McConnell Health Care Forum Closed to Public

Think Progress has the story:

Today, Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (KY), John McCain (R-AZ), and Kit Bond (MO) held a “Health Care Reform Forum” at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO. However, the event was closed to the public. ThinkProgress spoke with Barbara Mueth, vice president of community relations at Children’s Mercy, who confirmed that the attendees had all been invited by either the hospital or the senators.

...Although McCain has held town hall meetings, McConnell has largely avoided them. His spokesman Robert Steurer said that he is instead “speaking to Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce and hospital groups.”

President Obama's weekly address

The President discusses the steps being taken to finish the job of recovery from Hurricane Katrina as the fourth anniversary approaches.

Governor Beshear's weekly address

Click here for a version of this video with closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

8 Ways Health Reform Matters to You

More McConnell hypocrisy

Think Progress busts Mitch McConnell for yet another hypocritical stance:

Yesterday — the same day he asked for Recovery Act money to be diverted — McConnell and Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY) toured a construction site at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County, Kentucky. The facility, which is used to contain and destroy chemical weapons compiled during the Cold War, is in desperate need of repair and has leaked Sarin gas as recently as last year. McConnell quickly took credit for the new construction, noting that he and Chandler had inserted an additional $5 million into the 2010 budget. McConnell bragged:

“This is going to be a source of significant employment. At the peak, we could have up to 600 people working on this, and we believe the substantial majority of those workers will be Kentuckians.”

However, McConnell conveniently forgot to mention that even more additional funds for facility construction were awarded through the stimulus. A Defense Department report states that $5,876,000 has been allocated from the Recovery Act to the Blue Grass facility for repairs.

DSCC Response To Grayson's Announcement

In response to Trey Grayson’s formal entry into the Kentucky Senate race, Eric Schultz, Communications Director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, released the following statement:

The people of Kentucky deserve an independent voice in the United States Senate – not a handpicked protégé of failed Republican leadership in Washington. If Trey Grayson can wrangle enough special interest money to overcome Rand Paul’s formidable grassroots fundraising, voters will know who in Washington he is beholden to. Democrats will target this seat no matter who the Republican nominee is.

Status quo is not an option

In her column today, Marie Cocco makes a strong case for the public option:

The Commonwealth Fund, an independent health care think tank, examined the models currently competing for congressional support and found that a public plan with payments set in accordance with Medicare rates would save the federal government, employers and individuals the most by far. The savings were three times greater than those achieved with competition only among private plans. Even a modified version of a public plan with provider payment rates pegged somewhat above what Medicare pays produced greater savings.

Nonetheless, what is emerging from Congress is a health overhaul that isn't as cost effective as it could be and doesn't guarantee against lost coverage -- yet gives insurers millions of new customers whose purchases will be subsidized by taxpayers.

This is change the industry can believe in.

What does health insurance reform mean for you?

All the President’s Zombies

In his column today, Paul Krugman takes on the right-wing's central tenet -- "government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good":

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

The Guns of August

Be sure to check out today's excellent column by Frank Rich:

[Republican Senator Tom] Coburn’s implicit rationalization for far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events — the government makes them do it! — cannot stand. He’s not a radio or Fox News bloviator paid a fortune to be outrageous; he’s a card-carrying member of the United States Senate. On Monday — the day after he gave a pass to those threatening violence — a dozen provocateurs with guns, at least two of them bearing assault weapons, showed up for Obama’s V.F.W. speech in Phoenix. Within hours, another member of Congress — Phil Gingrey of Georgia — was telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that as long as brandishing guns is legal, he, too, saw no reason to discourage Americans from showing up armed at public meetings.

In April the Department of Homeland Security issued a report, originally commissioned by the Bush administration, on the rising threat of violent right-wing extremism. It was ridiculed by conservatives, including the Republican chairman, Michael Steele, who called it “the height of insult.” Since then, a neo-Nazi who subscribed to the anti-Obama “birther” movement has murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, and an anti-abortion zealot has gunned down a doctor in a church in Wichita, Kan.

This month the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same organization that warned of the alarming rise in extremist groups before the Oklahoma City bombing, issued its own report. A federal law enforcement agent told the center that he hadn’t seen growth this steep among such groups in 10 to 12 years. “All it’s lacking is a spark,” he said.