Making Medicare for All Happen

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On my Facebook and Twitter feeds, which are as far left as one can imagine, there has been a lot of chatter about Senator Sanders (I-VT) recent Medicare for All bill. Senator Sanders' bill would give Americans coverage for hospital stays, doctors visits, dental care, substance abuse treatment, and reproductive health care.

Every year, an estimated 45,000 people die because they do not have adequate healthcare coverage. There is no moral justification for a nation that refuses to provide necessary care to everyone. Universal healthcare is already the norm across the world, and even though America is a larger and more diverse country than many others that have universal healthcare, there is no reason single payer healthcare is not possible here.

Full stop. Nothing in this blog post is going to say that universal healthcare is a bad idea. In fact, it's a great idea. It's an idea long-championed by Senator Sanders that should become a reality.

So this blog post is going to explain how to do that.

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Reconciling With Defeat

The most challenging blog posts to write are the ones about political processes that I know nothing about. Having to admit there is something I do not know always creates a hurdle to actually sitting down and writing a piece, which was the case with this post.

Since the election, my friend Maya and I have been developing a project to encourage, among other things, the protection of Obamacare. We were informed by someone that our strategy may not work for Obamacare, since it was likely to be repealed through a process called reconciliation. Cue me furiously Googling to find out what exactly reconciliation is and how it can relate to Obamacare.

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In Their Defense

Remember when this blog was just about complicated Congressional bills instead of my opinions about the election and sexism? After trying (and mostly failing) to write about polls and why they're flawed, I decided to tackle a far easier subject and discuss the most recent defense bill that just passed the House, but will probably be vetoed.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 allocates money to the Department of Defense, which in turn, funds the military. I'll spare you an exhaustive account of everything that's in the bill, because the bill is hundreds of pages long, and I don't have time to read it all. The bill appropriates 23 billion dollars in funding, to allow current military campaigns to continue through April of 2017, at which point, the new president will have to request supplemental funding.

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Balancing Act

There's a lot of moments from the Republican debate I could fact-check, dispute, and tear apart for my many blog readers (all 12 of you). But while there has be article after article about Marco Rubio's flip-flopping, Donald Trump's sexism, and the Christie/Paul debate, no one has written about the incredibly interesting and sexy issue of John Kasich and balancing the federal budget.

If you watched the debate, you may remember John Kasich, current governor of Ohio, touting numerous times that he balanced the federal budget. It's certainly correct that John Kasich was the Chairman of the Budget Committee in 1997, which was the last time we had a balanced Federal budget. It's true that this was the first time the United States had a balanced budget since 1970. It's true there was a Republican-controlled Congress at the time. And yes, it's true that Bill Clinton was the President the last time the Federal budget was balanced.

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Hyde Your Amendments

There has been gridlock around the anti-human trafficking bill in the Senate, and I promise that is the last traffic-based pun I will make at the expense of human trafficking.

The debate about the anti-human trafficking bill came to a standstill today when the Senate failed to achieve the necessary 60-vote cloture to end debate on the bill, and put the bill up for the real vote. Unlike the cloture votes of years passed, this one was tanked by Democrats, not Republicans.

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The Shutdown is Over!

This post is several weeks too late, but if Congress taught me anything during the government shutdown, it’s that you can refuse to do something, and then blame others when it isn’t done. Which will be my strategy when my papers aren't turned in on time.

If you didn’t notice, the government shutdown ended several weeks ago after the House and the Senate finally passed a bill. The bill, created by the Senate, fund the government until January 7th, and raised the debt ceiling until February 7th. Obamacare was not defunded or delayed. The only provision that related to Obamacare is that now the government is required to make sure people are eligible for subsidized healthcare. For those of you keeping score, this means the Democrats were able to have what they asked for, while the Republicans did not end the shutdown with anything they wanted.

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Ending the Shutdown

It’s very easy to look at the government shutdown and feel an overwhelming sense of anger and despair. I would know. I’ve been feeling that way for almost a week. It can seem like there is no end in sight, and that Congress will never reach a compromise and reopen the government.

But do not despair blog readers (all two of you)! This shutdown could end tomorrow if Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) would allow the House to vote on the clean continuing resolution that the Senate has passed.

But Bella, you say, that’s not possible. The House is controlled by Republicans!

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Who's To Blame?

The government hasn’t even shutdown yet, and already many Republicans are blaming the Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).  

Now you can fault Senator Reid for some things. He doesn’t always stand up to the Republicans the way he should and he is more boring than the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But this shutdown cannot be blamed on him, or any Democrat.

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Budget Plans and Debt Limits

Only hours after I published the post about the government shut down, the House passed its budget plan. This came as a surprise for two reasons, the first because I didn’t think the House would ever pass any sort of budget until the last minute, and the second because I honestly did not realize the House did anything on a Friday.

So what exactly did the House pass? It’s a bill that outlining how much the government will spend in the coming fiscal year, but it also includes a provision to defund Obamacare. The bill passed the House 230-189, along party lines. While the bill passed in the House, it is very unlikely that it will pass the Senate unchanged, as the Senate is controlled by Democrats. Most people think that the Senate will pass a similar version of the bill, but include spending for Obamacare, and send it back to the House.

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