In the least surprising development of the Senate health care reform debate, some Republican senators are basing their opposition on the issue of abortion. No matter how many times they say otherwise, the Senate bill ensures a separation between federal funds and abortion coverage and protects the consciences of those Americans who are morally or religiously opposed to the issue.

Victory For Health Care Choice: Senate Bill Will Let People Leave Their Employers' Plan For Better Option

The purpose of the establishment clause in the First Amendment was to insure that organized religion had no say in the affairs of state. With the Catholic Conference of Bishops having authored the abortion amendment in the House health care bill, its time to say, give up your tax exempt status and your filing for bankruptcy protection or give up your massive lobbying organization in Washington.

When my wife had a prescription of Levaquin filled and the cost for seven 500 mg. pills was $90.42, I just couldn't believe it. I went to Canada Drugs and found their cost for the same medication was $43.04. My wife needed the medication immediately and there wasn't time to wait for a Canada Drugs mail order and since she's in the Medicare Part D Doughnut hole, she had to pay the full price. Thanks Big PHARMA. Big PHARMA has made, what I consider a, phony self serving, effort to get in the Health Care Reform debate. Who do these folks think they're fooling? The cost of medications through Medicare Part D have been and continue to be over inflated. If seniors could get their medications at the prices charged in Canada (see graphic below) many of them would never fall in the infamous "doughnut hole" and while we're on the subject of "doughnut holes". Why is a "doughnut hole" necessary? I suggest real reform would eliminate the "doughnut hole" entirely. Just more smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned, thanks to Big PHARMA and Congress.

Under the House plan, we will gamble as we choose a plan, decide which corporation will be the best for us, hoping we pick one that is not dominated by corporate bureaucrats focused on rationing care to maximize their profits. Imagine real reform, as simple as adding people ages 55 to 65 years old to Medicare in 2010, 35-55 in 2011, and so on until everyone is included by 2013. If the Democrats can't stand up to insurance companies now, it will be even harder in the future when they have billions in more profits from Americans forced to buy their product.

Tom Harkin assured Ed Shultz last night that after a 2 hour closed door meeting, Harry Reid had the 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster and guaranteed there would be a floor vote on the health care reform bill with a public option before the senate recesses for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Benjamin’s family happens to live in Michigan, one of 33 states where insurance companies are allowed to set annual and lifetime caps on prosthetic coverage. The family’s policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan covers a maximum of $30,000 per lifetime for prosthetics, plus $1,000 per year for repairs. In states such as Colorado and Maryland, the law says there can be no such cap on prosthetics.

[FWIW, this is an extended comment I made to Selise in my last FDL diary.] Selise, why am I the only person in America wearing a black arm band? A woman, an acquaintance, yesterday asked me if I had a death in my family. I said the arm band was for my country. I put it on back in mid-May for the illegal torture travesty, vowing as soon as the Obama administration cleaned up that travesty I would take it off. I told her I also keep it on now for the travesties of the wars. So many deaths of Americans and Middle Eastern peoples for power and money. Not for helping humanity. I told her I am also now wearing it for the 45,000 premature American deaths each year for lack of health care.

Fox News has reported that Republican lawmakers are planning on holding town hall meetings on health care reform for no other reason than to invite protestors to show up and show their rage.

Buckling to pressure by the Catholic Conference of Bishbops, Pelosi with Obama's approval, invited the bishops to help craft the language of the anti-abortion amendment in the healthcare reform bill in clear violation of the establishment clause in the First Amendment.

In his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne claimed that pro-choice lawmakers and advocates are overstating how detrimental the Stupak amendment would be to women’s access to abortion:

A Goldman Sachs report projects earnings per share and stock values of the five largest insurance companies under four different health care reform scenarios. It is an excellent example of how vampires think, and shows us which facets of the reform proposals are most frightening precisely because they represent true reform. They are: cuts to Medicare Advantage, regulations that disallow exclusions for pre-existing conditions and recision, and finally, the odious public option.

Rep. Lynn Jenkins failure to follow up with the assistance she promised to Elizabeth Smith, the single mother who asked why Rep. Lynn Jenkins wouldn't support a public option and got nothing but a laugh as a response.

The idea that the Family might be holding the reins of any legislation as historic and wide-reaching as healthcare reform is troubling. Sharlet's reporting has revealed several instances in which Family leaders point to dictators and murderers such as Hitler for inspiration. He writes that "the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride." The notion of personal responsibility is likewise shunned by the organization, as members believe themselves to be the new "chosen" people. Sharlet quoted David Coe, son of leader Doug and probable heir to the throne, as telling young members, "If you're a person known to be around Jesus, you can go and do anything. And that's who you guys are. When you leave here, you're not only going to know the value of Jesus, you're going to know the people who rule the world." And if these people have been "chosen" to rule the world, whither a woman's right to choose?

Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering a plan for higher payroll taxes on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation he intends to introduce in the Senate in the next several days, numerous Democratic officials said Wednesday.

I hope that the president and his advisers will pause a moment in their discussion over how many troops to dedicate to Afghanistan and consider this thought: We are sending our citizens to fight in an unwinnable war, only to have them come home to a broken healthcare system that does not even come close to adequately dealing with their physical and mental wounds. Instead of continuing to court the displeasure of the international community and waste untold sums of money, bring our troops home. Take all that money we're spending to prop up a corrupt Afghan government and put it toward a single-payer healthcare system. Put it toward the VA and legislation such as the Caregiver Bill. Put it toward a new GI Bill that will allow soldiers to come home to decent, stable jobs or to be trained in emerging industries. In other words, take care of our veterans first. Only then can you decide if we can afford the cost of war.

A ballot initiative in Massachusetts for the November 3 election asked residents a simple question about Universal Health Care. And the result surprised noone except maybe Fox News and the Tea-baggers.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/squandered_a_golden_.php Dr. Carol Paris, in an irate letter to a Maryland newspaper editor, writes of the newly passed House health care bill: I agree with Wendell Potter, the former head of public relations for CIGNA, that this legislation could more accurately be titled “The Private Health Insurance Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.” The readers should know that this legislation was written by the insurance industry, for the insurance industry. We are being mandated to purchase a defective product from an industry that has demonstrated for the past 60 years that it puts profits before patients. Even the so-called public option will be administered by the private insurance industry and will enroll, at most, 6 million people in a multitude of anemic markets; it will not be a robust Medicare-like market at all. This public option is like sending in a peewee football team to compete with the NFL. It will not compete with the private insurance industry; it will become the default insurer for our sickest, least profitable citizens, leaving the younger, mandated, profitable citizens to enroll in the private plans provided in the exchange.

"In the critical fight to reform our health care system and expand access, we cannot marginalize women by forcing them to pay more for their care or limiting their access to a legal medical procedure. If left as is the health care reform bill would be the largest repeal of anti-choice laws in nearly four decades. It is not a continuation of current law as the proponents claim."

The public option for health insurance probably doesn't stand a chance in the Senate. Renegade Joe Lieberman and several "blue dog" DINOs are very likely to stop it from getting to an up-or-down vote like we saw in the House late Saturday. But it was worth it to go this far, for three big reasons.