Health Care Reform Time Line: What it will do and when

By GottaLaff

Here is the time line the L.A. Times laid out this morning:

WITHIN A YEAR

* Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare prescription drug plan beneficiaries whose initial benefits run out.

AFTER 90 DAYS

* Provides immediate access to high-risk insurance pools for people who have no insurance because of preexisting conditions.

AFTER SIX MONTHS

* Bars insurers from denying people coverage when they get sick.

* Prevents insurers from denying coverage to children who have preexisting conditions.

* Bars insurers from imposing lifetime caps on coverage.

* Requires insurers to allow young people to stay on their parents' policies until age 26.

2011

* Requires individual and small group insurance plans to spend at least 80% of premium dollars on medical services. Large group plans would have to spend at least 85%.

2013

* Increases the Medicare payroll tax and expands it to dividend, interest and other unearned income for singles earning more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000.

2014

* Provides subsidies for families earning up to 400% of the poverty level to purchase health insurance.

* Requires most employers to provide coverage or face penalties.

* Requires most people to obtain coverage or face penalties.

2018

* Imposes a 40% excise tax on high-end policies.

BY 2019

* Expands insurance coverage to 32 million more people.

Sources: House speaker, Congressional Budget Office, Kaiser Family Foundation, McClatchy Newspapers

Of course, according to the wingnuts, it's nothing but a Lefty Commie Marxist attempt to "control the people"!

D.C. mayor signs same-sex marriage bill

By GottaLaff

Good news time!

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a measure recognizing such marriages as legal. The city council overwhelming passed the bill on Tuesday, following a similar vote on December 1. [...]

The measure now goes to Congress for a 30-day review period, but it's considered unlikely that the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill would block the bill. By law, Congress has the right to review and overturn laws created by the District of Columbia's council.

Just had to drop this moment of sanity into our day. Now back to the usual media-perpetuated rancor already in progress.

Surgeon General Nominee Regina Benjamin Confirmed

Considering we're in the middle of a pandemic, this was probably a good idea.

The Senate, by voice vote, confirmed Dr. Regina Benjamin as the nation’s surgeon general amid a national emergency over the swine flu outbreak. Earlier in the day, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had taken to the floor to complain that Republicans were holding up her nomination over an unrelated dispute. Dr. Benjamin is well known for founding the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., and for keeping that clinic running during two hurricanes.

It's official: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Anderson Cooper is reporting that a recount is "likely".

It took awhile to find it in print, but here it is:

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term. The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday's count. That's an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted.

Judge rules against Bush administration in White House email case

By GottaLaff

Oh yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ruled today that two private groups — CREW and the National Security Archive — may continue to pursue their case against the Bush White House to recover millions of possibly missing electronic messages. “The Bush administration had argued that the courts did not have the power to order the White House to retrieve any missing e-mails.”

This has been one of my biggest concerns. Huge sigh of relief!

“This is a major victory for the public interest in accountability at the White House,” added Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs. “Through this lawsuit we have preserved over 65,000 computer backup tapes. This decision means those tapes will survive the end of the Bush Administration so that Congress, the courts, and eventually the public will be able to learn about the decision-making that took place over the last 8 years.”

Let's hope they find everything they're looking for, and then some.