Michael Perelman <[email protected]> writes: > Who is on the committee negotiating between the house & senate bills. Is > there anyone remotely progressive there?
I'm glad you asked! My New Year's resolution was to stay out of bourgeois politics and after two weeks I'm going out of my mind. :) Bear in mind that Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson have final veto power over this thing if a single punctuation mark is changed. >From the House side, you have: Nancy Pelosi, Voted to increase both Medicare and Medicaid. Steny Hoyer, Majority Leader. criticized the removal of dissenting opinions from the debate. James Clyburn, Cat Wrangler(majority whip). The best of the bunch. George Miller, Chairman, House HELP committee. Also good. Charlie Rangel, Ways and Means Chair. Free trader, wheeler dealer. Henry Waxman, the Moustache of Justice. Chair of both the Commerce and Oversight committees. Not too shabby. >From the Senate: Harry Reid, Majority Leader and Stockholm Syndrome victim(see Lieberman, Nelson). Dick Durbin, Fair guy, good voting record as they go. Chairman Baucus, Finance committee chair, arrested doctors and nurses during health care hearings. He's been a problem from day one. Chairman Dodd, HELP committee chair(acting, took over for Kennedy). When you're part of a two-man team consisting of yourself and Joe Lieberman and *you're* the corrupt one, well... Tom Harkin, Chairman, Senate HELP committee. Very critical of the Stupak language. Might help. >From the White House: Rahm Emanuel, a.k.a Rasputin, Obama's chief leg breaker. He'll settle for a half-off coupon for flu shots if it gets a bill to Obama's desk before the State of the Union address. Phil Schiliro, legislative liason, arm twister. Terrified of Emanuel. Nancy-Ann DeParle, Health Czar. An obvious choice for the position, as she worked for Accredo Health Inc., Boston Scientific, Cerner Corp., DaVita, Guidant, Medco Health Solutions, Speciality Laboratories, and Triad Hospitals. She was a managing director of CCMP Capital. I'm not predicting much help from her. and President Obama, (very)late of community organizing fame. Tapping his bill signing pen and looking at his watch. -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
