* The Obama Administration will post its own health care plan online by Monday morning. It will reportedly include at least an outline of what could be passed via reconciliation in the Senate.
* I remain very skeptical that a final Democratic bill, even one passed via reconciliation, will include a public option. For some Democrats in …
The plot thickens. Greg Sargent catches that Chuck Schumer just signed on to the push for Senate Democrats to pass a public option via reconciliation. (See my earlier very skeptical post on this topic in which I agreed with Sargent that Schumer’s support for the idea is meaningful.)
And the AP is reporting that the White House will …
I’m not a fan of making health reform-related predictions – especially after the Scott Brown election – so I won’t say No. But I am comfortable saying that it’s EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY unlikely.
But hey, you can’t blame public option devotees for trying. Sixteen Democratic senators and 119 House Democrats have now signed freshman …
I could have written any number of headlines about a health care poll released this week by Zogby International and the University of Texas Health Science Center. Like most of the polls done in the past year related to health care, there are an infinite number of story lines that could be pulled out to prove an infinite number of …
If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to use reconciliation to pass health care reform, a bipartisan summit notwithstanding, they will need 50 motivated Democratic Senators to do it. Those 50, plus a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Joe Biden, could allow the Senate to pass a set of budget-related modifications to its current bill. …
The White House just released details for the Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit President Obama called for. (h/t Greg Sargent) Here are the invitees and here is a letter about the format, in which Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says that before the summit, “we will post online the text of a proposed health …
News broke overnight that Billy Tauzin, the Democratic congressman turned Republican turned lobbyist, was stepping down as head of the the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Tauzin led the group when it struck a mid-2009 backroom deal with President Obama and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. The deal, …
Talking Points Memo, a progressive outlet, is taking quite a bit of joy in House Minority Leader John Boehner wondering if President Obama’s upcoming health care summit will be simply a “political event.” Under the headline, “Boehner: How Dare Obama Televise The Health Care Debate After I Demanded He Televise The Health Care …
Perhaps to President Obama’s relief, Republican health reform plans are the ones being scrutinized now, in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan summit on health care that the president called for over the weekend.
* David Herzenhorn of the New York Times sees a way that the summit could be useful, informative and game changing…if …
As Karen just noted, in an interview with Katie Couric that aired just before the Superbowl, President Obama called for another bipartisan meeting on health care. After being pummeled by accusations of back-room deals and sharp partisanship, Obama said he would convene a half-day meeting where Republicans and Democrats would be able to …
CORRECTION: The original version of this post said that MSNBC acquired Alaska state e-mails related to Todd Palin. It was msnbc.com.
After a long public records fight, msnbc.com finally got the goods on Todd Palin’s role in the Alaska state government when his wife was governor. About 3,000 pages of e-mails just released show that …
Here’s the latest on the health care front:
* Speaking at a fundraiser last night, President Obama made another strong pitch for health care reform, this time with some more details on his preferred pathway and timeline.
* But at least one observer thinks the big news is that Obama acknowledged the possibility that health reform …
The New Yorker’s Atul Gawande wrote one of the most influential stories about health care in 2009. The piece, published in June, was about geographic disparities in health spending, specifically why McAllen, Texas is one of the most expensive places in the country to get medical care. The article raised so many vital questions about …