Reuters:

[Carin] Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.

Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

"They said it made the place look like trailer trash," she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. "They said they didn't want to look at my 'unmentionables.'"

Pravda:

The Obama administration announced plans Monday to hold a forum on jobs and economic growth at the White House on Dec. 3, after which the president will go on the road to demonstrate his concern about the nation's rising jobless rate.

With the nation's unemployment rate at its highest level in 26 years, President Obama plans to bring together CEOs, small business owners and financial experts* to sound out ideas for continuing to expand [?] the economy and create jobs.

"During these difficult economic times, we have a responsibility to consider all good ideas to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country," Obama said in a statement.

The president outlined plans for the forum before leaving for Asia last week, but at the time had not nailed down a date. The White House said Obama would follow the forum with a visit to Allentown, Pa., for the first stop of what the White House is calling a Main Street Tour, which will take him to across the country over several months.

Months. So, we're going to have to go through the campaign of 2008 all over again.

audio by title hoosiers for a commonsense health plan single payer now

Senator Bernie Sanders:

In my view, the real solution to the problem of how to reform health care in this country is a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. We are going to try to at least give states the option to go forward and move toward a single-payer system. Whether it’s Vermont or somewhere else, if one state pulls it off it will spread around the country.

Excellent news from Single Payer Health Care:

It is with great pride that I pass on the wonderful news that the Lancaster City Council tonight unanimously passed Council Resolution No. 74-2009, urging the PA General Assembly to support the passage of HB1660 and SB400.

Lancaster joins the City Councils of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Wilkes Barre, West Reading and Reading and the Allegheny County Council in moving the state of Pennsylvania one step closer to becoming the first state to pass single-payer legislation. Together, these councils represent over 3 million Pennsylvanians and more than 25% of the population of Pennsylvania.

Mayhill Fowler in HuffPo on "bitter ... cling to" (interestingly, she writes it was the cling to, not the bitter). A fine, interesting retrospective on winning, "losing," how the discourse gets shaped, and who gets credit (all senses). The bottom line:

If he did not figure out how to talk about small-town Americans [that is, working class Americans who live in small towns like those in PA that the banksters have de-industrialized] to more worldly coastal folk then even if he were President he would get no chance at "change."

Well, yes.

All Eyes Are on Pennsylvania

Name sponsors of the legislation, Senator Jim Ferlo (D) and Representative Kathy Manderino (D) were joined by co-sponsor Representative Bill Kortz (D) in delivering impassioned messages to the rally attendees.

Billed as the keynote speaker, Sen. Ferlo expressed his passion oratorically and physically, pounding the podium for emphasis with such gusto he nearly sent two CS2 cassette recorders flying. He spoke of inclusiveness, advising, “Don’t write anybody off as we build this movement.”

According to a post on Pennsylvania blog, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow a mere twenty minutes of debate on single-payer, albeit indirectly.

After all, single payer would only save $350 billion dollars a year! And where do we read about this? Our famously free press? Not. Our tribunes of the people on the "progressive" access blogs? You're joking. No, we hear it from a local PA blog with a union connection:

Word from the Physicians for a National Health Program is that the flood of calls has forced Pelosi to allow 20 minutes of debate and a vote on the floor for the Weiner amendment this Friday. This amendment will substitute most of the language of HR 676 for the current bill and establish a Medicare for All system of healthcare.

Swanson agrees, calling it kabuki.

Frank Rich in his column about the GOP meltdown in upstate NY's congressional race:

The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp.

Pennsylvania representative asks Ario to probe AHIP, Humana lobbying

The chairman of the Pennsylvania House Insurance Committee has asked the Pennsylvania Insurance Department to investigate health insurance industry lobbying, especially the TV advertisements of America’s Health Insurance Plans, on national health care reform.

Single Payer Healthcare Reform In Pennsylvania

via squidoo.com

We rallied for Single Payer Healthcare reform at the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg PA on October 20, 2009. (Pictured here is the Rotunda, as seen looking straight up from the inside of that historic building!

Pennsylvania may well be the first State to enact Single Payer in America. The commonwealth wil save 2 plus billion dollars the first year it is put into place.

Supporters Of Health Care Reform Rally At State Capitol

Hundreds of people from across Pennsylvania gathered in Harrisburg to show lawmakers their support for universal health care coverage.

Hundreds rally in Capitol for single-payer care

It was like a breath of fresh air. Yesterday, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Rally For Single Payer Healthcare

Join single payer supporters from all over Pennsylvania in the Capitol Rotunda, 100 N. State St., Harrisburg. Supporting State (HB1660 / SB400) and National (HR676 / S703) Health Care Reform Efforts

Tuesday, October 20, 10 a.m. to 12 noon

Single Payer: Pennsylvania is America's Saskatchewan

HealthCare 4 All PA Opens Office on Murray Ave,

Progressive Democrats of America joins the single payer fight in Pennsylvania

The events will start Saturday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m. with a special Healthcare NOT Warfare rally on the steps of the Beaver County Courthouse. At 6 p.m., everyone will be on hand for the grand opening of the Healthcare4AllPA office in Pittsburgh, followed by a round-table strategy session with Carpenter and PDA Field Director Conor Boylan for PDA members and friends.

One Thousand to Rally for Single-Payer Healthcare in Pennsylvania Capitol

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- From towns throughout Pennsylvania and at least 6 surrounding states, crowds of single-payer
advocates will gather in the Capitol rotunda for a rally and march from 10am to 12pm on Tuesday, October 20.

Locals launch single-payer healthcare effort

The local group’s most visible event was a Sept. 24 public meeting held in the State College Borough Council Chambers that drew more than 100 people and is being rebroadcast on C-NET this month. The moderator of the event was Chris Calkins, director of Outreach Health Initiatives at Penn State and the panel included Ron Fisher, a practicing psychiatrist from Huntingdon, Chuck Pennacchio, the leader of the statewide Healthcare for All Pa., Sajay Samuel, a Penn State economist and Jon Eich chair of the Centre County Board of Commissioners who all took questions from the audience, which appeared overwhelmingly lopsided in support of reform.

Via McClatchy, this story on surface coal mining. The Feds (more power to them) are considering rescinding the regulation that lets the companies bury streams and valleys under the dirt and rock produced by "mountaintop removal". If you've never seen the aftermath of one of these mining operations, you may have a hard time imagining the terrifying scale of the destruction.

And [a|the] public [health insurance]? [plan|option] won't make a damn bit of difference. Even WaPo's figured this out (and do click through and read to the end for a totally buried quote-of-the-decade from Baucus):

Any health-care overhaul that Congress and President Obama enact is likely to have as its centerpiece a fundamental reform: Insurers would not be allowed to reject individuals or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history.

But simply banning medical discrimination would not necessarily remove it from the equation, economists and health-care analysts say.

If insurers are prohibited from openly rejecting people with preexisting conditions, they could try to cherry-pick through more subtle means. For example, offering free health club memberships tends to attract people who can use the equipment, says Paul Precht, director of policy at the Medicare Rights Center.

In fact, there's an entire consulting industry devoted to helping insurance companies figure out cherrypicking techniques, and train employees how to use them. Like:

Being uncooperative on insurance claims can chase away the chronically ill....

And to avoid patients with costly, complicated medical conditions, health plans could include in their networks relatively few doctors who specialize in treating those conditions, said Mark V. Pauly, professor of health-care management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

By itself, a ban on discrimination would not eliminate the economic pressure to discriminate.

"It would probably increase the incentive for cherry-picking," Pauly said. "I'm strongly motivated to try to avoid you if I'm not allowed to charge you extra."

A straightforward way to reduce gamesmanship is to standardize benefit packages, Precht wrote in a July report.

In other words, plain vanilla policies. Exactly what the Dems rejected in financial reform. Na ga happen.

AP, but anyhow:

Professors and students themselves also are noticing the quiet on college campuses, which were hotbeds for "Obamamania" during the campaign.
"They're supportive, but in a bystander kind of way," says Laura Katz Olson, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Certainly, health care was on their priority list then, and remains so. An AP-GfK poll conducted earlier this month found that two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds rated such reform as "very" or "extremely" important. So far, though, the proposed health care overhauls have failed win the support of a good number of them. Only about half of them said they approved of the way the president was handling health care and only 38 percent said they supported health care plans being discussed in Congress.

[Mary Ellen Balchunis, a political science professor at LaSalle University] thinks the president could boost youth support on these and other issues — and get them influencing their parents, as they did in the election [Thanks, guys!] — if he mobilized and spoke directly to them, the way he did during the campaign. He could for instance, make use of the well-organized student groups that campaigned for him to push the issues of the day.

Hey, I've got an idea!