Go Read: US-China Tussles Over Currency Exchange

You may have heard that next week President Obama will be visiting Asia, and significantly, the People's Republic of China. One big bone of contention is the way China pegs its Yuan (or RenMinBi) to the US Dollar. For a long time, it was at 8Y : $1USD. Currently it seems to be running 7:1. The US has been trying to get China to change the practice, and this post from Campaign for America's Future explains why.

Would prices go up at Walmart if China changed its currency to reflect the dollar's relative weakening worldwide? Probably. But maybe, as even Treasury Secretary Geithner has said, American workers would have a fighting chance if the RMB were to stop being manipulated to China's unilateral self-interest.

In the next week, it'll be interesting to see if the initial softening of China's Central Bank to the more flexible policy Geithner called for will continue after President Obama and President Hu Jintao meet.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. Her retired parents, like many in the Chinese diaspora, spend part of the year living in Shanghai and maintain a connection to the country of their birth. It was her dad, a lifelong basketball fan, who told her Le Bron James' nickname in China is "Lao3 Bei2 Jing4" or "Old Beijing."

Go Read It: US Catholic Conference of Bishops' Hypocrisy on Federal Tax Dollars & the Stupak-Pitts Amendment

Not all Catholics believe the exact same thing. There are Catholics for Choice, Catholics who use contraception, and then...there's the US Conference on Catholic Bishops, which was an active, energetic force lobbying politicians to pass Stu-Pitts prior to the recent House vote on the Affordable Health Care for All Act. Strongly opposed to a woman's right to decide when and if to terminate a pregnancy, the USCCB receives 67% of its budget in federal tax dollars to help fund hospitals and other good works with secular impact operated by the Catholic church, and is itself charged with separating federal funding from religious practices.

Go read this op-ed that calls out hypocrisy in how the USCCB separates taxpayer dollars from church funds in their operations. It spells out why they, if anyone, should realize that the never-voted on Capps Amendment ensuring compliance with 1977's Hyde Amendment already adequately addressed the separation of taxpayer funds from abortion services. A short excerpt:

Catholic Charities, the domestic direct service arm of the bishops, also depends on state and federal dollars. Sixty-seven percent of Catholic Charities’ income comes from government funding. That represents over $2.6 billion in 2008 — an amount that is more than three times as large as the next largest charitable recipient of federal funds, the YMCA. Just as Catholic hospitals do, Catholic Charities receives enormous quantities of government dollars while abiding by existing constitutional and statutory requirements that prevent government sponsorship of religion.

Yet the USCCB wants to potentially sink health care reform--which they've previously supported--with a culture-war grenade. They want to effectively prevent any private insurer from providing a legal medical procedure by pushing falsehoods about the Affordable Health Care for All Act.

Call your senators and congressperson and demand that Stupak-Pitts be prevented from being inserted into the Senate bill and that the final bill reflect the Capps Amendment's compromise.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

The Stu-Pitts of Congress, and Women's Health Care From the Waist Up

Forgive me if I sound a little bitter despite being deeply moved by the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act this past weekend in the House. It IS a huge achievement and one-third of what we need to get the bill to President Obama to sign. I'm proud and grateful so many wonderful elected representatives who truly want to help Americans were able to move mountains and pass the bill.

It's just that, well, that was quick. We had a wonderful feminist moment there, didn't we, when we realized that women are treated differently than men by health insurers. We finally exposed the widespread practice of gender-rating--or disparate pricing by gender--for health insurance coverage that unfairly requires women to pay more than men with similar health status. We learned how eight states still allow insurers to consider domestic violence as a "pre-existing condition" to deny women coverage. We saw documentation of how common it is for women to be uninsured and underinsured whether it's employer-based coverage or self-procured, and how this made health insurance reform of particular interest to women. A quick statistic from the Commonwealth Study linked immediately above:

Six in ten women with moderate incomes (between $20,000 and $40,000) report being unable to pay medical bills, being contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills, changing their way of life to pay medical bills or paying off medical debt over time, as did almost half (46%) of middle-income women.

Women rallying support around health insurance reform, I maintain, helped lift poll numbers for the public option and lift some of the curse extremist Teabaggers had tried to cast on the bill.

Breaking: President Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Congratulations on the honor, President Obama!

UPDATED TO ADD:

From the Nobel Prize website's official press release:

...awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

We'll have more on the international and domestic response to the world's most significant humanitarian award to President Obama as it develops.

Hear My Story: I Chose Sight for My Daughters Over Preserving My Own Vision

This story of a mother in Florida could be anyone unlucky enough to be born with the hereditary syndrome that makes her progressively blind. The family's health insurance can only pay for the mother's treatments, or that of her daughters. What a choice to make, eh?

To think that in developed countries all around the world, no other people are forced to make these kinds of unbearable choices. The full story's here, in the St. Petersburg Times.

Calling Out Tea Party Racism: Sometimes an Ally Can Challenge It Most Directly

Over the weekend, President Obama had this to say about whether resistance to White House policies were tinged with racist sentiment:

Previously, he'd spoken to the issue of race in America in a stirring speech during the Democratic primary.

I believe he's right in both his prior and most recent comments. Rudeness made Kanye West the talk of the Video Music Awards and rudeness made Congressman Joe Wilson the talk of a recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress. And, at the same time, I also believe that the president's task is to take the long view, a meta-quotidian and transcendent one. He guides the nation as we are and as we will be in years to come for the overall betterment of the country. So a disagreement over what constitutes racism moves no policy forward and certainly doesn't befit the office, and what racism exists ought not be dignified with a reply.

Hear My Story, Hear Our Stories: First Lady Michelle Obama on How Health Insurance Reform Can Help Women

[Official White House transcript of First Lady Michelle Obama's speech to women's advocacy groups at the White House today. You can view video of the entire event here. I have added at the end links to studies or issues mentioned where there were none in the original transcript. Giant H/T to MOMocrat Julie Pippert for organizing outreach/spreading the word on this, and to MOMocrat Glennia for the WH briefing. --Cynematic]

THE WHITE HOUSE

 

Office of the First Lady

________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release                         September 18, 2009

 

REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY

ON WHAT HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM MEANS

FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES

 

Eisenhower Executive Office Building

Room 450

11:33 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA:  Thank you.  Thank you all.  Please, sit.  Rest.  (Laughter.)  First of all, good morning.  I am so thrilled to see so many of you here this morning at the White House.  Welcome.  And that's including my good friend, Dr. Dorothy Height.  (Applause.)  You know, she is always there, for the past eight months and before.  If there was a big event, an important event, she finds a way to be here.  She is my inspiration, and it is wonderful to see you again today.  Thank you so much.  (Applause.)

     Thank you all for joining us today for the outstanding work you're doing every day on behalf of women and families all across this country.  I have to thank our extraordinary Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, for taking the time to be here.  (Applause.)  And for her tireless efforts to keep our nation healthy.  And that includes not just pushing for health insurance reform but preparing us for H1N1, pursuing cutting-edge research to find treatments and cures for tomorrow.  Clearly this is not the easiest portfolio she could have, but she is doing a terrific job, and we are grateful for her leadership.

     And I also want to thank Tina Tchen, who you all know, for emceeing today.  (Applause.)  She, too, is doing a fabulous job as Director of our Office of Public Engagement, and she played a critical role in pulling together today's event -- not just as an emcee but as a key figurehead, making sure that we're all aware of what's going on.

     And finally, I want to thank the three women behind me -- to Debi, Easter, and Roxi.  (Applause.)  It is not easy to come here and tell your story.  And these stories aren't new.  You know, these stories are happening all over this country, not just for thousands of women -- for millions of them.  For two years on the campaign trail, this was what I heard from women, that they were being crushed, crushed by the current structure of our health care.  Crushed.  But these stories that we've heard today, and all of us -- if we're not experiencing it, we know someone who is.  These are the stories that remind us about what's at stake in this debate.  This is really all that matters.  This is why we are fighting so hard for health insurance reform.  This is it.  This is the face of the fight.

Hear My Story: Breast Cancer Twice, and My Only Choice Was Health Care in France

HOW BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD OF NEW YORK TRIED TO KILL ME

by Suzanne White  

America is no place to be old or sick.

I am an American health insurance exile. While living in New York in 1978, I got breast cancer and had a mastectomy. Blue Cross/Blue Shield summarily refused me coverage for my care and indeed cancelled my excellent paid-up policy without explanation.

I fought them. And I lost. Hospital bills, surgeons, anesthesiologists, endless tests and chemo absorbed all my savings. I had to sell my house and all my belongings. Then, bald, broke and severely weakened by a year of heavy chemotherapy, I gathered up my kids and took them to live in France where there is a national health insurance plan. I was lucky. My books were selling well in French so my publisher has been paying his share of my policy all along. I paid up my share; so I and my two daughters once again had full coverage health insurance.

"The Great Unfinished Business of Our Time": Health Care Reform

In the closing passages of his speech to the joint session of Congress, President Obama urged members of the House and Senate to rise to the finest in our national character and finally provide a humane way to address the health needs of all of America's citizens. We know the status quo is broken. What'll we do about it?

Woven into the soaring rhetoric of President Obama's speech were specific calls to three prominent Republican senators: Senator John McCain, Senator Orrin Hatch, and Senator Chuck Grassley.

Senator McCain, President Obama noted, had worked in bipartisan fashion with Senator Ted Kennedy to advance a federal patient's bill of rights (which never passed in the House). Senator Orrin Hatch worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to pass children's health insurance. Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Ted Kennedy collaborated on a bill that helped families take better care of their children with disabilities.

If you're on Twitter, use these buttons to quickly and conveniently sign a petition urging these senators to vote for a health insurance reform bill that has a strong public option.

Senator John McCain

Senator Chuck Grassley

Senator Orrin Hatch

Strategies to Pass a National Public Option/State Single Payer Health Care Plans: Will They Work?

Lately there's been a lot of angst from liberals and moderates who favor health insurance reform regarding the fate of a public option* in Congress. What's missing is a sense of how national policy debates intersect with state efforts to reform the provision of health care.

Listen up if you live in the states of California, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, or Ohio (pdf).

Listen up if you're belong to or agree with over 572 union organizations nationwide who support single-payer health care at a national level, also known as H.R. 676.

Listen up if you've gotten increasingly concerned over the mainstream media reporting on reputed White House wavering on the public option.*

MOMocrat CityMama gave an excellent overview of the situation which I encourage you to revisit and plunder for talking points WHEN YOU CALL OR FAX your representative. You are making those calls, right?

I wanted to give a little space here to review what's happening on the state level, and encourage you to mobilize there as well.