The Senate is planning to vote this evening on a slightly modified version of Monday’s defeated bail-out bill. They’ve added a couple of things.
The bill adds new provisions – including raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000 from $100,000 – and will be attached to an existing revenue bill that the House also rejected Monday, according to several Democratic leadership aides. [Snip…]
The revised bailout bill also includes a “Mental Health Parity” provision, which would require health insurance companies to cover mental illness at parity with physical illness.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I mean… I like apples as much as the next person, but weren’t we talking about grapes?
(More about that unrelated legislation apple here.)
Update: Now that the bill is available online, I’ve expanded rather a lot on this post at The Moderate Voice.
The raise in the RDIC insurance limit makes sense as it is designed to keep people from making a run on the banks in a panic. I’m not sure whey the mental health provision, maybe it is a sop to the progressives the way the tax breaks are a sop to the GOP.
I’m just waiting for them to toss in the kitchen sink, for good measure.
I’m also waiting to hear back from you on RenFest. Which day do you want to go out there for Oktoberfest?
~EdT.
I think there should be provisions in the bill for reparations to citizens from Ike and any other natural disaster that is not covered by an individual’s insurance, FEMA, or ANY imaginable coverer. Come to think of it, I believe they should include cost of living increases for Social Security retirees that adequately reflect actual increases in the cost of living. Also included in that bill should be deliciously more than adequate funding to partially or even totally offset the costs for windmills, offsanddune drilling in the Sahara, street and sidewalk repair in Podunk (IA), and blue Buick LeSabres.
And all this time I thought ‘If I ever get more then $90k in one account, I’ll open an account at a different bank so that the FDIC will insure all my money. Plus what are the odds that both banks have problems at the same time?’.
Here is an idea someone suggested:
Have the Gov buy $X worth of each risky mortgage from the loan company, but under the agreement that the intrest on the loan becomes 5% APR. The company gets it’s money now, the goverment gets paid back with interest over time, and the taxpayer gets to keep their house.
It is investing in taxpayers and banks at the same time.