Posts by Mike Lillis

Here’s an interesting response from Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, when asked by a reporter this morning whether Congress intends to pay for the wars its launched, or continue to borrow the money and pile onto federal deficits.
Defending America is a number one responsibility and money’s not the first consideration. [...]

The finance industry, seeming to forget that it was responsible for the economic turmoil that’s pushed unemployment above 10 percent, is lobbying furiously (and successfully) against Democratic legislation designed to protect consumers and prevent a similar episode in the future.
Yesterday, industry representatives held a conference call with reporters boasting about just how effective they’re fight [...]

Equating today’s rising credit card rates to usury, several House Democrats today announced plans to introduce legislation capping credit card rates at 16 percent.
“Things were a lot better for the average person in this country when we had usury caps,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), head of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement announcing her bill. [...]

Following in the footsteps of House health care leaders, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, plans to hold a hearing on contentious new recommendations for screening breast cancer, Harkin’s office said this afternoon.
The senator has yet to announce a date, but with the health reform debate likely [...]

A bipartisan group of 22 senators representing are calling on the leaders of the chamber’s health committee to examine the new breast cancer screening guidelines that have ignited a recent firestorm on and off Capitol Hill.
“These recommendations, which have been widely criticized by patients and doctors alike, could prove devastating for women at risk of [...]

It was inevitable that conservatives would attack the Senate health care reform legislation over the proposed o.5 percent hike in Medicare’s payroll tax for the country’s highest earners. Now they’re drilling down into the specifics.
Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the Joint Committee on Taxation to analyze the [...]

In the wake of Saturday’s Senate vote to take up the chamber’s health reform legislation, the focus of the debate has shifted back to the public option, over which no fewer than four Democratic caucus members — Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) — have threatened to [...]

In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) became the latest Democrat to try to divorce the party’s health reform bills from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which issued controversial new guidelines last week for breast cancer screening.
Let’s be clear: the task force’s recommendation will have absolutely no impact on the [...]

Both the House and Senate health reform proposals would force insurance plans to follow the recommendations as part of a minimum swath of services.

Senate Democratic leaders have amended their newly released health reform bill to include a contentious provision allowing some workers to receive cash vouchers toward exchange coverage in lieu of enrolling in employer-based plans. Here’s an explanation from a statement released moments ago by the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.):
Under the Senate legislation as it [...]