- Guests:
- Fran Korten, Publisher of Yes! Magazine.
- Dahr Jamail, Independent investigative journalist who's been covering the war in Iraq since the invasion; best selling author...his most recent book is "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan".
- Topics:
- Health care.
- Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom, corporate personhood.
- Saturday is the 7th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq...what the corporate media isn't telling us.
- Bumper Music:
- Live Like We're Dying, Kris Allen.
- It's Not Over, Chris Daughtry.
- Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne.
- All 'Bout The Money, Meja.
- Let's Get It started In Here, Black Eyed Peas.
- Re-Arranged, Limp Bizkit.
- One Day, Matisyahu.
- Change, Bart Crow.
- Democracy, Leonard Cohen.
- Today's newsletter has details of today's guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven't signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today's newsletter, it is in the archive.
- Quote: "Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Carl Wolfson and Christine Alexander of the "KPOJ morning show" guest host.
- Article: CBO Score On Health Care Bill Released by Ryan Grim.
Comprehensive health care reform will cost the federal government $940 billion over a ten-year period, but will increase revenue and cut other costs by a greater amount, leading to a reduction of $138 billion in the federal deficit over the same period, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a Democratic source tells HuffPost. It will cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the second ten year period.
The source said it also extends Medicare's solvency by at least nine years and reduces the rate of its growth by 1.4 percent, while closing the doughnut hole for seniors, meaning there will no longer be a gap in coverage of medication. The CBO also estimated it would extend coverage to 32 million additional people.
- Article: The Top Ten Immediate Benefits You'll Get When Health Care Reform Passes by Rep. John B. Larson.
As soon as health care passes, the American people will see immediate benefits. The legislation will:
- Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
- Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
- Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
- Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
- Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
- Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
- Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;
- Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
- Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
- Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.
By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices.
