Think Progress

One Step Closer to Universal Health Care

WCAX Vermont reports that “the Vermont Senate has given preliminary approval to a sweeping reform of the state’s health care system.” By a vote of 21 to six, “the Senate approved a new program they call Green Mountain Health” that “will provide primary and preventative care to all uninsured Vermonters beginning in July 2006.”

The bill now needs to be ironed out with Vermont House legislators, who passed their own version earlier. But the big question is whether Republican Gov. Jim Douglas will veto the measure. Douglas has significant ties to the health care industry. But does he want to be the governor whose legacy is preventing Vermont from becoming the first state in America to enact universal health care? Stay tuned.

Renewable Rhetoric »

The New York Times reports, “President Bush on Monday visited a small plant that turns soybeans into a clean-burning form of diesel fuel.” The visit was designed to cast the president “as deeply interested in backing new, environmentally friendly technologies that would eventually increase energy supplies.”

The event made for good pictures – but that’s about it. Earlier, Reuters reported that the assistant secretary of energy told Congress that Bush “plans to oppose efforts to include a national renewable energy requirement for utilities” in the energy bill. The requirements are key to serious renewable energy development – without forcing companies to use alternative energy sources, there will be no real way to guarantee that America starts getting more of its energy from renewable sources. More »« Less

Taking the “Public” Out of Public Lands

Land use – and conservation – is a big issue in the Rocky Mountain region, and a provision in the Bush energy bill is touching a raw nerve in the region. The Casper Star Tribune reports that legislative language “which slipped largely under the radar during the recent energy bill debate” may “undermine public involvement on public lands if it is not changed.” Specifically, a section of the 1,000-plus-page energy bill would limit required environmental reviews and solicitation of public comment under the existing National Environmental Policy Act.

In practice, that means oil companies may be able to evade review when moving onto potential drilling sites, and “wastewater discharge from things such as coal-bed methane drilling would not be subject” to current reviews. One local expert said the bill, if passed by the Senate, “would have devastating effects on ranchers and farmers in the Powder River Basin.”

Much of this stems from the so-called “Peterson amendment” — named for Congressman John Petersen (R-PA), who introduced the language that seeks “to exclude the public from the decision-making process.” Big surprise – oil and gas interests are among Petersen’s top campaign contributors.

It’s just another example of how conservatives’ close ties to corporations are increasingly putting them at odds with their base constituencies in rural America. And it’s not just limited to Wyoming. In Colorado, for instance, a controversy is brewing over the death of a bill to force oil and gas companies to pay more for harming land, and over a proposal to allow drilling on the sacred Rocky Mountain front.

Pictures Worth 11,000 Years

President Bush has all but refused to acknowledge that global warming exists, much less is a real problem. And his right-wing allies in Congress have followed his lead, voting down proposals to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Now the evidence is becoming truly shocking. Just weeks after Bush’s longtime political ally broke ranks with the White House and acknowledged the problem of global warming, photos now show that Mt. Kilimanjaro has been stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years.

Here is how Kilimanjaro’s peak has looked for the last 11,000 years:

Here is how Kilimanjaro’s peak looks today:

Maybe if President Bush saw these photos, he’d smarten up, and start joining most of the other industrialized nations in taking this threat seriously.

The Renewable Movement

The Helena Independent Record reports that Montana is on the verge of joining more than a dozen other states that require that a certain percentage of energy to come from renewable sources. Specifically, a bill that recently passed the state senate “would require that 5 percent of the state’s electricity be produced from renewable sources in 2008, 10 percent by 2010, and 15 percent by 2015.”

I’m pretty excited about this personally – when I lived in Washington, D.C. I used a service to have my residential energy be partially generated by wind. And now, if this bill passes, I’ll be able to do the same here in Helena.

But this legislation is good not just because I like it – its serves three very distinct purposes. First and foremost, its good for foreign and environmental policy. As the newspaper notes, the bill “is a rational response in a country that remains addicted to energy sources that are expensive, polluting, and, in the case of oil, dependent on foreign sources.”

Secondly, it is good for rural economic development, because it would create a new market for wind and solar farms (usually in vast open spaces) and for agricultural products like ethanol. And make no mistake about it – Montana has a lot of wind and corn for ethanol (the state, for instance, is estimated to have the fifth best wind-power resource in the country).

And finally, it promises to bring down electricity rates for consumers. As the newspaper notes, “a study of states with significant wind power turbines in place shows that they consistently lower residential power bills.” Additionally, reducing demand for other traditional sources of energy should lower the prices for those materials.

The bill, of course, is opposed by the energy companies, because they don’t like mandates, no matter how practical they are. But it sure looks good for everyone else.

Doctors Find Their True Enemy

The Bush administration has waged a campaign to try to convince doctors that trial lawyers are to blame for their skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates. That assertion, of course, has no basis in reality.

Now, in Washington State, doctors are getting smart. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, “After years of their lobbyists calling for caps on plaintiff’s damage awards, squeezing lawyers’ contingency fees and trying to throw litigation roadblocks in the way of injured patients and their families, the state’s doctors may have found a legitimate way to cut medical malpractice premiums: Get their malpractice insurance company to quit gouging them.”

Specifically, State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler announced Wednesday that he had ordered the state’s largest medical malpractice insurer to refund more than $1.3 million plus interest in excess premiums charged in 2003. The action came one day after Kreidler’s office released a report that “appears to give lie to allegations of a ‘crisis’ in medical malpractice.”

Don’t expect President Bush to have a change of heart on his push for malpractice “reform” (a.k.a. limiting victims’ rights) – he and his fellow conservatives have taken millions from the insurance industry.