A dispatch from TIME’s Sophia Yan:
“Congress, We Are Watching You!” was scrawled across handmade signs, bobbing above the heads of the few hundred rallied by Health Care for America Now to show support for a public option. “We need a public option, not a stock option,” shouted one woman. Some came out to support family
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There aren’t many Democrats that would be willing to take on their own White House on the sensitive topic of czars – especially since the mere mention of the word by virtually any elected official sends Fox News in paroxysms. Russ Feingold weighed in a couple of weeks ago. And today at 2:30pm, Senate Homeland Security and Government …
$609,000 a day. That’s how much the drug and biotech companies have been spending to influence Congress in the health reform debate, more than any other industry. So it’s no surprise that they have been extraordinarily successful.
In the upcoming issue of dead-tree TIME, Michael Scherer and I look behind the scenes at the fight over …
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just told reporters that he will not be moving Senator Debbie Stabenow’s 10-year, $247 billion freeze on doctors’ Medicare payments. He said he thought he had the votes – and was promised Republican 27 votes from the AMA – but has since realized he doesn’t. “I don’t bring anything to the …
The $247 billion bribe bill to help the nation’s doctors may be stalling out on the Senate floor this week (here’s my story). But Dems have won at least one concession from the group: an agreement not to push for the inclusion of medical liability reform in the broader bill. From Rebecca J. Patchin, M.D., board chair of the AMA:
Yup, he’s one of those 60 crucial votes on health care. And like most of his colleagues, he’s got some demands. Gotta love this AP lede:
WASHINGTON – For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn’t be refused, won’t soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining
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The Republicans’ famed discipline is cracking. As Politico’s Lisa Lerer and Manu Raju reported this week, Lindsey Graham’s wheeling and dealing on global warming. And, of course, Olympia Snowe is the lady of the hour, week and month on health care (as much as Nancy Pelosi downplays her importance).
How does the GOP prevent …
The first day of negotiations to merge the Finance and HELP bills is now underway downstairs in S219 of the Capitol Building – just past the bathrooms off the Senate floor (I’m in the third floor press gallery). At the antique-looking wooden conference table: Harry Reid (at the northern head of the table) flanked by Chris Dodd and Max …
That didn’t take long. Susan Collins is signaling she’s open to voting for health care reform if Dems can “fix the flaws” in the bill…
So, four months after its first deadline, the Finance Committee is finally done. Now the spotlight turns to Harry Reid. The fates must have some small sense of irony to burden the largest bill of just about anyone’s career (unless you’re Bobby Byrd and were here for the passage of the Civil Rights Act) on the most vulnerable 2010 …
Olympia Snowe didn’t make a liar out of Max Baucus, who had been predicting for months that he would have at least some GOP support when passing his health care reform bill out of the Finance Committee (all along most of us read this as one person: Snowe). For the chairman this must be a huge relief. But Snowe made it clear that her …
A day after surviving a GOP-sponsored vote to take away his House Ways & Means gavel, Charlie Rangel was again in the news. The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to expand their investigation to Rangel’s personal disclosure forms. Earlier this year, Rangel quietly amended these forms, reporting an additional $600,000 in income …
