I guess it would be cruel for any of his fellow Senators to walk up to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and say "Heck of a job, Billy" in response to the resounding thud made by his 'Health Care Week' when it hit the floor of the Senate last week -- but I would pay to hear one of them say it.

With great fanfare, Frist brought three major pieces of legislation to the Senate last Monday and all three of them were dead by the end of the week. With results like that, the Tennessee Republican should be the odds-on favorite to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) when he retires from the Senate at the end of this year.

The first two bills, S. 22 and S. 23, which were gifts to the insurance industry disguised as malpractice litigation reform, died in less than one day when they failed in a cloture vote (to end debate) and were effectively withdrawn. Both pieces of legislation would have severely limited damage awards on all malpractice suits, with S. 23 capping awards specifically on obstetrics and gynecology cases.

'Health Care Week' ended on Thursday when a bill sponsored by Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY), that would have allegedly lowered the cost of small businesses providing health care to employees -- but at the expense of watering down care so much that the insurance would have been practically worthless -- was also defeated by Democrats in a failed cloture vote. Democrats said the proposal would have harmed as many people as it would have helped and the bill was opposed by over 200 health care advocacy groups such as the American Cancer Society.

The week ended without anything of substance being done to help the 46 million Americans who live every day with no health insurance whatsoever.

"To think with American consumers paying over 3 dollars for gas, with college tuition moving beyond the reach of many in the middle-class, with the Iraq war dead approaching 2,500, with immigration a security crisis unresolved, with our country’s deficit standing at 9 trillion dollars, with 46 million Americans lacking health care coverage, we are moving to bills that are unnecessary and go nowhere," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) .

"These two bills are put here as a result of the insurance industry and don't represent a serious attempt to improve health care or the civil justice system in our country."

And The Rich Get Richer…

The Senate also voted last week to provide $70 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, thus extending still further the first time in the history of the United States that tax cuts have been given so extensively in a time of war. The cuts, which focus on large cuts to tax rates on dividends and capital gains, are tilted heavily in favor of the wealthy and provide little tax relief to middle and lower-income Americans.

The measure passed 54-44, in what was an almost exclusively party-line vote.

“Bush’s tax plan offers next to nothing to average Americans while giving away the store to multi-millionaires," said Harry Reid. "The tax reconciliation bill giveaway on capital gains and dividends will do much more for ExxonMobil board members than it will do for ExxonMobil customers. Their tax plan takes the country in the wrong direction.”

Clinton Presents Bill to Give Stipend to Surviving Parents of War Dead

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) introduced legislation that would provide a small monthly payment to surviving parents -- known as "Gold Star Parents" -- of members of the Armed Forces who die in Iraq or Afghanistan. S. 2785, which would provide a $125 per month payment to the parents of those killed, has been referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Interesting, but I'd bet a month's pay that Larry Craig (R-ID), the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee makes sure this bill never sees the Senate floor again. Craig will not want his GOP colleagues put in the uncomfortable position of voting against it and showing, yet again, how little they truly support the troops and their families.

Whining Republican Hypocrite of the Week

Of course, it had to be Frist, who is a leader in the same Republican party that has done nothing as seven million more Americans lost health insurance since 2000 and now claims that he feels the pain of the common folk.

"Without health, one cannot do very much in life. We need that healthy body, that healthy mind for being able to be productive," said Frist in closing out his week of bogus health-care initiatives. "The Democrats chose to obstruct on motions to proceed [on the GOP bills] so we could not fully debate those issues. To me, it is a disappointment. It means millions of people will have access to health care that is not as affordable as it might be or they have no access at all, especially those with small businesses."

Yes, this is the same Senate Majority Leader who has done nothing about health care during his tenure -- and, yes, the same guy who pushed through the hideous bankruptcy bill that barred people driven to financial ruin by catastrophic medical bills from bankruptcy relief.

Coming Up This Week: The immigration fight returns, though it appears that Frist and Reid may have hammered out a compromise that may productively address undocumented workers already in the United States.

Stay tuned…

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com