Congress Reaches Deal

Today, a minor miracle occurred, the House and Senate agreed on a stimulus package that will pump enough money into the economy to give a jump start .to recovery from the fiscal disaster created by the Bush administration. The winners: the middle class American family. The losers: the fat cats who got rich by exploiting the middle class and American workers. Not all American workers will be put back to work in jobs like the ones that they lost because many of those jobs have been shipped overseas.

The jobs that this stimulus package will create will, in the long run, be service jobs that won’t pay anywhere near as much as the jobs they lost. But, in the short term, jobs needed to repair bridges, roads and buildings will be looked upon with favor by those who will get them.

Among the organizations pleased with the stimulus package that is coming out of Congress is the National Council For Community Behavioral Healthcare. The National Council is particularly pleased that the package includes a moratorium on the Medicaid Outpatient Hospital Regulation.

Conservatives have not yet stopped attacking some aspects of the stimulus package. For example, they are giving out misinformation on health information technology [HIT]. They are falsely claiming that HIT provisions would lead to the government telling the doctors what they can and cannot treat, and on whom they can and cannot treat.

Sources :The National Council, Wednesday, February 11th

The New York Times, Wed., Feb., 11th

The Progress Report, Wed., Feb 11th