Last week could have turned out quite differently for the Obama administration, but in the end it wasn't the disaster I thought it was going to be.

On the climate change front, the President was able to secure an 11th hour deal between India, China, and South Africa to join in with a basic framework for the reduction of emissions worldwide.  The agreement is not legally binding and some would call the entire conference a failure, however for the first time the largest economies in the world have acknowledged that there is a problem and they are willing to work on it.  I think if anything positive can be taken away from this meeting is that the hardest part is over, there is consensus on the problem and hopefully the next meeting in Mexico City will bring further global cooperation.

For the President, it's possible that he was able to save the languishing Climate legislation in the Senate.  The Senate has been extremely sceptical of the proposed Cap and Trade legislation, arguing that they couldn't proceed without assurances from major economies like China, India, and the many poorer third world nations struggling to industrialize could be counted on to play ball.  Although the Copenhagen conference didn't result in a legally binding agreement, the framework for transparency of calculating emissions, as well as the commitment to keep global temperatures from rising under 2 degrees Celsius, and a visible commitment by China to invest in green technologies should be enough to spur movement on Climate legislation in the Senate. 

The second possible disaster during the week was the floundering Senate Healthcare bill, and if you may recall earlier in the week, the Democrats were scrambling to secure 60 votes for cloture so that they could end up voting on the bill on Christmas Eve.  In the end Senator Ben Nelson (D-NB) agreed to support the bill and be the 60th vote, after negotiating what will almost certainly be controversial for years to come.  The Senator was able to add language into the bill that would exempt the entire state of Nebraska from being required to pay for any expansion of Medicare of Medicaid costs forever.  Additionally, he added language which will force those who buy health insurance to pay a separate fee for abortion coverage so that public and private funds can be separated to make sure the no public funds go to subsidizing abortions.  There is already language on the books as part of the Hyde amendment which prohibits federal tax dollars from subsidizing abortions and the new language is being called unconstitutional by some Pro Choice groups so expect future cases heading to the Supreme Court if this language survives the merge between the House and Senate bills.

The CBO released its estimate on the new amendment, released last night by Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to the overall bill, and has found that it will lower the deficit $132 billion between 2010 and 2019.  Additionally, the CBO estimated that in the decade after the next, as long as the bill doesn't change significantly, it will lower the deficit a further $1 trillion dollars over 10 years.  Don't be fooled however, there is a long way to go before any bill will pass as there are still a lot of negotiations to be had, but for now it seems like the Presidents agenda to lower costs is moving in the right direction.

Now on to what's in the bill generally speaking, and one major victory for those interested in the rights of consumers was the addition of the so called Patients Bill of Rights, which would prohibit insurance companies from dropping your coverage for a pre-existing condition and adds, through a mandate, an estimated 30 million people to the health insurance rolls, covering an estimated 94% of American citizens. 

Is it perfect?  No, but it's promising news for the Obama administration. 

Are all those interest groups involved going to be happy? No, but that's probably a sign that something is moving in the right direction.