Health Care

Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.), the moderate Democrat who’s been a loud critic of her party’s plan to create a public insurance option, is warming to the proposal, Roll Call reported today.
“The president was right to move us in the direction of finding a way to turn this cost curve down. We cannot accomplish any of [...]

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who last month salvaged the Children’s Health Insurance Program in the Senate’s health reform bill, just issued a statement condemning the House legislation for proposing to terminate the program.
“As health reform moves forward, we need to make sure children can keep their CHIP coverage and not be forced into untested private [...]

By calling for the end of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, House Democratic leaders have put themselves in the uncomfortable position of claiming that the program they fought so hard to preserve and expand in recent years is no longer worth keeping around. At least one Republican lawmaker is calling them out on it.
Rep. [...]

The threat from moderate House Democrats to derail health reform legislation over abortion funding concerns is a problem that can be worked out this week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Tuesday.
“We are still working on that,” Hoyer said, “but I am reasonably confident. I have talked to people who have varying views [...]

Nine months ago, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were all celebration as they hailed the renewal of the program. Last week, they called for its demise.

Via TPM, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) took to Fox News this morning to plug the anti-health care reform rally — which she referred to as “the Super Bowl of Freedom” — she is organizing in Washington with the corporate-funded, small-government group Americans for Prosperity. After the rally — which is scheduled for noon Thursday on [...]

Not even nine months after President Obama, with much fanfare, signed into law a five year, $33 billion reauthorization of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, House Democrats have proposed to dismantle it.
Under the $894 billion health reform legislation that House leaders unveiled last week, CHIP would cease to exist at the end of 2013, [...]

After three weeks of stalling over controversial amendments to legislation extending unemployment benefits, Senate GOP leaders are floating a new message as they criticize the way Democrats have managed the process: they’re trying to paint the unemployment insurance debate as a kind of forewarning of what might happen as the Senate moves to health reform [...]

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) was none too happy when House leaders stripped his single-payer provision from their $894 billion health reform proposal. Today, he’s urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to reinstate it.
“Like many other important reforms included in the underlying bill, the Kucinich amendment is the object of attack by the insurance industry,” Kucinich [...]

That’s the message coming from Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). According to The Hill, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee told reporters today that, “Unless there are major problems I would expect the opportunity for amendments to be very limited, if at all.”