Shrewd politics–or cynical ones? In today’s NYT, David Kirkpatrick shines a light on the secret deal that the Obama White House made with the pharmaceutical industry to keep it at the table in health reform negotiations. It turns out that even as they were applauding their deal to find $80 billion in savings, they weren’t telling us …
Domestic Policy
Health Reform: Euthanasia and Other Rumors
Harold Pollack dispenses with them (and their sources) here.
Re: YouTube Wars…
That “Shock Uncovered” video is from the very same health care forum that I posted about yesterday. And as I noted then, there was indeed a shock — to Obama, who showed up unprepared, and (I am convinced) without any real idea what, specifically, he wanted to do about health care reform.
As I also noted yesterday, that was not the …
YouTube Wars: The White House Vs. DrudgeReport
We live in a land where a person who goes by the name “NakedEmperor” with editing software and a laptop can rattle the President of the United States. On Monday, Matt Drudge began teasing this video on his website, a scattershot work of highly edited oppo.
On Tuesday, the White House hit back hard, with its own YouTube video and a …
Playing Politics With Health Care In Texas
In yesterday’s New York Times, columnist Ross Douthat held up Texas as “model citizen” in this difficult economy. And while I’ll take a back seat to no one in my regard for my home state, I have to take issue with Douthat’s suggestion that President Obama should be looking to Texas as he tries to figure out a way to fix health care. As …
Cash for Clunkers Hits a Rough Patch in the Senate
The House managed to pivot on a dime and quickly pass legislation to expand funding by $2 billion for the surprisingly popular Cash for Clunkers program before adjourning for summer recess last week. The Senate this week is finding such expedited moves rather more difficult. Turns out the program has opponents from both the left and the …
Should Judd Apatow Have Been On TIME’s Cover?
Health care, schmelthcare…
You can read Joel Stein’s profile of Apatow here.
Obama’s Health Care Learning Curve
The Washington Post is running excerpts from Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson’s new book about the 2008 campaign–must-read for political junkies, because the two veteran Washington Post reporters give us a lot of insights from the key players themselves. They also have access to important emails and documents, like Obama political strategist …
Cash for Clunkers?
The House is racing to get outta Dodge this afternoon and despite rampant senioritis on the Hill, Speaker Pelosi kept enough members here long enough to pass H.R. 3435 to provide an additional $2 billion in stimulus funds to the wildly successful cash for clunkers program. The vote was bipartisan, passing 316-109 with six voting present, …
Badda Bam
Sure, last week’s dramatic arrests in New Jersey of 44 people including three mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis wasn’t great news for the already embattled Jon Corzine. On the other hand, Corzine’s pegging his campaign to New Jersey’s economy, so what does he care?
At least someone’s having fun with it:
Health Insurance Reform?
My cover story on health care reform in this week’s TIME focuses in part on this famously eloquent President’s frustration at his inability to come up with a message at a time when, as he acknowledges, public opinion is slipping away from him. (Also, be sure you don’t miss Kate Pickert’s excellent click-through guide of what health …
Re: Not So Fast
Pushback on yet another front: The emerging deal the bipartisan negotiators of the Finance Committee (whom some of their colleagues have begun to refer to as “the Coalition of the Willing“) isn’t going over so well with all the Democrats on the panel.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chairs Finance’s health subcommittee (and who hasn’t …
Not So Fast
Just as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was heading to the mircophones yesterday to announce that “things are looking good” for his group of six bipartisan negotiators, one of those negotiators, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the HELP Committee, was putting out this statement:
Subject: Enzi: Deal Far From
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