West Tennessee Healthcare officials argue that removing the antitrust protection would eliminate their ability to fund certain charitable organizations and health care options by reducing net revenues. The organization is the fourth largest TennCare provider in the state. Officials have said the West Tennessee Healthcare system writes off millions each year in unreimbursed, under-reimbursed and uncollected patient accounts and that losing even a portion of the commercially insured account base could hurt its bottom line. State Rep. Jimmy Eldridge, R-Jackson, said Friday that it is "almost certain" that bills attempting to eliminate the antitrust law will be resurrected this year. Eldridge opposed the legislation last year.

To make Tennessee directly competitive, a new bill awaiting fiscal review in the state House and Senate seeks to protect the state's crew base and attract more production work — or more accurately, keep the state from losing production work. At a moment when new Gov. Bill Haslam is taking some heat for his somewhat amorphous job-creation package, it's a piece of legislation with solid particulars and easily measurable results: If more Tennessee film and TV crew members get work, it's a success.

At first blush, this statute seems to limit the arguments available to borrowers. However, in reality, our experience has been that, unless a borrower could show fraud or irregularities in the sale process, most courts have assumed that the foreclosure sale price was a fair market value. Given this, while the statute might streamline some individual lawsuits, it might not change the result in many cases. We will have to see how the statute is used by parties and applied by the courts.

Obama, who has drawn fire from Americans for bank bailouts that began under Republican President George W. Bush and continued by Obama, said the legislation's provisions make clear that no firm is protected because it is deemed "too big to fail" like AIG during the financial meltdown. "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period," he said. "If a large financial institution should ever fail, this reform gives us the ability to wind it down without endangering the broader economy."

"We want to make sure this disaster never happens again," the Senate majority leader, Harry M. Reid of Nevada, said after the vote. "The solution has to start here." Mr. Reid added, "No more bailouts. No bank is too big to fail."

Democrats already have been asking “when” about the financial regulatory bill far longer than they intended. Their struggle to complete a measure that was expected to pass with wide bipartisan support has become a symbol both of the success of Senate Republican leaders in stalling the Democrats’ agenda and the political gridlock that is likely to persist through the November elections. Mr. Obama had wanted the financial regulation bill completed and sent to him for his signature before Congress left for the Fourth of July recess.

The president argues for more capital in banking – and this is a fine goal, particularly as the Europeans continue to drag their feet on this issue. But how much capital does his Treasury team think is “enough”? Most indications are that they will seek tier one capital requirements in the range of 10-12 percent – which is what Lehman had right before it failed. How would that help?