Politics Daily

Reid on Health Care Package: 'We're Not There Yet'

Patricia Murphy — 2009-12-06T13:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Barack Obama, Health Care, The Capitolist, Harry Reid, Burma Journal

President Barack Obama went to Capitol Hill on Sunday to press Democratic senators to pass a health care reform bill, but moments after his 45-minute meeting with senators, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We're not there yet."

Applause could be heard outside of the Mansfield room on the second floor of the Capitol as the president and his team met with all 58 Democrats and two independents in the Senate. Joining the president were Vice President Joe Biden, Interior Secretary (and former senator) Ken Salazar, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, adviser David Axelrod and other administration officials.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, said the president "thanked senators for their hard work so far and encouraged them to continue forward on this historic opportunity." Reid said the meeting was helpful, but not conclusive.

"He pledged to work with us in any meaningful way that he can," the Majority Leader said of the meeting. "There are still a few things we have to work out in the bill and those issues are being narrowed as we speak."

Reid added, "We're working toward a consensus. We're not there yet."

Two key issues issues have have tripped up Reid and the Democrats in their effort to lock in 60 votes to pass the bill, including the question of how abortion services will be treated in the insurance exchanges created by the bill, and whether a government-run public insurance option will be created and offered on those exchanges.

On the first point, Reid confirmed that Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) will offer an amendment Monday morning similar to the Stupak amendment approved by the House, which stipulated that federal funds cannot be used to cover abortion services either directly or indirectly in the exchanges. Although the Stupak amendment ignited a firestorm of opposition among Democratic activists and is not likely to pass the Senate, Nelson, a pro-life, moderate Democrat, has said he will filibuster the bill without tougher abortion funding restrictions.

On the second issue -- whether the bill will include a public option -- Reid confirmed that he had asked five moderate Democrats and five liberal Democrats to begin to negotiate a compromise that would be palatable to both groups. But if keeping the public option in the health bill is a priority for President Obama, he did not indicate that Sunday. In fact, the president did not mention the public option at all in his meeting with senators.

"That doesn't mean it's not an issue just because the president didn't talk about it," Reid said.

As the President met with Democrats on Sunday afternoon, Reid took the unusual procedural step of leaving the Senate floor to the full control of Republicans, who used the opportunity to complain that Obama should have included them in his meeting.

"The president is less than 100 yards away, he is a former member of this body, he ought to be involving all senators," said Sen. Jon Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a doctor. "He's meeting behind closed doors, possibly cutting deals, trying to come to arrangements, twisting arms, asking people to follow his marching orders right off a cliff. I think he ought to be involving all Americans in this discussion."

"I think we're all ready to meet with him,"said John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) compared Democrats to pretzels "because of the fact that there are so many interest groups that they have to kowtow to," and suggested that perhaps a yoga instructor had joined the president and the Democratic caucus to "just kind of loosen up because they're so twisted in knots trying to undo all the pledges they made to different groups."

The president's visit to the Capitol came at the end of a lengthy and now familiar weekend Senate session debating health care reform. On Saturday, senators defeated an amendment, 53 to 41, by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) to restore cuts in payments to home health agencies.

On Sunday, the Senate voted 56 to 42 on a measure by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), 56 to 42, to limit the tax deductibility for insurance companies' executive compensation to $400,000. The amendment failed because 60 votes were required to pass it. Senators also defeated, 32 to 66, an amendment from Sen. John Ensign (D-Nev.) to limit attorneys fees for medical malpractice suits.

The Senate will gavel into session Monday morning to continue debating the health care bill, including the crucial Nelson amendment on abortion services that he says will determine how he'll vote on the entire package.

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Burma Journal: Curiosity and Hope in the Land of the Lost

Alex Wagner — 2009-11-24T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Burma Journal

They say that Venice is sinking, but really, when you arrive in Rangoon, it becomes clear that if any place is slowly edging deeper into the earth, it's this one.

There's a certain romance in the crumbling colonial buildings, covered in black mold like shrouds of mourning, or the public buses from the late-'60s, crammed with Burmese of every stripe, some hanging off the back with only one foot onboard. This is what the tourists come for -- a passing glimpse of especially acute third-world poverty that gives way to a countryside that has been (thus far) exempt from development, no Starbucks or Burger Kings to be seen. Just lush, green hills, quiet villages and monasteries filled with chanting monks.

I haven't been to the Burmese countryside, although I've always wanted to go, and I'm quite sure that some parts of it are stunning -- trapped in a mystical time before the Internet and subways and franchises. I won't begrudge the tourists, either: The Burmese are desperate for human contact, concrete evidence that they haven't been forgotten by the rest of the world; the tourists represent glimmers of life in the universe. To me, this human contact is worth far more than whatever change ends up falling into the pockets of Burma's generals, who siphon off dollars from hotel bookings and souvenir purchases.

I've spent the last few entries in this Burma Journal focusing on the extraordinary Burmese men and women who are fighting against one of the world's most repressive regimes, putting their lives on the line in the name of basic human rights. But after a few days in Rangoon last week, what struck me most about the visit was the citizenry itself: Fear and despair are omnipresent, but so is the commitment to try and make a decent life out of an impossible situation.

At the American Center, an outpost of the American Embassy in Rangoon, newspapers, magazines, movies, books and classes are available to any Burmese citizen able to pay the $5 yearly membership fee and withstand the interrogation and monitoring from the military government that comes with a visit to the center. Much has been written about this place, but it's still disarming to walk into a room filled with monks in saffron robes reading the International Herald Tribune, Burmese students reading Fortune (despite the fact that Burma's economic landscape is a calamity) and thin, elderly men lining up for an evening PowerPoint presentation on creative teaching practices. This curiosity, this desire to maintain a link to the outside world, is an expression of hope, of optimism that one day they will rejoin it.

I met one day with a young teacher who showed me copies of American films that she has reproduced illegally for students eager to learn more about cinema; the titles included "The Killing Fields" and "Hotel Rwanda." These were pirated, uncensored copies and could be seized at any time. Worse yet, the teacher could be detained and incarcerated for having supplied them -- but when asked about this possibility, she just shrugged. This was simply how it was done.

My cabdriver, whose parents had long ago been diplomats, told me with great enthusiasm about his time living in Washington, D.C., several decades ago. In the middle of this, his car broke down in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic in downtown Rangoon. He spent 15 minutes under the hood, tinkering with the transmission, adding oil. The car finally restarted. An hour later, it broke down again.

"This car here, it costs $18,000 in Burma," he said, referring to government inflation of basic goods inside the country. "In America, you can find it in the garbage." When I left him, he cheerily waved goodbye.

There are frustrations here -- unbelievable substandard living conditions, neglect, and a lack of basic services that we cannot possibly fathom, living, as we do, in the age of unlimited, immediate access to pretty much everything. The Burmese people are not unaware of the preposterous circumstances under which they have been forced to exist. But they have not stopped pursuing information and ideas and technology -- they just know they have to work harder to get to all of them.

In this way, their culture exists at once both inside and outside of their own country: the rules of the military junta are a wholly Burmese construction, but at the same time completely irrelevant to the character of the country. Perhaps the most vivid illustration of this was in a classroom inside the American Center, where elementary school-aged Burmese children had made collages out of images cut from magazines. Above a picture of Barack Obama, one had written "Our President." This wasn't misplaced desire; this was national pride.

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Burma Journal: The Hard Work of Healing Is a Bitter Pill for Doctors

Alex Wagner — 2009-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Burma Journal

Burma is not a good place to get sick. It's a bad place for a lot of things -- basic freedoms, rule of law, taxis (the fleet in Rangoon is about 30 years old and suffering from some seriously gnarly transmission ailments). Still, the government has an abysmal record when it comes to helping the sick: In 2005, UNICEF reported that the government spent a paltry 40 cents a year on health care per citizen (in comparison, the Thai government spent nearly $61 per person). In 2000, Burma's health care system was ranked 190th out of 191 countries by the World Health Organization.

It's one thing for journalists and political activists to assume names and maintain low profiles, but what struck me as particularly poignant is the fact that doctors, too, must take on aliases and watch their step when they decide to forgo state-sanctioned employment and help fellow Burmese on their own.

KK, we'll call him, looks too fresh-faced to be a doctor -- less "Grey's Anatomy" and more "Doogie Howser." But he graduated from Rangoon medical school after the requisite six years of education and now works underground, crisscrossing the country on his motorbike and helping to train local health workers in remote parts of the country. His work is partially funded by a Western organization, but he is, for the most part, a staff of one.

When we meet, it is at a remote table in a largely empty restaurant. Despite the apparent privacy, KK speaks in hushed tones when explaining that his organization sends pharmaceuticals to the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. for testing, because most of the drugs in Burma come from China and the Burmese government does not control their quality. Complicating matters even more, antibiotics are available readily, without prescriptions, throughout the country; as KK explains, to self-prescribe medication without understanding one's ailments, especially when using low-quality drugs, creates an iffy proposition.

KK is only one man and there's a limit to what he can do, but Burma's national health care is so atrophied that citizens flock to competent care. The most impressive operation in this respect is the Mae Tao Clinic, headquartered on the Thai border and teeming with Burmese who have traveled -- by foot, in many cases -- to seek basic care. Mae Tao birthed 2,433 babies last year and had 140,937 visits. The clinic offers primary care, dental care and eye surgery, neonatal health programs, vaccinations, treatment and counseling for HIV and AIDS. The Backpack Worker's Health Team, based at the clinic, trains and supports underground teams of community doctors inside Burma as they assist patients in remote villages where no services are available. For victims of landmines (planted in ethnic areas by the Burmese military regime), Mae Tao fashions prosthetic limbs. Many of the prosthetics specialists are victims of mines themselves. (Click on the video below to see some of the Mae Tao operations.)

The head of Mae Tao Clinic is Dr. Cynthia Maung, a Karen refugee. Maung, like KK, is a graduate of a Burmese medical school -- though her education took place nearly three decades ago. Forced to flee the country in the wake of the 1988 pro-democracy protests and subsequent government crackdowns, Maung established her clinic on the Thai-Burma border, aiming to serve a population desperately in need of basic care. Though Mae Tao offers comprehensive services, there is a constant struggle for funding. Twenty years have passed since Maung established the clinic, yet she does not have an official license from the Thai government to practice medicine -- only a series of temporary permits. Needless to say, Maung cannot go back to Burma for fear of reprisals from the regime.

The sheer enormity of the task at hand -- helping victims of landmines and military gunfire, children lacking medicine for diseases that the rest of the world has long since overcome, thousands of refugees who have been living, on the run, in the jungle without the most basic health care -- is heartbreaking. For people like Maung and KK, to do so under threat of government crackdown and with only rudimentary weapons to stave off illness, is heroic.

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Burma Journal: The Kids Are Alright -- a Democratic Youth Movement

Alex Wagner — 2009-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Burma Journal

There's graffiti covering the walls surrounding the Generation Wave hideout here in the dusty town of Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border: giant bubble letters spelling out FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY in a shade of purple too optimistically bright to be the handiwork of disgruntled youth. This despite the fact that Generation Wave is one of the largest underground youth movements inside Burma, a network of young people brought together by a desire to challenge the repression, brutality and subjugation of the ruling military junta. In other words, they have a lot to be disgruntled about.

Generation Wave's most prominent public protest happened in the days leading up to Burma's widely discredited 2008 constitutional referendum, held -- unbelievably -- two days after Cyclone Nargis slammed into the country, leaving an estimated 180,000 people dead. Burma's generals routinely stamp out any signs of public dissent -- citizens caught carrying material in any way critical of the government are thrown in jail and can be sentenced to years in prison (popular Burmese comedian Zarganar was sentenced to 59 years for such "crimes" as owning DVD footage of the destruction wrought by Nargis). Despite this climate of intimidation, Generation Wave managed to launch a broad public messaging campaign ahead of the election, asking citizens to make an "X" sign in public areas as a symbol of their rejection of the referendum. For this, Generation Wave organizers were thrown into jail and sentenced to five years imprisonment.

"X" signs were never going to put an end to over 40 years of military dictatorship, of course. But what the signs -- and Generation Wave -- represent is a rebuke of power, a tangible reminder of the opposition. These gestures -- rare and empowering in a country so overcome with fear -- threaten the junta that sees revolution in the shadows of hope.

Wave's charismatic spokesman is a chain-smoking refugee in his late-20s who has been involved with the group since its inception. "We call it Generation Wave," he tells me, "because we want to keep moving forward, again and again, no matter how many times they try to stop us." Most of his fellow activists inside the honeycombed Mae Sot outpost are in Thailand illegally. Like millions of other Burmese, they have fled their homeland by bus and foot, traversing river crossings like the one here in Mae Sot, where the military government looks the other way with (cough) proper incentive. (Click on the video below to see illegal smuggling across the Burma-Thai border.)

"But I have to be very careful about who we let come live here," he explains. "It is a very difficult life. You cannot leave this house because it's too dangerous to go out [for fear of Thai government arrest]. Many people don't understand why they have no freedom in Burma and why they have no freedom here."

There is no denying that Generation Wave is a youth movement: It is populated by young dudes in Cannibal Corpse T-shirts, their teeth stained red from chewing betel nuts, the plywood walls of their makeshift home spray-painted with the Generation Wave logo, Burmese dormitory-style. But they are proud, defiant, old men in their resolve. One member, a former political prisoner who had already served eight years in jail ("The cell was 10 feet wide, and they allowed us outside to walk for one hour a day," he reported), was jailed again for Generation Wave activities several years ago, receiving an early release as part of the regime's concession to international pressure.

"Did you know you would be arrested and sentenced again?" I asked.

"We already know that when we are arrested we will be put in jail for 10 years," he replied, then added, "When I am arrested, I think I will be in prison for 15 or 20 years."

He had every intention of going back into Burma, undercover, sometime soon. But here he was, in Mae Sot -- a pokey, one-horse town, yes, but one where you could at least listen to music and speak freely.

Why not just stay here and begin a life something closer to ordinary?

"Here, we don't have the military regime," he said. "But we are not free. We are not home."

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Burma Journal: Rights Activists, Reporting From the Underground

Alex Wagner — 2009-11-16T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Burma Journal

Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, is a bustling town ringed by green hills and overrun with kitschy coffee shops, screaming mopeds and, apparently, a lot of free wi-fi. I once listened to Blues Traveler and had a nose ring, so I can't rag on the backpacking set that flocks here for cheap noodles, excellent foot massages and the slightly-off-the-beaten-pathness of it all, but what brought me to Chiang Mai was a visit to the Burmese human rights network that has made the city its ground zero, oftentimes in secret.

The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) is an underground television and radio network broadcasting inside the country to nearly 15 million Burmese. It is also responsible for some of the most arresting and important video footage to come out of Burma in the last two years (see "Burma VJ" for more). In 2007, when tens of thousands of saffron-robed monks took to the street to protest the ruling regime's brutal policies -- only to face truncheons, arrest, and death -- secret DVB journalists smuggled out videotape documenting their marches. These tapes were then brought to the DBV offices in Chiang Mai, where they were uploaded via satellite and broadcast to the world on CNN and the BBC, which were unable to get their teams inside the country. Along the way, DVB reporters faced arrest and torture; several were taken in by Burmese authorities, jailed and have yet to be released. Click play below to watch excerpts from DVB's "Saffron Revolution" footage:

When Cyclone Nargis hit the country one year later, it was DVB reporters who captured the ghastly scenes of corpses floating in the water, residents who had lost everything to the storm, and a government that was nowhere to be seen. They faced the same persecution for their reportage as human rights activists inside the country: extended jail sentences under extraordinarily harsh conditions.

The DVB offices in Chiang Mai are in an undisclosed location in the middle of a tree-lined, residential section of the city. Inside the complex is a rabbit warren of rooms fashioned into ad-hoc editing and sound studios, complete with green screens, radio-quality mikes and digital cameras. There is a youth news department, several online desks, and rooms dedicated to breaking and ethnic news. If you follow Burmese affairs even marginally closely, then you've probably seen DVB's work -- most recently, when news broke of collusion between the North Korean and Burmese governments, it was DVB that smuggled out video showing secret tunnel projects built inside Burma and overseen by North Korean engineers. Its work has informed international policy; it's a gross understatement to say that it is both very critical and very brave.

Like other battle-scarred journalists who cover conflict areas and grave violations of human rights, the editors and writers at DVB retain a healthy sense of humor about the difficulty of the task at hand. In the name of fair and balanced journalism, when covering state-sponsored aggression or violence, the DVB often tries to get a response from the Burmese government -- a laudable, if fruitless, endeavor. DVB's resident "troublemaker" for this is a tenacious, sweet-faced young woman who recalled for me a recent effort at contacting the government for a statement. There are two numbers for the Ministry of the Interior, it was explained. One number rang and rang and rang -- no one ever picked up. The other number rang for some time until finally, someone answered. When asked for a response, the person on the other end of the line explained, "I can't make a statement. I'm just the guy who cleans the offices." Not so surprising, given the fact that the government abruptly moved its capital from Rangoon to the remote town of Naypyidaw four years ago -- without telling anyone in advance. Following the move, no phone lines were installed. Diplomats looking to contact the Burmese government were told, simply, "to send a fax."

As chuckle-inducing as the government's behavior is, it is also very serious and deeply menacing when it chooses to be. A few weeks ago, the Burmese regime published a photo in a national magazine of a DVB reporter working secretly inside the country. It was a stern warning to others like her: We are watching you. The DVB took it in stride -- the past few weeks have seen the network expanding its offices into remote areas of the country where the military has been particularly active, training new reporters in video journalism, and beginning work on a series of special news features. DVB's Chiang Mai bureau chief brought me into one radio room, which, he explained, "had been the previous owners' dog house or something," and added, "We are too big for this space." It was, to my mind, cause for celebration. The good guys may not be winning, but they sure as hell aren't giving up.

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