Look at these clowns. Big picture? Not on your life. No wonder the insurers and employers and unions can run circles around them:

-Employers would be required to provide an unpaid "reasonable break time for nursing mothers" in the first year after giving birth. Women would be provided a private place, other than a bathroom, to use a breast pump. The provision exempts companies with fewer than 50 workers if the requirement would impose "an undue hardship," a determination left to the employer to make.

-The Senate wants to help with a provision allocating $400 million from 2010 to 2015 to help teens make the transition to adulthood. The money goes to states primarily to set up sex education programs. But the money can also be used for "adult preparation" programs that promote "positive self esteem, relationship dynamics, friendships, dating, romantic involvement, marriage and family interaction."

In addition, the programs can teach financial literacy and other skills such as goal setting, decision-making and stress management. About $10 million of funding would go to "innovative youth pregnancy prevention strategies" in areas of the country with high teen birth rates.

The Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training funding was approved as an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine joined all the Democrats in passing it.

-Retiree who are under 65 but who still get health insurance from their former employer get a $10 to $15 billion a temporary "reinsurance" program under which the government
would pick up 80 percent of some high-cost insurance claims filed by retirees. (!!!)

-Raising the payment for bone density scans is a priority for two senators whom Reid hopes to win over in his bid to get 60 votes for his health care plan: Blanche Lincoln, a moderate Democrat from Arkansas, and Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine.

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I noticed that all the pro-government people didn't bother to comment on that exemplar of the government-industry interface. Once again:
eHealth
"Sapsford . . . made headlines last month after the Star revealed his nearly $500,000 a year salary was funnelled through Hamilton Health Sciences to skirt government pay guidelines for senior bureaucrats."