Is Taiwan a model for U.S. health care reform ?

Writing in the well-respected Dissent Magazine http://dissentmagazine.org/, Ian Williams suggests that Taiwan's health care system might serve as a model for expanding access to medical treatment in the United States. Taiwan does seems to have the ideal health care plan with nearly universal coverage, no waiting periods except for organ transplants and cost efficiency.

Williams writes:

"Taiwan inaugurated its National Health Insurance program in 1995. Before then the three major social health insurance programs, Labor Insurance, Government Employee Insurance, and Farmers Insurance, left 40 percent of the population uncovered, many of them children and retirees. Dr. Michael Chen, vice president and chief financial officer of the NHI Bureau, says that there is now 99 percent coverage—he is not sure who the missing 1 percent are, but suspects that they are expatriates who have not registered (apparently, prison inmates are not covered but do receive care in the prison system). Indeed, many expatriates maintain their coverage—including the million or so who now work in mainland China. Conversely, foreign workers in Taiwan are also covered."

"NHI premiums cover Western- and Chinese-style medicine, both in- and outpatient, prescription charges, home care, and dentistry. Almost all western-style hospitals and 88 percent of Chinese-medicine clinics are in the system. "

"Though dentists have been opting out of the British National Health dental system in large numbers, almost 95 percent of dental clinics are in the Taiwanese system. Health care is provided by a competitive mixture of municipal and public (about one-third of the beds) and privately owned hospitals that also offer comprehensive primary care. Between them they employ almost two-thirds of doctors."

"Avoiding the severe conflict of interest that the British system has maintained, doctors contracted to hospitals cannot run private practices on the side. TAIWAN IS a smaller (twenty-one million people), more compact country than the United States, but the NHI provides many pointers for Americans attempting to secure full health coverage."

"To begin with, Taiwan had a vigorous market-based health provision system, which has adapted itself, apparently very happily, to the new national service."

"The former KuoMintang government was an authoritarian social democracy, in the very limited sense that social provision was on the agenda. But corruption and capitalism were fully developed. The NHI was introduced in the early days of democracy, just as the KMT single-party system was being dismantled. It was a popular election issue.The provision of health care is not nationalized, despite a degree of information and coordination that, for example, the British system cannot match after spending billions on computerization."

"Rather, the NHI is a classic single payer scheme—the government runs a compulsory, mostly premium-financed insurance system, which negotiates a single payment schedule with the private and municipal or government-owned providers.On the face of it, the experience of the insured in Taiwan is certainly better than that of Americans dependent on the caprices of commercial health insurers."

" In 2005, polls showed a 72.5 percent satisfaction rate—and much of the dissatisfaction is with the cost, laughably small though it is by U.S. standards. When co-payments and premiums were increased in 2002, the satisfaction rate plummeted to 59.7 percent. "

"To put this in perspective, the premiums at the maximum are less than $20 (U.S.) per month (the annual per capita GDP is $16,500 U.S.).Taiwan has done this for proportionately, less than half the cost of the United States, with costs running at 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2005, compared with the following for other countries: United States, 15.2 percent; France, 10.1 percent; Canada, 9.9 percent; United Kingdom, 7.7 percent; Japan, 7.9 percent; South Korea, 5.2 percent (World Health Organization figures for 2003 published in 2006)."

"In absolute terms, the difference is even starker. In 2003, health spending per head in Taiwan was less than $800 per head of population compared to the U.S. level of approximately $5,500. In fact, by 2005, U.S. health care spending increased 6.9 percent to almost $2.0 trillion, or $6,697 per person, amounting to 16 percent of GDP."

" With an aging population demanding more and more innovative medical interventions, the NHI faces similar problems to the United States in terms of the escalation of demand (and thus of cost), but it has contained the growth of health care costs as a share of GDP while expanding coverage to a far higher proportion of hitherto uninsured people than in the United States."

http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=985

Is Obama-Webb the Democratic ticket for '08 ?

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has emerged as a leading Vice Presidential possibility on a ticket with Democratic front runner Barack Obama.

The Falls Church Press reported that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (who is also Obama's national campaign co-chair) favors Webb for the Democrats number two spot:

"Kaine acknowledged that Virginia is now considered a key “battleground state” in the race for the presidency, joining such critical states as Florida and Ohio. In light of that, he was asked if Obama should choose a vice presidential running mate from Virginia."

“I think he should choose someone who is strong in foreign policy and defense issues,” he said. He then went on to drop the name of Sen. Webb." http://tinyurl.com/2blp8o

Politico http://www.politico.com/ notes growing momentum for Webb as the Democratic VP choice.

"A Webb profile in the February issue of Washingtonian gushed, “What he would bring is an articulate military voice against the war and a brawny image with the potential to attract moderate-to-conservative swing voters, especially men, who identify with Webb’s pro-gun, pro-defense, red-blooded Americanism. That could add dimension to a ticket headed by either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.”

"And the hometown Washington Post noted, “Sen. James Webb of Virginia will serve as the keynote speaker of the Colorado Democratic Party’s 75th-annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Assuming the Democratic nominee is chosen by then, Webb’s speech could serve as an audition for vice president.” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8433.html

Writing in the Huffington Post, Trey Ellis makes the case for a Obama-Webb ticket:

OBAMA-WEBB SWEEP TO VICTORY, " reads the headline Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 in The New York Times.

I've seen the future and thought I'd come back and share the good news. Everyone expected a tough, close race against McCain when Obama elbowed Hillary out of the top spot. For weeks there was furious speculation as to whom he would chose as his VP but when he settled on Senator Jim Webb, former Marine, former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, dad of a young man recently returned from Iraq and from the swing-state of Virginia, all the pieces fell into place for a rout. The Webb choice defanged the McCain advantage on military experience and like Obama the one-term Senator from Virginia represented a fresh face that the electorate craved. The Democrats coasted to victory with the simple slogan: "Bring 'em Home! Obama-Webb '08."

The McCain-Kay Bailey Hutchison ticket tried to counter with their own slogan, "A HUNDRED YEARS OF MORE WAR!" but it never really caught on. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trey-ellis/bring-em-home-obamaw_b_86429.html

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lack strong red state appeal. Democrats need someone on the ticket who can add a strong national security background and appeal to swing voters in the red states. Webb could easily make the difference in Virginia and his presence has the potential to boost Democratic ticket nationally.

Here is a link to Jim Webb's biography http://webb.senate.gov/jim/ and to his political action committee http://www.bornfighting.com/

Trickle-down economics hurt middle class

Writing in the February 15 edition of The Tennesseean, Professor Lewright Sikes refutes the Republican myths about the "success" of supply side economics.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/OPINION03/802150406/1008/OPINION01

Quote:

President Bush incorrectly trumpeted the economic success of his administration's large tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that have taken more than $75 billion a year of revenue out of government coffers since 2004, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Now, Bush correctly advocates $140 billion-plus tax rebate and stimulus package to bring America out of a probable recession that his economic and political policies helped create.

For the subprime lending housing market collapse and its growing peripheral effects that many Americans are now having to cope with, they are not the only culprits here. Rather, it was the Bush economic and regulatory policies over the past seven years that set the stage for this latest meltdown.

For generations, many serious-minded economists like John Kenneth Galbraith have warned against "trickle-down" economics — as it began to be called in the 1920s — particularly tax cuts, where the largest dollar amount of the cuts are given to the wealthiest Americans. This is especially true for the 5 percent that control 60 percent of the country's wealth today. Yet, Republicans keep beating this dead horse at the expense of impoverished Americans and the middle class, which is hemorrhaging material blood at a rate not seen since the 1930s.

Well-known congressional leaders and syndicated newspaper columnists like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and New York Times syndicated editorial writers Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman have repeatedly highlighted the dangerous injustices of the Bush II White House tax policies.

Historically, trickle-down economics and inept regulation of corporations have always hurt the middle class more than helped it, for these policies expand the incomes of the richest Americans at a much greater rate than the middle class. This is particularly true of the Bush II years, when incomes of the top 10 percent of U.S. citizens have grown more than 200 percent, while those of families making under $60,000 have increased less than 10 percent, according to the GAO.

As to regulatory policies, Bush himself has repeatedly stated that large banks and corporations are better off left to voluntarily regulate their affairs and/or follow the lead of his (imperial-minded) administration. Furthermore, poorly led and/or understaffed key federal regulatory agencies — particularly those overseeing the mortgage industry and inter-financial investments — have done less of what they are supposed to do during the Bush II years than at any time since many of them were established.

Recent congressional investigations, statements by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan downplaying the dangers of subprime lending, and reports in newspapers ranging from The Tennessean to The Washington Post bear witness to this fact.

Thus, is it any wonder that the subprime lending crisis occurred, especially given the poorly regulated financial sector that has been largely free to buy, sell and repeatedly repackage risky mortgage loans in a way that involves more and more of America's financial institutions?

Like the Iraq debacle, we have again been sold a "pig in a poke" — this time by self-serving political leaders and irresponsible financial and regulatory institutions.

Perhaps the title of Greenspan's new book, The Age of Turbulence , is far more prophetic than even he imagined!

Lewright B. Sikes of Antioch is professor of history emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University.

http://www.tennessean.com/

Third Way on FISA and Telecom Immunity

Matt Bennett of the progressive think-tank Third Way makes a rational argument concerning FISA and telecommunications firm immunity. We are all concerned personal privacy but national security is important too. Is it a good idea to tie the hands of our intelligence agencies despite the Bush Administration's attempts to make political use of the war on terrorism ? Are are we not playing into their hands ? Democrats cannot appear weak on national security as we face a formidable challenge from John McCain in November.

http://dispatch.thirdway.org/articles/2008/02/08/to-our-friends-and-critics-on-the-issue-of-telecom-immunity

Bennett writes:

Think back for a moment to the days after 9-11, to the range of emotions we all felt: horror, sadness, anger, frustration. But we felt other things as well: determination and patriotism. We were resolved as a nation that no band of two-bit thugs was going to attack this country and murder Americans without us damn well doing something about it.

Now, imagine that you were specifically asked to do something about it and were told that your actions would hold the lives of innocent Americans in the balance. Imagine that you were Mary Smith, a senior executive of a telephone company and that an FBI agent came to you with a letter that asked for your help in tracking down terrorists. The letter assured you that the President and the Attorney General certified that what they were asking you to do was legal. Imagine that the FBI made it clear that if you failed to cooperate, Americans could die.
What would you do? Do you assist the government based on their representations that the help was both legal and urgently needed, or do you decline and risk the consequences?

Not everyone would have made the same decision, but we would submit that, given the circumstances in the wake of 9-11, many Americans would have agreed to help.

Now, fast-forward to today. The telecom companies are being sued on allegations that they helped the government invade privacy and violate the rights of private American citizens. The question is whether to allow these suits to go forward.

We have argued that they should not – you can read our fuller explanation

here. In arriving at that judgment, we have relied on three main principles:

The first is fairness and due process. The evidence against the companies is classified. They are being asked to defend themselves without the ability to offer the evidence that may prove their innocence of wrongdoing. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what’s happening to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. We have long held that those proceedings are travesties of justice because the defendants cannot mount a defense in a case involving secret evidence. That’s not due process, and it should not be weighed any differently for cases against terrorism suspects or against the telecom industry.

The second principle is the value of representational government. The potentially exculpatory information in this case is beyond top secret. It falls under a category known as “eyes only,” which prohibits even those with top secret clearances to view the documents.

If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama wanted to see them they would be denied. But the elected members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have seen them. When they took a look at all of the secret evidence – the letters, the documents, the testimony of key players – they voted 13-2 in favor of immunity.

Because we cannot see the evidence for ourselves, we must decide whether to place our trust in the judgment of those who have. Among this group were some of the most unimpeachable progressives in the Senate, like Sheldon Whitehouse, Barbara Mikulski and Chairman Jay Rockefeller. These members played a role not too dissimilar from a grand jury when they emphatically decided that this case should not go to trial. We decided to trust in their judgment.

In addition, two people who were appointed to act by the Congress have reached the same judgment. As 9-11 Commission Chairman Lee Hamilton and Commissioner Bob Kerrey have both written persuasively, it is absolutely vital that American industry agree to help in terrorism investigations when they believe in good faith that it’s legal and important for them to do so. If the telecom companies are left holding the bag for the government’s misconduct here, we worry that future companies – be they phone companies, rental car agencies, flight schools or gun stores – might refuse to help track down terrorists and leave our nation at risk.

The third principle is holding the proper party to account. There is no question that the private sector must be required to act legally and responsibly, and when they don’t they should be punished. In these cases, however, we believe that the wrong defendant is in the dock. It is the Bush administration and government actors who are responsible for the violations of civil liberties and the invasions of privacy that the lawsuits allege. It was the government who took the information and misused it, without telling the industry how or why. It is the government that can choose to mount a real defense by declassifying the material. And it is therefore the government – not those who thought they were doing their patriotic duty to assist the government – that should be held to account.

We waded into this debate mindful of the passions on the other side. We know that a huge swath of the progressive community disagrees with us on this point. But while we share their outrage and demand for justice, we chose to enter this fray because we believe that important principles are at stake here. We hope you’ll read our new memo that more fully lays out our rationale and choose for yourself. FISA and Immunity

http://www.thirdway.org/

A Plan For American Industrial Renewal

The U.S. Business and Industry Council has developed an excellent strategy for revitalizing our nation's industrial capacity. There is no question that America needs a national industrial policy to rebuild the manufacturing sector. Here are the highlights from the Council's Plan For American Industrial Renewal:

The United States faces a manufacturing emergency. Unless serious measures are taken soon, America willbecome a second-class manufacturing power, greatly diminishing its own future economic prospects. National security and flexibility in foreign affairs will be severely compromised. The international imbalances created by the manufacturing crisis will push the world into a major dollar crisis and could cause a major depression.

The Federal government has failed to combat predatory foreign trade practices aimed at undermining U.S.producers in their home market. Perversely, Washington has responded to these failures by encouraging U.S. manufacturers to supply our market from low-cost third world production platforms like Mexico and China.

USBIC’s action plan for saving and reviving U.S. industry incorporates recent policy lessons that Americanssimply can no longer afford to ignore. First, while our regulatory and tax systems have unnecessarily raiseddomestic business costs, the fundamental cause of the manufacturing crisis is the cumulative and continuing impact of two decades of misguided, ill-advised, and weak-willed US trade and globalization policies.

Second, the United States will always have more control over its own actions than over those of other countries. Therefore, the key to reversing manufacturing’s decline lie in America managing its own behavior and controlling access to its own market, unilaterally conditioning that access on a strategic analysis of its own national needs and on acceptable practices by its trade partners.

Finally, we must recognize that promoting open markets and economic growth abroad will not alone cure U.S. manufacturing and rebalance America’s trade accounts

.USBIC’s manufacturing restoration plan emphasizes short-term emergency measures for reversing domesticmanufacturing’s decline and laying the foundation for its revival. But it also includes longer-term proposals toinsure that U.S. trade and globalization policies do not revert to the practices that produced today’s crisis.

EMERGENCY MEASURES

1. To energize the national will, issue a presidential declaration of an American manufacturing andoutsourcing emergency stemming from foreign protectionism and the offshoring emphasis of U.S. trade policy.

2. To mobilize the U.S. government, launch an Apollo-type national effort to restore American domesticmanufacturing to world leadership and boost manufacturing employment and wages.

3. To slash the trade deficit, impose a Trade Equalization Tariff targeted on countries running large, chronictrade surpluses with the United States. Grant exceptions only for energy products and non-native commodities with no acceptable domestic substitutes.

4. To refocus U.S. trade policy, declare a moratorium on all current and future trade talks pending development of a new trade strategy by a national commission fully representative of the domestic economy and society.

5. To preserve U.S. sovereignty, declare a moratorium on U.S. compliance with WTO dispute paneldecisions pending fundamental reform of WTO by Jan. 2006. Withdraw from the WTO if deadline is not met.

6. To fix NAFTA, declare a moratorium on U.S. compliance with NAFTA panel decisions pendingfundamental reforms, and increase NAFTA’s rules of origin and external tariffs to provide genuine preferencesfor goods with high levels of North American content.

7. To empower U.S. trade laws, make anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases easier to win; extendprotections up and downstream from immediately affected industries.

8. To stabilize world currency markets, impose stiff tariffs on countries that manipulate currencies for tradeadvantage; broaden Treasury Department’s unrealistic, narrowly technical, definition of manipulation.

9. To strengthen national security, impose a 65 percent domestic American content requirement on allmilitary procurement, rising to 80 percent in five years and 95 percent in ten years.

10. To keep more U.S. tax dollars in the U.S. economy, require 50 percent domestic American content for all civilian federal procurement, rising to 80 percent in five years and 95 percent in ten years.

11. To buttress the U.S. defense-industrial base, impose stiff tariffs on countries that use commercial ordefense offset arrangements to steal defense-related production and jobs from U.S. workers.

12. To ensure food safety, require strict Country of Origin labeling for all food and agricultural imports.

13. To raise wages for the working poor and recent immigrants, limit legal immigration to 500,000 a year.

14. To stimulate new domestic high tech industries, triple federal research and development spending andoffer matching grants to industry.

LONGER-TERM MEASURES

1. To keep trade policy on the right course, insist that all future trade agreements be strictly reciprocal,fully enforceable by the U.S. government, and immune to currency manipulation.

2. To ensure sustainable trade balances, focus future trade agreements on high-income countries capable ofconsuming U.S. exports, not low-income, third-world countries that can only serve as re-export platforms.

3. To prevent a major policy conflict of interest, transfer responsibility for monitoring and enforcing tradeagreements from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office to the Commerce Department.

4. To preserve the integrity of U.S. trade policymaking, enact strict foreign lobbying reform, including alifetime ban on working for foreign interests for all former senior Executive and Legislative Branch officials.

5. To better inform policymakers and the public, publish more timely and comprehensive foreign trade andinvestment data, with a special focus on outsourcing activities by multinational companies.

No one should assume that implementing USBIC’s manufacturing revival plan will be pain-free. Sometemporary slowdown in U.S. and global growth rates seems unavoidable. Thanks to 30+ years of recklesslyexpanded international trade and investment, pushed by economic ideologues and multinational companies,saving U.S. manufacturing will require serious restrictions on trade and investment flows.

Yet the alternatives now being proposed are policies that are already proven failures or simply wishful thinking.

Permitting the manufacturing crisis to fester will only increase the economic dangers facing America and theworld. The solution cannot be left to Washington policymakers and elected officials. They have demonstrated that they do not grasp the magnitude of the problems, and they are bereft of comprehensive solutions. They prefer only cosmetic changes, designed to relieve political pressure and ensure reelection.

Impetus for new policies must come from domestic manufacturers, their employees and communities, whichare experiencing first-hand the economic disruptions caused in large part by globalization.

Grass roots efforts must force Washington to change two generations of misguided trade policies. The time for action to save American manufacturing has long since passed. Very soon there will be little left to save.

For the complete USBIC manufacturing plan, visit http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/ website.

Frost Family wins Health Care Heroes Award

Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers, presented the Frost family of Maryland with the Health Care Heroes Award at its recent annual Health Action conference. This award, given by Families USA for only the second time, recognizes the Frost family’s courage and determination to stand firm in their support of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) despite false accusations and vicious attacks on their family by conservative commentators and bloggers.

“The Frost family deserves this award because they’ve shown all of us through their personal experience that they are true heroes,” said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA. “They stood together to tell their story publicly in an effort to show the importance of the CHIP program for their family and families like them.”

In 2004, the CHIP program played a vital role in Graeme’s recovery from a terrible car accident that caused severe brain trauma. Graeme was in a coma for a week and remained in the hospital for five months, where he had to undergo intensive therapy to learn how to walk and talk again. His sister Gemma, who was also in the car, sustained severe injuries, including a cranial fracture. She is now blind in her left eye and has difficulty with memory, learning, and speech.

In late September 2007, 12-year-old Graeme Frost of Baltimore delivered the weekly Democratic radio address and urged the President not to veto a bipartisan bill that would reauthorize the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and expand it to cover millions of uninsured children.

Graeme’s radio address aired on stations across the country. About a week later, the family fell victim to what became a baseless, all-out smear campaign by right-wing bloggers and critics of the CHIP program. These “critics” criticized the Frosts, misconstrued their circumstances, and insisted that they were too wealthy to receive coverage through CHIP, despite already being deemed eligible by the state of Maryland.

During the time that the children were hospitalized, the Frost family relied on CHIP. Because of their experience, Bonnie and Halsey Frost decided to come out in support of CHIP and share their story about how the program helped their family.

Instead of arguing over the merits of the CHIP program, conservatives attacked Graeme and his family. Soon, news of the Frosts and the conservative assault spread across the nation through the media and countless blogs.

Despite false accusations and vicious attacks on their family, the Frosts did not waiver. They stood by their support of the CHIP program and health coverage for America’s children. Bonnie Frost said, “The whole point of it for me was that this program helped my family, and I wanted it to help others.”

“Graeme and his family had the strength to speak out and the courage to do what was right,” said Pollack. “That’s why we are proud to recognize them at our annual conference with the Health Care Heroes Award.”

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
http://www.familiesusa.org/

Congressional Democrats join challenge to DC gun ban

Democratic Senators Max Baucus of Montana, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia have joined in signing a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a federal court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's handgun ban. Sixty eight Democratic members of the U.S. House signed the brief initiated by the office of Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas. The Bush Administration has filed an opposing brief seeking to overturn the District Court's affirmation of Second Amendment rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/07/AR2008020703689.html

Majority of Hill Stands Against D.C. Gun BanMembers to File Friend-of-the-Court Brief in 2nd Amendment Case Before Justices

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, February 8, 2008

A majority of the Senate and more than half of the members of the House will file a brief today urging the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), who led the effort to file the friend-of-the-court brief, said her staff could not find another instance in which such a large portion of Congress had taken a position on an issue before the court."This court should give due deference to the repeated findings over different historical epochs by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, that the amendment guarantees the personal right to possess firearms," their brief contends.

"The District's prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable." District of Columbia v. Heller, scheduled for argument March 18, offers the Supreme Court a chance to settle years of debate over whether the Second Amendment -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- guarantees an individual right to possess firearms or a "collective" civic right related to military service.

Last spring, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the right is an individual one, and because handguns should be considered "arms," it is unconstitutional to ban them. The District has the nation's most-restrictive law.

The Bush administration, in a brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, said such a categorical approach could endanger federal gun control measures, such as a ban on private possession of new machine guns. Clement proposed that the court recognize an individual right but send D.C.'s law back to lower courts to determine whether it is an unreasonable restriction.

Hutchison and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who spoke at a Heritage Foundation event yesterday, said the court could find D.C.'s law unconstitutional without another trip through the courts and without endangering Congress's ability to pass other gun control legislation, such as banning assault weapons.

All Senate Republicans except three -- Virginia's maverick Sen. John W. Warner was one of the missing -- signed on to the brief. Nine Democratic senators -- Virginia's other maverick, Sen. James Webb was among them -- joined the effort.

The total was 55 senators and 250 House members, 68 of whom were Democrats.Webb campaigned in 2006 as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Warner said in a statement he stayed out of the case because of respect for home rule. "While the District of Columbia is not a state, it operates under a framework of laws enacted by the Congress which gives its elected leaders the duty to advocate the positions and interest of its citizens before the federal judiciary," he said.

Virginia will file with a large number of other states on behalf of those challenging D.C.'s law. Maryland has joined a smaller group of states urging the court to reverse the lower court's opinion, and the state's two Democratic senators did not join Hutchison's brief. The House voted to overturn the D.C. ban in 2004, but supporters failed to muster enough votes in the Senate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

House Democrats standing up for the right to keep and bear arms are listed below:

Representative Jason Altmire (PA)

Representative Michael A. Arcuri (NY)

Representative Joe Baca (CA)

Representative Brian Baird (WA)

Representative John J. Barrow (GA)

Representative Marion Berry (AR)

Representative Sanford D. Bishop (GA)

Representative D. Daniel Boren (OK)

Representative Leonard L. Boswell (IA)

Representative Frederick C. Boucher (VA)

Representative F. Allen Boyd, Jr. (FL)

Representative Nancy Boyda (KS)
Representative Dennis A. Cardoza (CA)

Representative Christopher P. Carney (PA)

Representative A. Benjamin Chandler, III (KY)

Representative Stephen Cohen (TN)

Representative Jim Cooper (TN)

Representative Joseph D. Courtney (CT)

Representative Jerry Costello (IL)

Representative Bud Cramer, Jr. (AL)

Representative R. Enrique Cuellar (TX)

Representative Artur Davis (AL)

Representative Lincoln E. Davis (TN)

Representative Peter DeFazio (OR)

Representative John Dingell (MI)

Representative Joseph. Donnelly (IN)

Representative Chet Edwards (TX)

Representative Brad Ellsworth (IN)

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ)

Representative Kirsten R. Gillibrand (NY)

Representative Barton J. Gordon (TN)

Representative R. Eugene Green (TX)

Representative Stephanie M. Herseth Sandlin (SD)

Representative Brian M. Higgins (NY)

Representative Baron Hill (IN)

Representative Paul W. Hodes (NH)

Representative T. Timothy Holden (PA)

Representative Steven L. Kagen (WI)

Representative Paul Kanjorski (PA)
Representative Ronald Kind (WI-3, D)

Representative Nick Lampson (TX)
Representative Timothy Mahoney (FL)

Representative James C. Marshall (GA)

Representative James D. Matheson (UT)

Representative D. Carmichael McIntyre, II (NC)

Representative Charlie Melancon (LA)

Representative Michael H. Michaud (ME)

Representative Harry E. Mitchell (AZ)

Representative Alan B. Mollohan (WV)

Representative John P. Murtha, Jr. (PA)
Representative James L. Oberstar (MN)

Representative Solomon P. Ortiz (TX)

Representative Collin C. Peterson (MN)

Representative Earl R. Pomeroy (ND)

Representative Nick J. Rahall, II (WV)

Representative Silvestre Reyes (TX)

Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez (TX)

Representative Michael A. Ross (AR)

Representative Timothy J. Ryan (OH)

Representative John T. Salazar (CO)

Representative J. Heath Shuler (NC)

Representative Zachary T. Space (OH)

Representative John S. Tanner (TN)

Representative Gene Taylor (MS)

Representative Timothy J. Walz (MN)

Representative Charles A. Wilson (OH)