Showing posts tagged “Kay Hagan”
Bob Geary ·
18 Feb 2010, 5:04 PM ·
3 Comments
Update 2/22: Democratic sigs on the pro-public option letter now up to 19 with Sen. Specter, D-PA. Not surprising, since Specter has a tough primary and election ahead and the public option is popular. Still no Hagan, however. (And Menendez, D-NJ, makes 20.) I sent a query to Sen. Hagan’s office Friday afternoon asking for her position and/or comment on the letter. No response as yet. Here’s Ezra Klein on “the strange politics of the public option” — i.e., people want it, the Democrats want to be the party of the people, and yet …)
All right, I’ll bite. Four senators signed a letter to Harry Reid, and then four more did, and … now it’s up to 17 with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. But that list of 17 does not include our own Sen. Kay Hagan as yet. BlueNC is on her case, and the Progressive Pulse is copying BlueNC, and what the heck, so will I, even though it’s probably whistling in the graveyard where health care reform is concerned. Except that –
Imho, the public’s support for health care reform, and their faith in the Democrats, evaporated at the moment when the one part of the bill they understood the best — the public option — was deep-sixed in the Senate. Up to that point, people could be assured that, yes, they were going to be required to buy health insurance; and yes, the insurance products in the market are overpriced and full of loopholes; but the saving grace would be that a public product (”option”) would also be offered. And it would be at least as good as, and — unless the Blue Crosses got with it and cut their rates — significantly cheaper, than the alternatives. So maybe HCR wouldn’t be perfect, or even good. But at least it would improve on the status quo.
In other words, all that complicated stuff in the 2,000-page bill that the lobbyists wrote? Our only protection against it was the one page where it said, if all else fails, we’ll offer you an insurance option modeled on Medicare, which everybody likes.
And then Obama and the Dems ditched it to get Joe (I’m the insurance industry’s senator) Lieberman’s vote and some phantom Republicans.
Oops, no Republicans, and they managed to lose Ted Kennedy’s seat in the bargain.
So now, the only way to pass an HCR bill is with 50 Democrats plus VP Biden plus some of these. And the surest way to convince the public that the Democrats aren’t just passing a load of crap is to put the g**d%$#’d public option back in the bill. Which will also signal the world that the Cowardly Dems have visited the Wizard and found their Courage.
Kay’s Washington office:
WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
521 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-6342
Fax: 202-228-2563
North Carolina, national, politics Kay Hagan
Bob Geary ·
2 Jul 2009, 4:42 PM ·
Comment
The U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee reported its health-care reform bill today, with the Democrats — including the previously fence-sitting Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC — unanimous in their support. It includes a public option. Whether it’s a strong public option or a weak public option is open to interpretation. But Hagan said she was looking for a state-based approach. And the HELP bill is state-based, albeit with a federal insurance product somewhat akin to Medicare. The devil is, naturally, in the many, many details.
And from what I read, the HELP bill is only one of at least three pieces of Senate legislation that will have to be merged somehow into a single, comprehensive bill (or package) by Democratic leaders. Two others will expand Medicaid and (from the Senate Finance Committee) address costs and also propose, instead of the HELP bill’s public option, some sort of state-level “coop” approach. Meanwhile, House Democrats have produced their own rather different, and arguably stronger, health-care reform legislation.
Fortunately, we can all study up over the July 4th holiday.
North Carolina, national Kay Hagan
Bob Geary ·
24 Jun 2009, 12:05 PM ·
12 Comments
Sen. Kay Hagan, on a conference call with reporters about her financial literacy bill, took a couple of questions on the health care reform debate as well. Health care costs are rising at rates that are unsustainable over the long run, Hagan said. On the other hand, she’s “extremely concerned” about the prospective costs of health care reform legislation that should, she went on, assure that every American has access to affordable care “through life’s ups and downs.”
I asked her what she thinks about the “public option” proposed by President Obama, a federal insurance plan that would compete with private coverage in the marketplace and, as Obama argued in his press conference yesterday, be a check on what private insurers can charge.
Hagan said she’s among those — ”a number of us” — who are looking instead at the idea of public plans in every state, with administration at the state level. “I think that in something this large,” she said, “the states should have a hand in it.”
State-level plans might be called “public” or be publicly-administered “coops”, she said, but the idea is that they would be available to anyone who can’t find good coverage in the private market.
Hagan is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), which is trying to produce a bill spelling out how health-care reform should work. The Senate Finance Committee, she noted, is working on how to pay for it. A week ago, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake.com reported that Hagan and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, were refusing to sign on to a bill that includes a public option. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, was refusing to support a bill without a public option. With committee chair Sen. Ted Kennedy on the mend back in Massachusetts, the upshot is that this 12-10 Democratic majority committee hasn’t been able to reach agreement on anything so far.
North Carolina, national Kay Hagan
Bob Geary ·
9 Jan 2009, 1:28 PM ·
Comment
Newly installed U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC, issues her first press release, reacting to this morning’s dreadful economic news. An effective stimulus package, Hagan says, should emphasize jobs-producing projects, not just checks a la last year’s Bush-league tax rebates. Her statement follows Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s complaint yesterday, following a private meeting with Obama economic advisor Larry Summers, that what’s on tap sounds a little too much like “trickle-down” tax cuts to him.
Hagan’s statement is below: Continue reading »
North Carolina, business, national, politics Kay Hagan
Lisa Sorg ·
14 Nov 2008, 9:41 AM ·
Comment
Success is the sweetest revenge: U.S. Sen.-elect Kay Hagan has dropped her defamation lawsuit against dethroned Sen. Elizabeth Dole, reports WRAL.com.
Hagan had filed a defamation and libel suit against Dole over a TV ad that insinuated Hagan is at an atheist sympathizer.
Hagan won the election with nearly 53 percent of the vote.
North Carolina, national, politics defamation lawsuit, Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan
Fiona Morgan ·
7 Nov 2008, 11:20 AM ·
1 Comment
Kay Hagan’s victory — and North Carolina’s new hue — has Dems sizing up the U.S. Senate seat of Richard Burr.
Burr had a 27 percent approval rating as of July — ouch!
So who will take him on?
BlueNC says it’ll be Roy Cooper.
North Carolina, politics 2008 election, Kay Hagan, Richard Burr
Bob Geary ·
6 Nov 2008, 9:48 AM ·
Comment
Everyone’s feeling mellow today. (Except for this Larry Summers thing).
That includes NYT columnist Gail Collins:
But we’re in a good mood, so let’s forget Alaska. Instead, we’ll contemplate the fact that North Carolina tossed Elizabeth Dole out of office despite her ad campaign aimed at convincing the state that her opponent, Kay Hagan, was an atheist. This was accomplished, you may remember, through the creative strategy of showing Hagan’s picture along with another woman’s voice saying: “There is no God!” If Dole had won, by the next election we would have been bombarded with ads that appeared to show candidates saying “I support adultery!” or “Let’s kill the puppies!” Now that won’t happen. Thank you, North Carolina.
And so on.
North Carolina, national, politics Elizabeth Dole, Gail Collins, Kay Hagan
Lisa Sorg ·
4 Nov 2008, 11:29 PM ·
Comment
Democrats successfully tied U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole to her buddy President George W. Bush, which explains in part why challenger Kay Hagan sent her packing. Public Policy Polling has further analysis.
North Carolina, national, politics Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan, U.S. Senate
Lisa Sorg ·
4 Nov 2008, 8:00 PM ·
Comment
MSNBC just had a report from N.C. in which the reporter quoted an unnamed senior Republican strategist as saying he predicts Kay Hagan will beat incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
North Carolina, national, politics Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan
Lisa Sorg ·
4 Nov 2008, 12:20 PM ·
Comment
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has rarely visited North Carolina since she took office in 2002, and if yesterday’s polls are any indication, she may want to leave the state permanently.
According to Public Policy Polling, challenger Kay Hagan has a seven-point lead—51-44—going into Election Day, possibly due in part to the backlash over Dole’s “Godless” ad attacking her opponent. CNN had Hagan up by nine late last week.
fivethirtyeight.com is reporting today that the lead, coupled with the strong Democratic turnout in early voting, “Dole will need a miracle to retain her seat.”
North Carolina, Uncategorized, national, politics Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan, U.S. Senate
