A recent poll of Afghans

"70% see unemployment and poverty as a key driver of civil war; 48% blame the government’s weakness and corruption; 36% point to the Taliban; 25% to interference by neighboring countries; 18% to the presence of international forces; 18% to al Qaeda; and  17% to the lack of support from the international community."

Which raises the fundamental question:  Is the solution found in escalating military action, or in rebuilding the devastated economy?

What’s on you mind tonight?

And that’s it for the night. Debate will begin after Thanksgiving, plus amendments, then moving on to the final cloture motion and a final vote.

8:04 EST: Cloture passes 60-39. Debate will start after Thanksgiving.

7:57 EST: Voting continuing.

7:56 EST: Clerk reading cloture motion.

The question is: Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed shall be brought to a close. Clerk is calling the roll.

Voting now.

7:55 EST: Vote starting 5 minutes early.

7:54 EST: Absence of a quorum noted by Reid, and the roll is being called. Vote coming soon!

7:44 EST: The American people want us to start over. All it would take is just one on the other side of the aisle to not end the debate, but change the debate.

And he’s yielded.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is up.

My friend, the minority leader, has had since Wednesday to read the bill. Obviously he hasn’t done so.

We debate the right to live free of disease and death by giving health care for all. The road has started many times, never been completed. Merged bills have never been done before. We couldn’t have got here without the help of many Senators.

As a matter of principle, that I respect, the senior Senator from Arkansas insisted we have time to read the bill. All Senators have now had ample time. That is why we are voting tonight.

I invite Republicans to join the right side of history. Around dining room tables, families are agonizing over what to sacrifice next to afford health care. Employers are wondering whether they can afford to provide health care. Americans need reform.

Debate is constant, but the only place where silence is evened considered is the Senate. Now, finally, we have the opportunity to bring this great deliberation to this body. That and nothing more is what this vote does.

A yes vote says this issue is important and the Senate should at least talk about it.

Some Republicans would like Americans to think voting to debate the bill is voting to pass the bill. Tonight’s vote is only the beginning of debate. It’s clear Republicans have no problem talking about health care on TV, at town hall meetings, on the radio, yet now that we have the legislation to debate, to amend, to build on, will they refuse to debate?

If we refuse to let the Senate do its job, what are we doing here? What do we fear? And who’s voice to you speak for? In who’s interest do you vote?

Certainly debating reform can’t be more difficult than American deciding to pay their mortgage or medical bills. It can’t be more upsetting than having an insurance company take away your coverage when you need it the most.

Kennedy once said let us not be afraid of debate or discussion, let us encourage it.

Don’t be afraid of debate. It’s our job. We Democrats stand ready to do what needs to be done. We welcome debate. The framers intended for debate here. Imagine if instead of debating historic GI bills, this body has stood silent. Instead of debate social security or medicare, the Senate voices had been still. Instead of debating to abolish slavery or give women the right to vote.

Don’t try and silence a great debate over a great crisis. Don’t say you ran and hid when given the chance to debate this issue. The right response to disagreement is discussion. Democracy is discussion. Let us debate our differences.

7:32 EST: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is up.

At a time when Americans are looking for jobs, the Chinese lecturing us about our debt, this bill costs 2.5 trillion the government doesn’t have and can’t afford.

It imposes punishing taxes on almost everyone. It raises premiums for 85% of Americans who already have insurance. It slashed Medicare by half a trillion dollars.

Anyone who votes "aye" tonight is voting for all of these things. It is a fact, a vote in favor of proceeding is a vote in favor of adding to the tax burden of Americans. A vote in favor is a vote to raise premiums, to deep cuts to Medicare, tells every American family sitting in a waiting room tonight that cost is not our concern. A vote in favor is a vote in favor of a spending binge that’s leading to a massive long-term deficit.

If there were one Democrat, just one, who would say no tonight, none of this would happen. And then we could start over.

Under this bill, health care costs will go up, not down. 2000+ pages.

We don’t want to end debate, we want to change it. Because once this bill is on the floor, the basic dimensions won’t change. It’s going to take 60 votes to change this bill. That means the bill that’s introduced will fundamentally be the bill we’ll be asked to pass sometime in the future. That is a fact.

7:25 EST: Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is up.

Recognizing Kennedy, who "is with us only in spirit."

Then asks why we’re all watching C-SPAN on a Saturday evening.

Health care costs is the single biggest threat to our financial future. Never before has this body confronted directly this issue. Health care is our most basic need. No matter how much you make, your hopes and dreams, who you are, where you live, what your job is. In America, we should be able to get the care we need.

For too many health care has become our most basic fear. Can’t see a doctor. Premiums skyrocket. You lie awake at night wondering what if you lose your job, or you get sick and find out your policy doesn’t cover care you need, or it’s canceled altogether.

I wish I could say those fears are irrational, but they’re not. Our system is broken. People are losing their homes and dying because they get sick. This is not acceptable in our America. That’s why we’re here on a Saturday night.

We need all the ideas we can get to fix this. But if you’ve watched the debate over the last few days, nobody has stood up and said we should do nothing at all. Tonight’s vote is nothing more than a choice between doing something and doing nothing. I urge my colleagues to join us.

Dodd has yielded.

7:17 EST: Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is up.

"To be mature means to face, and not evade a crisis." Our health care system is in a crisis, and this crisis will not solve itself. We must face the crisis.

For years we’ve studied the issue. We’ve held nearly 70 hearings. We combined a bill and we’ve brought that combined plan to the Senate floor.

We have a bill that will put Americans, patients, and their doctors back into control. It will end harmful insurance industry practices. No more denials of care. No more hyping up rates for sick Americans. No more taking away health care if you’re sick. No more lifetime or annual limits. If you pay your bill, insurance companies must provide you benefits. No more discrimination based on gender. Insurance companies must disclose the share of premiums that go to medical benefits. No longer will insurance companies get tax credits if they pay their CEOs too much.

Our bill is paid for, it will lower costs, and it will reduce the deficit.

Many are happy with their current plans. This bill will not change that. But too many others don’t have access to quality insurance. Our bill will give people choice and know exactly what they’re buying. Tax credits will help insure all Americans can afford health insurance.

Small businesses will also have access to tax credits, and will be able to spread their risk. And no longer will there be a separate congressional health plan.

Our bill will strengthen Medicare.

We hope to have a full debate. But we have the opportunity at last to face the crisis and show mature leadership.

And Baucus has yielded the floor.

7:10 EST: I believe passionately that we should defeat this bill. We need a bipartisan bill.

Before I came to the Senate, I was a small business owner, a shoe store. When someone said they couldn’t afford a shoe, I didn’t give them a sales pitch, I found a shoe they could afford. The people in America are complaining, we’re showing them the shoe they can’t afford.

We have a big decision to make tonight, that will have a lasting effect on our country. If we pass the motion to proceed, we’ll debate it for a long time. America will be surprised at the time we waste when we could be doing jobs and the economy.

And Enzi has yielded.

7:00 EST: This bill creates mandatory spending in perpetuity. Talks about the debt growing and jobs being lost. Reid said this bill will be deficit neutral. But the real cost is hidden by implementing taxes first and spending later. When you extend it on out, you won’t continue to cover those cost. So, disaster.

What would constitute fraud in the accounting world is being voted on. Medicare is going to go broke, and we’re going to take billions from Medicare. If Washington accounting had to come under the same laws as private business, the administration would be in jail.

Now talking about the American people. Majority of Americans believe their costs will go up. The  American public isn’t fooled. David Broder, the dean of Washington’s journalists, said a recent survey said less than 1/5th believe that health reform will be deficit neutral, and a majority oppose the legislation. Broder said it was a "budget-buster."

The group of six couldn’t come to any conclusions because the topic is so big. It’s a thousand billion dollars. A billion is a thousand million.

6:50 EST: Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) is discussing jobs and how health care represents a "massive government intrusion" into health care. Government will determine whether your health care costs too much. What services you should receive. Now he’s bringing up the mammogram recommendations.

Saying this bill gets it wrong. Doesn’t fix what’s broken and leave what works. Senator Reid is trying to jam through a strictly partisan bill. Will increase the deficit and harm our jobs. No serious economist would say this bill creates jobs or helps our economy. Health care spending will increase, will not improve quality, or change the delivery system.

"The voices of August are still echoing, and coming from a vast majority."

Says there is a job-killing tax on business because they will have to provide health insurance. The health reform bill will threaten your jobs. Heritage foundation says this new job-killing tax will put 5 million at risk of losing their jobs.

——-

The bill will threaten our nation’s jobs and economic growth, and increase our debt and deficit.

I’ll be doing a little bit of liveblogging the Senate health care debate today leading up to the cloture vote at around 8 pm EST.

I’ll be keeping up with the debate in the Senate (on C-SPAN 2), as well as trying to explain the Senate procedure and answer questions folks might have.

And with that, here we go…

Over the years, right wingers ended up claiming victimhood as their own calling card and making it into a rallying cry.  Whether it is Bill O’Reilly wailing about the secular progressive agenda to get religion out of the public square, Charles Krauthammer fantasizing about a liberal media that ruthlessly persecutes right wing pundits (even as they continue to freely spout their opinions from all corners of the media),  Sen. Jim DeMint accusing President Obama of hostility to Christians, or a kooky anti-government group (praised by Pat Buchanan) that thinks the government is about to confiscate their guns and impose martial law, it’s hard to find a right winger who doesn’t see himself or herself as a victim.   Rush Limbaugh’s brother David wrote a book with a title that sums it all up: "Persecution"–it’s the untold story of how Christians are mistreated in American life.

The right wing has a persecution complex.    One is tempted to simply tell them, as they would have said to the liberal whiners they derided for years: "get over it."  The fantasies of an America where Christian white males are oppressed are outlandish, for reasons that are obvious, and that I have gone over in some detail before.  However, as has become all too apparent, baseless assertions can still have a great deal of power in current American politics. 

Unfortunately, it’s a bit too easy to dismiss the right wing’s paranoid victim complex.  For one thing, complaints about persecution seem to resonate with the rank and file.  When Norah O’Donnell asked one Palin supporter who was wearing a t-shirt that criticized the financial industry  bailout if the young woman knew Palin supported the bailout (including in the book Palin is currently hawking), the Palin supporter was flummoxed.  But there was no need to fear.  If Palin herself could be elevated to hero status after running a vice presidential campaign in which she was unable to answer basic questions about her reading habits or major Supreme Court decisions, it’s not surprising that some right wingers see Norah O’Donnell’s reasonable question as yet another instance of persecution.  (Imagine if an Obama supporter showed up at a big event wearing a t-shirt criticizing health care reform–would it be an "ambush" if a reporter asked the Obama supporter if she knew that the president supports reform?)

It’s clear why the persecution strategy works for right wingers.  First, it turns ignorance into a strength (Orwell would be proud): if you’re a right winger who doesn’t know something and the communist media points that out, it only adds evidence to your persecution theory ("see?  I was right–the liberal media is so bloodthirsty that it won’t even give me a break when I don’t know what the Cuban missile crisis was.")  Also, as Max Blumenthal has aptly observed, it establishes a bond between rank and file right wingers–who may very well have good reason to believe they are being screwed by economic changes wrought, in fact, by their own leaders– and the Palins of the world.  Palin and other right wing leaders and opinion makers don’t really have a lot in common with the people who are lining up at Palin book events.  The elites are wealthy and comfortable while their supporters are often exactly the opposite.  The persecution strategy neatly bridges this divide by making it seem like millionaire right wingers are just as persecuted as their supporters.

It’s just a first step to recognize what’s happening here.  The next steps are asking: (1) could this strategy be successful for right wingers and (2) if so, how can it be countered?  To me, there’s something sinister and disingenuous going on when privileged right wingers create trumped-up reasons to claim common cause with people who are facing real economic challenges and worrying about how to pay for health care.  It’s worth thinking about what this all means for the rest of us.

According to Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect:

"Wal-Mart’s pricing drives a sometimes corrosive phenomenon, one in which Wal-Mart slowly but insistently resets our expectations about what a product should cost, and about what it’s worth. The process often proceeds at a speed not much greater than continental drift – but with the same kind of bulldozing power. Why shouldn’t you be able to buy a cordless electric screwdriver for $9.99?"

And as we grow to expect these absurdly low prices, we also grow to accept much lower quality. We don’t raise an eyebrow when our $149 TV kicks the bucket after three years – even though the one our parents paid $500 for is still going strong after 25 years.

And we don’t mind schlepping back in for another pair of cheap jeans when they wear out in a year or two, even though they used to last 10 or 15 years, sometimes even a lifetime. My new Levi’s already have a hole in the knee, and I only wear them about once a week.

Levi’s, like so many other companies, has been forced to lower the quality of their products because of Wal-Mart’s incessant demand for lower prices, a reality which few consumers seem to grasp. We’ve lost the ability to distingush price and value. As a result, we’ve created a consumer climate where the only factor influencing purchase is what we have to pay at the register. We don’t think twice about the true costs that are not reflected on the price tag – costs to the environment, costs to the human rights of workers, costs to American industries, and costs to ourselves for having to constantly replace low-quality merchandise.

This price/value ignorance is spilling over to the political world. As issues come up for debate in Congress, the discussion usually starts and ends with the immediate cost. In fact, the bills themselves become known by their price tag, such as  the $900 billion stimulus or the $849 billion health reform bill. As a result, the legislative process – much like the shopping process of the typical consumer - becomes focused on finding the lowest possible price, not on producing the bill that has the overall best value for the people.

In short, because we as a nation have lost sight of what is good value, we are looking at a bunch of cheap solutions  to expensive problems. Health care reform might be the best example. A strong single-payer system is like the $30 pair of jeans. It’s long term benefits for the health and economy of the nation would more than make up for the higher initial cost. But what we’re ending up with is a $7 pair of watered-down public options - a pair that won’t last. We’ll be right back at the store in a few years looking for another cheap solution.

If there is such a thing as "too good to be true," then there’s also such a thing as "too cheap to be good." America, enjoy your bargains!

Happily, most highway hosts you may encounter during your travels want your opinion about their services. I like to make it plain in advance. It is helpful to point out the above, namely that lies are not an acceptable substitute for information.

Occasionally, an unpleasant experience happens, and lower levels of management inflict a public place with a Fox station. A convenient category for complaining about having been forced to listen to Fox network is the "Noise" checkbox on customer satisfaction forms.

It is an insult to U.S. citizens’ intelligence that a network dedicated to selling out the public invades our air space. Most of us do simple things like refuse to listen to Fox network propaganda in our homes. Too often, though, when we go outside our homes we run into lower life forms that have drunk the koolaid and want to spread the poison. In public places, sometimes we encounter subsidized T.V. propaganda, trying to convince us that our government ought to work against public interests.

Something that I have learned from traveling is that when you pay for your space you can, and should, refuse to share it with Fox ‘News.’ The time that I spend having a meal in a dining room, in my cabin on a ship, or in a public room is time I pay for. I will, and often do, insist that being forced to listen to paid political advertising is misuse of my money, and I will not allow it.

A few ways that I have fought against the subsidized lies are by making it known to the management in advance, and after a stay, that I do not tolerate paid advertising by Fox where I spend my time.

A couple of cruise lines are now aware that since only 20% of the public inclines to right wing views, the choice of Fox as a channel for their English speaking passengers limits choice and satisfaction, and inconveniences the greater number of their customers. On Thursday, I got the opportunity to let this fact be known to the central office of the motel chain I choose to visit when I flew out of DFW airport.

I invite you all to join me in letting the hosts you will be paying for space know in advance, or if necessary in retrospect, that you expect them to provide an environment you can enjoy, or at least not despise. Making it a point to communicate in advance has helped me several times.

In order to help your hosts insure your enjoyment of paid use of space, I suggest you let them know that they will find it in their best interests to provide networks that convey information, not rabble-rousing, in public space. Any news network will do. That category doesn’t include Fox.

Thank you for your assistance in clearing the air of noise pollution.

Expect to hear the word "terraforming" more and more often in the coming years as our environmental crises deepen and multiply.  Terraforming is the manipulation of other planets and their moons to make them more like earth – with the goal of making them habitable for human life. 

Physicist Lowell Wood contends that Mars could be successfully terraformed by the end of the 21st century, which might convince some that we need to invest our efforts there instead of in saving our earthly habitat. 

This would turn our planet into the ultimate disposable commodity, and would bring validation to this disturbing characterization of the human species from The Matrix.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Toby Wollin will give us her take on the holiday, which I’ve been assured has a twist to it, as is to be expected.

alanaclaire will have pumpkin Mexican hot chocolate, which sounds just about right for the season.

Jessica Glasscoe will have recipes for pomegranate pork chops with winter tabouleh.

And we’ll have a look into Thanksgiving traditions as it relates to health, politics, the environment, and more. So make sure to stop by on Sunday and bring your comments, recipes, and appetites.

The signers included:

Minnesota’s Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall of Colorado, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russell Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Roland Burris of Illinois, and Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

It’s amazing what a $47 Million PR Spending Spree will buy you.

The letter referenced above, in a nutshell, asks that life be made easier for coal-burning utilities under a cap and trade CO2 scenario. This is despite the horrible things coal is responsible for, as diaried in this great diary posted yesterday.

In addition, a new study by Physicians for Social Responsibility states:

Coal pollutants affect all major body organ systems and contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. This conclusion emerges from our reassessment of the widely recognized health threats from coal. Each step of the coal lifecycle—mining, transportation, washing, combustion, and disposing of postcombustion wastes—impacts human health. Coal combustion in particular contributes to diseases affecting large portions of the U.S. population, including asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke, compounding the major public health challenges of our time. It interferes with lung development,
increases the risk of heart attacks, and compromises intellectual capacity.

So, yeah, I’m not a big fan of coal.

I get it that coal is a big jobs provider and that many of these jobs are union, so Democrats probably feel that they need to pay lip service to coal. However, if our liberal Democrats in Washington don’t start telling folks the truth about coal, how are we ever going to wean ourselves from it?

I wrote to my senators, Levin and Stabenow, telling them this & got a response from Senator Stabenow. It reads, in part:

I share your commitment to protecting our environment and creating new jobs through a low-carbon economy.

Global climate change is a real threat to Michigan. Not only are temperatures rising, but increased evaporation could cause Great Lakes water levels to drop significantly, affecting water supplies, fish stocks, shipping, and recreation. There is no question that now is the time to act.

However, comprehensive climate legislation must be done right and with great care. Michigan’s economy has suffered greatly during this economic downturn, and climate legislation must not make our situation worse. I believe that by making the right policy choices and the right investments, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that revitalizes Michigan’s economy and creates new jobs.

And to that end, she is sponsoring tax credits for solar power (who doesn’t love tax credits). From that article:

Lawmakers on the House and Senate tax-writing committees offered identical bills this month that provide a new 30 percent credit for investments in equipment used to manufacture solar energy system components.

The bills would make these investments eligible for the existing 30 percent credit for installation of residential and business solar energy systems, which is available through 2016.

Personally, I don’t know how renewables are ever going to be able to fully compete w/ dirty energy like coal until the full costs (health effects, CO2, etc.) are factored in. Making things easier on coal burning utility companies ain’t going to help that.

But don’t worry, we’ll have "Clean Coal" to save us, right? Well, from
Mother Jones:

But for all their expensive efforts to sell the public on the wonders of clean coal, ACCCE isn’t working quite as hard to make the technology a reality. The coalition’s members have committed the comparatively paltry sum of $3.6 billion to research the technology between 2003 and 2017, according to an April report from the Center for American Progress. That’s just $257 million on average each year to develop the technology to capture and sequester carbon. To put that in perspective, ACCCE’s members made a combined total of $297 billion in profits between 2003 and 2008—meaning, as the report notes, that they’re spending less than two cents on clean coal research for every $1 of profit.

Think they realize it’s not a good investment?

How do you solve this problem?  Kozol says one important step would be to make sure public schools in less affluent areas get the same funding as schools in affluent areas.  That could be solved if the current system, which makes public school funding largely dependent on local property taxes, were changed.  Perhaps a tax targeted at high income earners statewide could be used to close the gap.   Public school systems in less affluent areas would have more money to hire better teachers, purchase up to date equipment, and repair crumbling facilities.  The problem, of course, is that in 21st century America it is nearly impossible to raise taxes for any purpose (a point Principal Seymour Skinner made clear in a memorable Simpsons episode).

People who’d like to see better public schools may wait forever if they are hoping education will be made a priority, with corresponding resources allocated to improve the system.  The Morning Joe crew suggests an alternative solution: perhaps public school systems can best be served by a natural disaster.  Jason Rosenbaum provided this partial transcript from today’s Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: There are of course so many negatives with Katrina. But you said one of the positives had to do with the education system here.

JULIA REED (Newsweek) Rarely do you get the chance just to completely rebuild a very broken education system from the ground up. I mean, you can’t politically just say OK we’re gonna level everything, we’re gonna fire every teacher, we’re gonna start over. I mean, it was so broken that right before the storm the state had taken over the school board, which has basically looted the schools – I mean, a leaky roof was the least of the problems across the board. And now we’ve got all this great money from Eli Broad, from Bill Gates, from all kinds of foundations to build this new network of charter schools, working with the public schools led by a brilliant guy named Paul Vallas. I mean, there’s hope that we might actually have an education system that works.

BRZEZINKSI: An opportunity for –

SCARBOROUGH: New Orleans could go, because of this tragedy, from one of the worst school systems in America to one of the best and one of the most exciting and one of the most innovative. And we’re gonna be talking to Arne Duncan and also Valerie Jarrett. I know they’re looking at what’s going on down here as they tackle education reform next year. That’s an exciting opportunity for the White House and Republicans to work together in a really meaningful way.

This discussion made me think of an op-ed David Brooks wrote just after Katrina hit, entitled "Katrina’s Silver Lining."  Brooks said that Katrina provided a "blank slate" when it came to urban poverty in New Orleans, and he suggested that there was an opportunity to take on urban poverty–not just in New Orleans, but nationwide.  President Bush agreed that "we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."  Unfortunately, as the Washington Post noted nearly a year later, "poverty’s time in the presidential limelight was brief."  On Bush’s watch, poverty increased.

I think the jury is still out, so to speak, as to whether New Orleans schools will really emerge from Katrina as "one of the best" systems in the country.  I hope they improve, but I think it’s unfortunate to suggest that failed school systems have to wait for their own Hurricane Katrina before they have an opportunity to improve.  If it’s the right thing to improve broken schools in New Orleans, why isn’t it the right thing to improve schools across the country?  Or do they have to patiently wait their turn for their own natural disaster–and possible influx of private dollars from donors like Bill Gates, which may or may not lead to improvements?

The disaster model for education reform seems like a way to escape responsibility: it suggests that we can’t possibly solve problems in urban school systems unless a natural disaster helpfully "wipes the slate clean".  If we’re serious about fixing schools nationwide, we could decide to prioritize education and put the public resources behind it that are needed to give every child an opportunity to succeed.  We wouldn’t even have to wait for a hurricane.

Reasonable people can differ on the question of whether the health reform bill in the Senate is worth passing. Certainly, I’d strenuously disagree with people who believe health reform won’t solve our country’s health care crisis, or that the status-quo is worth preserving. However, it’s hard to put together a reasonable argument that the Senate shouldn’t at the very least talk about health care reform, or allow it to come up for a simple vote.

And indeed, America agrees. Health Care for America Now has released a poll showing that voters in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska overwhelmingly agree that the Senate should debate and have a fair, majority vote on health care.

Here’s the relevant questions, via TPMDC:

"In the Senate, before a bill can be voted on, there must be a vote to allow it to be debated," reads the first survey question. "Regardless of whether you support or oppose the health insurance reform plan itself, do you believe that it should be debated on the floor of the Senate?"

In all states, voters overwhelmingly said the Senate health care reform bill should be debated on the floor. Nebraska: 88-9, Louisiana: 82-9, Arkansas: 84-11.

"Once a bill has been debated in the Senate, Senators must then vote on whether to allow the bill itself to be voted on," HCAN asks. "Regardless of whether you support or oppose the health insurance reform plan, do you believe that Senators should allow it to be voted on."

The results are similarly striking. Nebraska: 80-14: Louisiana: 77-14, Arkansas: 77-14.

The American people are looking forward to the opening of debate on the Senate health care bill tomorrow evening. There is no excuse not to give them what they clearly want: A debate and a vote on historic health reform.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

I’m proud to work for Health Care for America Now