. The two page document can be seen HERE.

The Senate then ordered the document to lie on the table. The bill was amended using AMDT. NO. 2786. The document’s title was revised to  the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, the original contents removed, and the Senate’s 479  page  health care platform was inserted.

Also see the previous related posts :

Senate Health Debate May Begin Soon

More Info on H.R. 3962

Some Basic Info on the Status of the Health Care Bill

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UN Resolution 1325, Does it Apply to the US?

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Great American Women, Health Care, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, NOW, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , on November 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The ninth anniversary, on Oct 31st, 2009, of UN Resolution 1325, dedicated to women peace and security, was marked this year by a series of events starting with open debate at the UN Security Council and leading up to adoption of the  “Third Resolution On Women, Peace & Security, SCR 1888″.

As is usual, a report of the Secretary General, in preparation of the debate was delivered on dated Sept 16, 2009. #S/2009/465, Entitled “Report of the Secretary-General on women and peace and security”, HERE, is an 18 page document outlining events, conclusions and recommendations relating to how women last year, in various places around the globe, were affected by war, it’s aftermath, and the difficulties of finding a voice. I encourage you read it.

WomenWatch has a webpage HERE, devoted to information about this important global resolution directed toward the advancement of peace and security for women. It’s section entitled “Background to Resolution 1325, From the UN Charter to Security Council Resolution 1325” provides a wonderful synopsis of the path taken from the beginning of the UN, to the resolution’s adoption.

The geographic area of United States is not technically in a theater of war. Therefore, the events that happened last year in places like Somalia or Afghanistan do not apply to us. However, one cannot help but find resonance in some of the actions that are taken against women in our country. Deliberate destruction of medical supplies and measles vaccinations targeted for women and children strike a chord with unequal medical treatment provided here. Gang rape as an act of war, an old enemy of women, as well as men and children, is not too far off from the gang rape that occurs in our streets. Many countries around the world now have better representation of women in government than we.

The Security Council reports that there is an absence of “a clear monitoring mechanism” for implementation of 1325, therefore, it has continued to play a strong advocacy role. Part of this problem may relate to it’s own difficulty in promoting women to positions, such as higher council levels and monitoring, which in turn relates to how successful the member countries have been at providing them.

In any event, sixteen countries have thus far made an effort toward advocacy of women’s goals by developing national action plans. They are Austria, Belgium, Chile, Côte d’Ivorie, Denmark. Finland, Iceland, Liberia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Plans of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Nepal were reported to be under development.

So despite the fact that that we are permanent members of the Council, we have not so far produced a national action plan. Not us. Nowhere in the report are we mentioned. Yep, that’s global leadership! Now it’s true that we just had an election and we have some new blood[1] [2] staffing the upper levels of the Security Council. I take the UN’s point, however, if we want to lead, that we must do a better job of achieving gender parity. We must be willing to develop our own national action plan.  In doing so we will see the similarities.

[1] Opening Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Adoption of a UNSC Resolution to Combat Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict

 

[2] Remarks by Ambassador Rosemary A. DiCarlo, U.S. Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs, during a Security Council Debate on Women, Peace, and Security, in the Security Council Chamber

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Senate Health Debate May Begin Soon

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Health Care, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, NOW, Politics, PUMA PAC, The New Agenda, women, tagged , on November 21, 2009| 2 Comments »

Update: Senator Boxer has just sent an email stating the STUPAK AMENDMENT NOT INCLUDED IN THE SENATE BILL! She is asking to petition signers to help prevent the amendment from being included once the debate starts. Here is her petition page:

http://action.barbaraboxer.com/page/s/fightforwomen?source=ffwh_bulletins

Politico.com reports Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) will vote to begin debate, leaving them only one shy.

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More Info on H.R. 3962

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Health Care, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, NOW, Politics, The New Agenda, women, tagged , on November 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

The one thousand and ninety page[1] HR.3962 contains the enrollment or engrossment of the following additional house bill, H.R. 903. Among other things, including a reference to the military’s CHIPS program, this bill is the vehicle for which three other bills were included.

Two page H. R. 903 directed engrossment of H. R. 3961, known as the “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009”. This would likely be the place to start in looking for the proposed reductions. If you go to the above link on H.R. 903 the following engrossed items will show as blue links in the summary.

Five page H. R. 3961 in turn, engrossed seventeen page H. R. 2920, known as the “Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2009”. Reinstituting the “Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985”, or BBEDCA, it also mandates budget neutrality on new tax and mandatory legislation. Among other things, it imposes new guidelines on the alternative minimum tax (AMT). It also has a laundry list of exclusions.

H. R. 2920 engrossed one page H.R. 665, which agrees to consider adoption of a PayGo bill like H. R. 2920. An attendant House report “House Report 111-217”, for consideration of H.R. 2920 is available. A bill, S. 1600, with the same name as H.R 2920, was introduced in the Senate around the same time. It was referred to the budget committee in August.

The one page Hyde Amendment[2], H.AMDT.509 (A001), introduced by Representative Stupak was passed and codified into H. R. 3962 and can be seen HERE with vote counts. It says:

[AMENDMENT DESCRIPTION:
Amendment codifies the Hyde Amendment in H.R. 3962. The amendment prohibits federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
An amendment printed in Part C of House Report 111-330 to codify the Hyde Amendment in H.R. 3962. The amendment prohibits federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.]

Therefore, on the House side of things the total paper stack appears to be an estimated two thousand sixteen pages. Each of the sections was downloadable. As pdfs they are searchable by keyword[3]. For example, H.R. 3962 records the key word “women” 101 times. However, many of these are multiple entries on one page. In any event, if you want to start somewhere, working from the inside out in a keyword search can give you a flavor of the documents. Also keep in mind that the combining the Senate and House versions is likely to change some of the line items. These may the most useful to watch.

[1] Both the Version passed by the House and the one placed on the Senate calendar are the same at 645 pages. However, the document is printed as continuous, so each printed page may contain more than one.

[2] There already is a Hyde amendment. H.AMDT.509 (A001) includes it as part of this bill.

[3] I work on a Mac. However, I imagine it is the same for PC’s.  After opening up the document, I hit Command +F. It opens a dialogue box. Then I type in the keyword. It should make a list on the right hand side. Then you can click on each of those lines to see what they say.

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Some Basic Info on the Status of the Health Care Bill

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Health Care, NOW, Politics, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2009| 1 Comment »

Update 091119 5:06 PST

For more on the the number of bills and the amendment combined with H.R. 3962 go HERE.

There seems to be some confusion in bloggerland about the health care bill. Perhaps ABC gives the best general information about the status of the bill, HERE.

To synopsize:

A House bill entitled “Affordable Health Care for America Act”, H.R 3692, was passed by the House and sent to the Senate . The download pdf is 1948 appears to have been 1990 pages( I originally got it from Speaker Pelosi’s website). The Stupak amendment was passed as part of H.R. 3692. Representative Stupak’s comments are HERE.

I have been having problems, downloading some, but not all of the documents at the Senate Site. However, if you go HERE, you will see the currently active list including H.R. 3692, and the attendant Senate bills of: “Affordable Health Choices Act”, S. 1679, from the Health, Education, and Labor Committee, in 283 pages, and “America’s Healthy Future Act, 2009”, S. 1796, from the Senate Finance Committee in 346 pages.

If you go to the section entitled “Popular Documents”  in the above Senate link, you will see a selection of many health related materials. Majority Leader Reid’s amendment would not download for me at this time. I am wondering if some documents are being withheld until the Senate has a cloture vote on whether to debate the bill(s).

I want to empathize that, I think like many of us, I am struggling through the effort to understand. There may be other bills involved that have been, or will be attached to the health care bill.  ABC has reported that the bills from the two entities combined are more than 4000 pages. As I find them I will include them as updates. Or perhaps the missing pages are the supporting documents in the Senate Popular Documents section.

Senator Boxer has released a statement today, 11/19/09, HERE. In part, she says:

[…Senator Reid also has crafted language that will keep women from being discriminated against when it comes to their reproductive health care.   The Senate bill maintains the compromise that has been in place for decades that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion, but allows a woman to use her own private funds.



There are many issues that I am still working on, including ensuring that California is not hurt by cuts to the Disproportionate Share Hospital Program, which helps our hospitals that serve the neediest among us.
 


I am also working to ensure that the bill includes better preventative health care coverage for women…. ]

Senator Feinstein has not yet released a new comment on her site, but had done one on Oct 23, HERE, expressing her thoughts and reservations about it.

For your Info,

Representative Speier’s Statement has two statements, one against the Stupak Amendment, HERE, and one here on the passage of the House bill, HERE.

Representative Kucinich’s statement on the House Bill is HERE.

Ralph Nader’s comment is HERE.

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