Here’s your weekly quick look at a few developing stories in the political arena:

• As expected, the Supreme Court announced this week that it will decide on the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s health care reform. The court will hear two major questions, the first being if the individual mandate requiring Americans to have health insurance is constitutional and if so, the second question is should all of the healthcare reform be scrapped? Arguments will likely be in February or March, with a ruling coming by June. The ruling will once again make health care an important issue for the 2012 presidential race. (CNN)

• Congress again avoided a shutdown threat by passing a temporary spending measure on Thursday that will keep the government funded until December 16. The government would have run out of  money midnight Friday if another temporary spending bill wasn’t passed. (CNN)

• As 99problems reported earlier this week, a nationwide crackdown of the various Occupy movements is happening this week. Occupy Wall Street and all of their set up was cleared out of  Zuccotti Park. A judge later ruled that protestors are allowed back in the park to protest during the day but cannot set up tents or sleeping bags there and must leave at night.

• Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21, allegedly fired nine shots at the White House last Friday, one cracking a bulletproof window. He was charged Thursday with attempting to assassinate the president or his staff. Ortega-Hernandez has a history of mental illness and believed President Obama to be the “Antichrist.” If convicted he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. (Washington Post)

• Finally, the congressional super committee has until next Wednesday to reach an agreement that will have at least $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade. If the committee can doesn’t reach an agreement, Congress has one month (December 23) to vote on a deal. A failure to pass anything would result in $1.2 trillion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts starting in 2013. These cuts would be evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week that such cuts could cripple the American military establishment. So will this “do-nothing Congress” get something done?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as “Obamacare,” saw it’s first birthday Wednesday. Many provisions have already been rolled out this year, with the rest of the major provisions taking effect in 2014. Do you feel that you or the average American has enough knowledge of the health care bill? A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll this month say that 52% of Americans feel they don’t have enough information on the law to understand how it will or has affected them personally. These numbers are about the same from a year ago when the law was first passed.  So this raises the question, do you think the government should have promoted the benefits of this bill more?

13% of people polled say their family benefited this year from the new law, while 20% said it had a negative effect on them. Jennifer Tolbert, a principal policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, “I think part of the reason why there seems to be skepticism among the public or confusion among the public as to how they will be affected by the law is that the major provisions of the law, particularly around coverage and the expansion of coverage, don’t go into effect until 2014.”

Personally I believe a lot of good things have already come from health care reform bill. While many more provisions will come into effect in 2014, it’s also important to know about the provisions already enacted and what it means to you now. Here are just a few thing that have happened that impact us from the reform already:

• Young adults can now stay on their parents plan until they turn 26.
• The law eliminates co-payments for preventative screenings such as mammograms and cancer screening, so there is now more of a focus on preventative care.
• Insurers can no longer cancel coverage of patients who get sick, except in cases where the policy holder commits fraud.
• Tanning Salons are now subject to a 10% tax.
• Health insurance companies are prohibited from dropping children with pre-existing conditions. The same measures for adults will be rolled out in the coming year.

Those are just a few of the changes we have already seen. Medicare and Medicaid have also seen change to their programs as well through this and while the rest of the big changes (Such as everyone being required to  have health insurance, or pay a fine) will roll out around 2014, we can already see the bill in action right now for us every day Americans. A lot of these (such as the young adult extended coverage and pre-existing conditions issue) are very beneficial for all Americans. So much has already happened with health care reform, but why do so many Americans feel in the dark about it? I know that a lot of Americans don’t read or keep up with the news, so what would be the best way to reach those who feel they don’t quite know how the bill impacts their lives?

99problems would like to know if health care reform already had an impact on your life and have you seen the benefits of this bill?

After months of debate, infighting, and all out tom-foolery, former Democratic presidential candidate, and DNC chairman, Howard Dean thinks that we should scrap the health care bill and start over. According to Dean, all of the negotiations and deal making has water down the bill so much that what is being proposed in the Senate isn’t truly health care reform. Dean, who thinks there are good elements in the bill, believes that the current legislation being debated in the Senate (which lacks the public option) is more of the same old ish. “No one will think this is health care reform. This is not even insurance reform,” he said.

Dean, of course, has more insight into this topic than most other elected officials due to the fact that he is actually a physician.
That’s why his words are resonating so strongly in the blogospehere.
According to several sources, Dean even stated that America needs to start over in Obama’s second term. (If he gets a second term.)

Man, it’s hard to believe that after all this craziness, Congress still continues to jerk around the American people, especially young folks who will have to pay for these half-baked reforms.

Peace peeps. If you thought my blog on my experiences observing and partaking in the November elections in Maine was provocative, my latest musings on WireTapMag.org around the Fort Hood killings, the death of DC sniper-John Allen Muhammad and the trial of alleged “mastermind” of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“Who’s Afraid of the ‘Muslim Boogeyman?’”) is sure to raise those stakes.

Check it out over at Wiretap!

Time to admit something: I’m kind of uncool.

On a scale of one to badass, I’m somewhere around Screech from Saved by the Bell.

Maybe that’s why I’m a little jealous of Kanye and, to some degree, even Joe Wilson.

These guys have been cocky enough to actually yell out and take over our collective attention with their bad behavior for the past week or so and to some degree – I kinda envy that. But it takes a certain type of person to bluster on loudly while important things are actually happening.

And all the while, nobody is talking about the issues we actually give a damn about. What ever happened to that little health care reform thing? Or the fact that the racism we all believed to be dead is making a resurgence in ‘news’ punditry? Or an effective, progressive climate bill?

It’s kind of like our eating habits. More often than not, we’ll choose a big, juicy gossip Big Mac over a nutritious fact salad. And we’re infinitely worse off for it. As young Americans, we really need to reevaluate our news habits… or soon enough, we’re gonna be watching the weekly (Insert Pundit Here) Hot Dog Eating Contest And Face Punch Challenge for our daily updates on the state of the country.

Could be just the Screech side of me talking though.

According to a recent poll for the AARP, most people still don’t know what the public option actually entails.

Even after all the rhetoric, the posturing, the partisan politics, three out of five people do not know what is on the line. Peep the stats:

“A new survey by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates for the AARP reveals widespread uncertainty about the nature of the “public option” — a government-run health insurance policy that would be offered along with private policies in the newly-created health insurance exchanges.” When given three separate choices as to what the public option entailed, only 37 percent of people chose the correct option. 26 percent of people believed the public option would be a nationalized health care system like Great Britain, while 13 percent thought the public option would be a network of health care co-ops. The final 23 percent of people didn’t know.

Luckily, I’m feeling pretty generous today, so I spent some time tracking down a little video which will put any confusion to rest. End of story. Send it to your friends and stuff, so you can let that guy next door who cries “OH MY GOD IT’S SOCIALISM WTF” whenever anyone mentions health care reform that he is basically a nut job.

Check the video after the jump. It’ll give you the straight dope about what health care reform is and what it isn’t. AND it’s a pretty cute cartoon too. Chloe Hilliard would be proud.

Be sure to send this thing out to everyone you know. We’ve gotta educate the people!

Isn’t Twitter amazing. Really?! Who would have ever thought that finding cool ish on the Internet could be so easy? Like yesterday, someone tweeted out this fresh (like hi-top fades and spike lee movies) link to a list of all the myths about heath care reform. I am glad someone is cutting through the B.S. Check out the link and come back and let me know what you think. I personally thought it was hecka helpful. Shouts out to Mediamatters.org

Can someone please tell me why these people are mad?

Haven’t they watched SICKO? Well maybe their Senators should hold a town hall meeting where they watch the Michael Moore documentary about health insurance in America and let see if they continue to bitch and moan about Prez Obama’s proposed reform.

I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the bill that is on the table but I do know I need cheaper health care.

After being laid off in December, I opted to continue my health care coverage. If it wasn’t for Obama offering economic assistance for COBRA users I could not afford my health plan. The 65% reduction was just what I needed.

Don’t be fooled, I am a journalist but the well is drying up. My peers and I talk about how bad it is. Some of us have had to move, others are working jobs they would have laughed out just six months ago and some are getting in on the system. Even I’ve considered going down to get food stamps.

When it comes to health care, it’s something that I can’t afford to be without. It’s also something that I can’t afford to pay for each month as an independent journalist.

Seeing these people go ape shit over a health care plan that wants to treat everyone fair and equal further proves that

1 – People love to yell and scream

2 – We are a selfish country

3 – Senior Citizens think the government is out to kill them

4 – Most Americans have no idea what the reform really entails

To debunk these myths and fears, the white house launched http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck. I suggest you check it out.

Perhaps if Prez Obama created another 30 minute long commercial that aired on all channels explaining his plan, Americans will get it. I suggest he enlists the creators of School House Rock to direct the spot. I envision little pills and syringes dancing on an examination table singing along about the virtues of a better health care system. Don’t act like you wouldn’t watch. How many of us today only know what a bill is because of this:

I’m telling you, animation and a cute song will win everyone over.

- CH

Are you one of the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance? Think you’re paying too much for too little if you do? Either way, you’ll probably welcome the news that a plan for health care reform is one step closer, thanks to an announcement Obama made Sunday that placed reform costs at 1 trillion dollars over ten years rather than the 1.8 trillion dollars that had been announced earlier. It’s a reform he labeled a “necessity rather than a luxury.”

Just about everyone agrees that it’s necessary to offer insurance to all Americans and to control healthcare costs from skyrocketing. Despite this, a bipartisan agreement is still far from a done deal. Much of the disagreement stems from a public/private divide and from concerns over the sheer amount of money needed to overhaul the system. Some feel that 1 trillion dollars is still too much money to be spending on health care—which it is. It’s a lot of money period. But in the grand scheme of things, it feels like something worth investing in. Put it into context: in 2009 alone the US will be spending 1 trillion dollars on defense-related issues, including the military and two wars. What’s another trillion dollars spread out over ten years, especially if it is an investment in the future happiness and well-being of Americans?

Besides, the system can’t get worse than it already is. The US pays more for health care than any other country—approximately $5711 per person each year. And you get significantly less bang for your buck than other countries: lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and less coverage (15% of Americans don’t even have access to healthcare). It’s kinda like forking over the money for a gourmet meal and ending up with a corn dog.

At this rate, any reform seems better than no reform at all.