Click here for a PDF of the full text. Since the vote on the House version of health care reform there have been a number of questions asked about why I voted as I did. Although I offered a brief explanation prior to the vote, it may be helpful to give still more information to help explain my position. We Need Reform There is no question in my mind that we need comprehensive health care reform. Health...
Thank you to the 183 Republicans and Democrats who voted against H.R. 3961, the so-called “Doc Fix” legislation. As many of you know, we had grave concerns with this legislation. Our concerns did not necessarily stem from the underlying policy, but rather the partisan political tactic being played. H.R. 3961 was an underhanded attempt to deceive taxpayers and artificially deflate the cost...
July 30, 1965, LBJ signs Medicare bill, Truman looks on, Republicans start plotting how to kill the program Yesterday the House voted 243-183 , only one Republican, Michael Burgess (R-TX) joining the Democrats, to pass John Dingell's Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 3961). The bill will "revise the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) payment system for determining the annual...
In the last week or so, I've heard some amazement about Rep. Brian Baird's vote against the health care package in the house. This is amazingly similar to the shock that local Dems felt over two years ago when Baird announced he was going to support a Republican plan in Iraq. Baird ended up facing a somewhat weak opponent who couldn't rally enough support to win the primary or a vote of Precinct Committee...
HA contributors were unusually busy over the weekend, a typically slow time of the week when both posting and traffic generally dips, so here’s a brief summary of the posts you might have missed. Even business guys befuddled about Baird’s vote Spiraling healthcare costs is the number one issue for small businesses here and nationwide, which according to Jon, has even U.S. Rep. Brian Baird’s...
Well, okay, this is not a secret if you follow Washington politics, but it’s worth bringing up right now. According to Open Secrets, Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-WA-03) top three metro areas for donations last cycle, excluding PAC contributions, are Portland-Vancouver, Seattle-Bellevue-Everett and Washington, D.C. And it sounds like the heat is ratcheting up. From Politico: A delegation from Vancouver’s...
Brian Baird on the floor of the House saying he has twin four-year-old boys and then turning to a photo of three massacred Palestinian children and saying, These children deserve to have someone ask why they died! H/T Mondoweiss.
Local blogger extraordinaire, Chris Bassett, was quoted in an Oregonian (Mapes on Politics) article about Clark County politics and the increasingly odd behavior of the 3rd District Representative Brian Baird. Former Democratic activist Chris Bassett, whose blog on Clark County politics I discovered today, points to county-by-county returns on the two big initiatives on last week’s ballot. Voters...
Take a good look at this snippet of map, from a larger map put together by The New York Times . It's a reminder that in the historic House vote on health insurance reform over the weekend, only one Democratic Congressman from Washington State voted no: Brian Baird . The other Democrats in our delgation—Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, Jim McDermott, and Adam Smith—all voted yes. Joining Baird...
Office of Nancy Pelosi House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be here early this afternoon for an event intended to remind us "how the groundbreaking health insurance reform legislation passed on Saturday by the US House of Representatives helps Seattle." Which begs the question: Why Seattle? The 7th Congressional District (that's us) is arguably the last place in the country that needs to brought...
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