House Minority Leader John Boehner, borrowing a tactic from the health care wars of 15 years ago, has put together an arresting graphic “to expose the truth about the Democrats’ health care plan to the American people.” Over at TNR, Jon Cohn has responded with one that looks at how things work now. I’m posting both of them below. Which is scarier?
Health Care
Bargaining Chip
Drudge is going purple-apoplectic about the looming Nationalization or perhaps Government Takeover of health care and all the–red alarm bell here–taxes and–another alarm bell–public options that will surely destroy free enterprise–no, freedom itself!–as we know it…in other words, he and his Republican friends are rabid crazy …
Ted Kennedy’s Health Bill
There was more than little poignance in this statement that was just issued from Hyannis Port. It concerns something that happened minutes ago in the historic Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building:
Health Reform and Abortion (Cont’d.)
Last week, I wrote a story about how the question of abortion coverage is complicating the House’s efforts to write a health reform bill. It has also arisen in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. If you watch this clip, which our friends at the C-SPAN Video Library provided me, you can see how tricky this question …
Health Care: Back to the Drawing Board
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus had hoped to be unveiling a bill around now, but instead is looking for ways to fill a gaping funding hole on the order of $300 billion or so over the next 10 years. That’s because Majority Leader Harry Reid has told him that his original plan to tax high-end health benefits–a proposal that …
Health Reform and Abortion
A tricky question for those who are drafting the legislation.
Health Care: Most Important Meeting to Watch Today
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is meeting with Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley and other key Republicans at 12:30 EDT. Time is running out against a self-imposed deadline to pass health care legislation by the August recess. Reid’s message, I am told, will be that Democrats are getting impatient with the mixed …
Rahm Emanuel: Ready to Deal on a Public Plan
Over and over again, President Obama has expressed his commitment to the establishment of a government-run “public plan” as part of health reform, saying it is needed to keep the pressure on private insurance companies. Just as often, we have pointed out here that this kind of general statement can mean a lot of different things to …
A Senate Committee’s Health Reform Bill
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has been struggling in the absence of ailing Chairman Ted Kennedy, has put out a full version of a health reform bill that solves many of the problems of its earlier versions and trial balloons. This amounts to enormous progress, largely creditable to Connecticut Senator …
Should Obama Be Fighting the Last War on Health Care? Or the Next One?
The old rule of thumb in journalism is that it takes three to make a trend. So I think we have a trend here in the question being raised by Jonathan Cohn, E.J. Dionne, and, today, David Brooks. Brooks concludes:
The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an
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