William Kristol / Weekly Standard:
Kristol: Reconciliation “Fixes” Make Health Care Reform MORE Politically Toxic  —  Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter have come up with a parliamentary maneuver — “deem and pass” — reeking of evasiveness and trickery that Democratic members are going to have to embrace.  But it gets better!

Chicago Breaking Business:
Caterpillar: Health care bill would cost it $100M  —  A worker at Caterpillar's plant in Mossville, Ill. (José Moré/Chicago Tribune)  —  Dow Jones Newswires |  Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives …

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
SEIU To Yank Support For Arcuri, Will Search For Challenger  —  It appears SEIU is dead serious about this business about yanking support for House Dems who vote No on the health bill.  —  The SEIU bluntly informed Dem Rep Michael Arcuri of New York yesterday that it's pulling support …

Aaron Blake / The Hill:
Boccieri is a ‘yes’  —  An almost somber Rep. John Boccieri (D-Ohio) said Friday that he will switch his vote to ‘yes’ on the health care bill.  —  Boccieri is in the swing district of swing districts in the swing state of swing states.  His vote was a big get for the Democratic leadership …

We saw a cartoon recently that shows the attendees of a "Climate Summit", with a single naysayer yelling out from the back of the crowd "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

Well, in the spirit of creating a better world for nothing, we bring to you three iPhone apps that we hope can help do just that.

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In her panel on "Handheld Awesome Detectors: World Changing Mobile Apps" last week at the South By South West festival in Austin, Rachel Weidinger got to talking about a number of iPhone apps that could help us all do just that - change the world. While some, like Ushahidi are certainly world changing, they're not much use for day to day life, so we decided to let you know about three apps she clued us in on that can help you make world-changing decisions in your simple, everyday life.

The app offers a seafood guide, which customizes content according to geographical region, lets you search according to what type of fish you're considering buying or eating at a restaurant. The guide rates your choices according to a number of criteria, from whether or not it is overfished to how much the methods employed are affecting the environment. The ratings also take your health into account, warning you to avoid certain types of fish because they may contain chemicals.

So, while everyone always says to eat fish because it's good for you, download this app and it could be good for the environment too.

Locavore shows where and when certain types of foods are in season, nearby farmers' markets and links to Wikipedia and Epicurious to help with context on 234 different fruits and vegetables.

GoodGuide is the more all-encompassing package, looking at more than 60,000 products and rating them according to "health, environmental and social performance". The guide gives you information about the product your buying, from whether or not it contains carcinogens to how the company handles water management. Here's a quick explanation from the website on how GoodGuide arrives at its ratings:

The guide is still in the beta stages - and this is quite an ambitious project - but if you can have and pay attention to this sort of information, then you can get past flashy advertising and get to the bottom of where you're spending your hard earned money.

Following the Congressional Budget Office's score of the health care reform reconciliation package, Fox News has attempted to portray the nonpartisan CBO as untrustworthy and unreliable. By contrast, after the CBO gave a "favorable" score to the GOP health care plan, Fox praised the office as "nonpartisan" and advanced false GOP claims about the CBO's findings.

 Beck mocks CBO score of health care reform: "Well, that's a party in my pants." On the March 18 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck asked, "How would the CBO numbers even make any difference? You know, 'Only 900 and' -- what is it -- '$954 billion.' Ooh. Well, that's a party in my pants. Thank you for sending that one by. How does that make a difference?"

 Doocy: "[C]an you really rely on the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office comes out with?" On the March 19 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy claimed, "Democrats say it will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over the first decade." After guest host Dana Perino responded by saying, "Well, but there are other members who say that it actually will cost $2.4 trillion over the 10 years once you add it all up," Doocy asked, "Because, can you really rely on the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office comes out with?"

 Perino: "[C]an we trust these numbers?" Introducing an interview with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) on the same edition of Fox & Friends, Perino said, "Nine hundred and forty billion dollars over the next decade. That's the preliminary price tag for the Democrats' health care bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It also says the plan will cut the federal deficit by $130 billion in that time, but can we trust these numbers?" Weiner said the score "came out really better than we thought it would. It was a great savings number, and so the deficit hawks now have things that they can point at and say, 'You know what? This really does save money." Perino then asked him, "But do you think ... that those numbers can be trusted later on?"

 Johnson Jr.: "I don't expect or anticipate that their numbers are real." On the same edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that the "average person" would say, "[I]f a plan costs $940 billion, tell me how I'm saving 130 billion. So it doesn't make any sense." Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. then noted that Perino had asked, "Do we really trust these numbers?" and claimed that "if you read carefully the latest CBO things, they say, 'Well, we don't usually project out another 10 years.' And there's so many variables and so many wiggle words that I don't expect or anticipate that their numbers are real." He later said, "I think we're being spun."

 Hannity calls CBO score "budgetary gimmicks and tricks." On the March 18 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity called the CBO score of the health care bill reflected "budgetary gimmicks and tricks" and said that it is "[f]lat-out dishonest" that the score didn't contain separate legislation that cancels scheduled cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. After guest Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) claimed "the only way that [Democrats] pay for those additions is to reduce seniors' health care benefits on their Medicaid or raise taxes," Hannity responded, "[W]hy would the CBO not highlight this to give a truly educational, informational, you know, scoring of this to the American people?"

 Hemmer asks Juan Williams "do you believe" the CBO long-range forecast. On the March 18 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Fox News contributor Juan Williams called the CBO score a "deal-maker" because it will "reassure those independents and, by extension, those Democrats that have been on the fence because they are deficit hawks" because of the deficit reduction. Co-host Bill Hemmer then said to Williams, "That's 20 years out. You've lived in Washington a long time. Do you believe that?"

 Fox Nation headline: "CBO Score Called a 'Lie.' " On March 18, Fox Nation posted a National Review article under the headline "CBO Score Called a 'Lie.' " From Fox Nation:

 Fox's Shively touted "favorable" CBO report on GOP health care bill and advanced false GOP claim that GOP plan would lower premiums more than Democrats' plan. On the November 5, 2009, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, contributor Caroline Shively adopted the GOP spin by reporting, "Now, on the other side of the aisle, Republicans have gotten favorable reports from the Congressional Budget Office on the cost of their health care bill. GOP lawmakers say that means premiums for millions of families will be almost $5,000 lower under their plan, compared to the cheapest plan in the Democrats' exchange." In fact, the $5,000 difference Shively cited ignored premium caps in the House Democrats' plan. As Media Matters for America has noted, because the Democrats' health care bill provides premium caps on a sliding scale based on income, the lowest amount that a family would have to pay in premiums is significantly less than the GOP alternative.

America's Newsroom attributes Republican talking point to CBO. On the November 5 edition of America's Newsroom, host Martha McCallum claimed, "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is saying that the Republican bill ... will carry lower costs for Americans. The CBO estimates that health insurance premiums would be nearly $5,000 cheaper under the Republican reforms than the Democratic ones." In fact, the CBO never made that claim. The comparison was based on calculations done by Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee. From America's Newsroom:

Fox & Friends report obscures that GOP plan wouldn't cover uninsured, wouldn't significantly lower premiums, would reduce deficit less than Democrats' plan. Shively's Fox & Friends report ignored that the GOP plan would not cover most uninsured Americans. Shively also did not report that the CBO estimates indicate that House Democrats' bill lowers the deficit more than the GOP's proposal.

Huma Khan / ABCNEWS:
Are Anti-Abortion Democrats Open to a Deal on Health Care?  —  Rep. Bart Stupak Says He and His Supporters are Holding Firm But They Are Open to Negotiations  —  Anti-abortion Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak says he will vote “No” on the health care bill unless changes are made to accommodate …

Appearing as a guest host on Fox & Friends, Dana Perino asserted that the health care reform bill's Medicare investment tax on those making over $200,000 a year is "so disturbing ... because the people who make that money are the small business owners." In fact, fewer than 1.3 percent of small business owners would be affected by the tax.

Perino: Medicare investment tax on wealthy is "so disturbing" because "the people who make that money are the small business owners." From the March 19 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

PERINO: One of the most disturbing things to me is a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income, so that's all your investment income, if you make over $200,000 a year. The reason that's so disturbing is because the people who make that money are the small business owners, and they're the ones who create the jobs. And so this will feel like, as I've said, a lead-blanket on economic growth and then supposedly the administration's next priority is going to be increasing jobs in the states.

Medicare investment tax does not apply to those earning less than $200,000. The House Rules Committee's section-by-section analysis of the health care reconciliation act states that the 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income -- which takes effect in 2013 -- "does not apply if modified adjusted gross income is less than $250,000 in the case of a joint return, or $200,000 in the case of a single return":

Sec. 1402.  Medicare tax.  Modifies the tax to include net investment income in the taxable base.  Currently, the Medicare tax does not apply to net investment income.    The Medicare tax on net investment income does not apply if modified adjusted gross income is less than $250,000 in the case of a joint return, or $200,000 in the case of a single return.  Net investment income is interest, dividends, royalties, rents, gross income from a trade or business involving passive activities, and net gain from disposition of property (other than property held in a trade or business).  Net investment income is reduced by properly allocable deductions to such income. 

Fewer than 1.3 percent of those who claim small business income would be affected by Medicare investment tax. Despite Perino's claim that "small business owners" are "the people who make" over $200,000 and would therefore be affected by the Medicare investment tax, according to the Tax Policy Center's table of 2009 tax returns, 457,000 of the 36,064,000 returns that reported small-business income -- or 1.3 percent of them -- were in the top two income tax brackets, which include all filers with taxable incomes high enough to trigger the investment tax in the health care reform bill.

TPC: "[N]ot everyone who receives small business income should be classified as a small business owner." Ben Harris wrote on the Tax Policy Center's TaxVox blog that "0.5 percent of small business owners both fall into the top two marginal tax rates AND derive more than half their income from a small business." From the April 2009 post, which addressed Obama's proposal to "allow the top two marginal income tax rates to revert to their pre-Bush levels":

Allowing these rates to rise would hurt very few small business owners. In 2009, about 36 million taxpayers have small business income - defined as taxpayers who report a gain or loss on tax schedules C, E, or F. This group includes not only sole proprietorships, S corporations and partnerships, but also taxpayers who receive royalties, rental income, and income from trusts. Of these 36 million small business owners, just 1.3 percent (about 457,000) fall into the top two tax brackets-indicating that approximately 99 percent of small business owners fare better under the President's proposed changes to the statutory tax rates. Estimates by the Treasury Department and Joint Committee on Taxation reach a similar conclusion.  

And not everyone who receives small business income should be classified as a small business owner; most derive the bulk of their income from other sources. TPC estimates show that only about 174,000 taxpayers, or 0.5 percent of small business owners, both fall into the top two marginal tax rates AND derive more than half their income from a small business. This group makes up 0.1 percent of all taxpayers, meaning that the chances of being in this group-a small business owner getting at least half of total income from small businesses and being subject to a tax increase-is about one in a thousand.   

Jeffrey H. Anderson / Weekly Standard:
CBO: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion  —  The CBO's most recent analysis is out, and it's not likely to convince wavering House Democrats to jump to the Obamacare side of the fence.  Even the Democrats are granting that the latest version of their proposed health care overhaul would cost $69 billion more than the previous version.

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
In Health Vote, Democrats Weigh Success vs. Survival  —  WASHINGTON — In the homestretch of the health care debate, one obvious question being asked across the capital is whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi will find 216 votes to pass the bill.  For a group of particularly jittery Democrats …

For nearly 10,000 years--since the dawn of civilization and the Holocene era--our world seemed unimaginably large. Vast frontiers of land and ocean offered infinite resources. Humans could pollute freely, and they could avoid any local repercussions simply by moving elsewhere. People built entire empires and economic systems on their ability to exploit what seemed to be inexhaustible riches, never realizing that the privilege would come to an end.

But thanks to advances in public health, the industrial revolution and later the green revolution, population has surged from about one billion in 1800 to nearly seven billion today. In the past 50 years alone, our numbers have more than doubled. Fueled by affluence, our use of resources has also reached staggering levels; in 50 years the global consumption of food and freshwater has more than tripled, and fossil-fuel use has risen fourfold. We now co-opt between one third and one half of all the photosynthesis on the planet.

The Summary Care Records scheme is not trusted by doctors because some records have serious errors....

The power of collaboration within unified communications

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