health care reform

After roughly 12 hours of debate — and no absence of GOP stalling — the House late last night passed an $894 billion proposal that would forever change the way the nation’s health care system operates. The vote was 220 to 215 in the lower chamber, where only a simple majority is required to pass [...]

Flush off of the upset Democratic victory in NY-23, which he had a big hand in, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, is demanding that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) apologize for sponsoring Thursday’s anti-health care reform rally, which brought to the hill signs comparing health reform to the Holocaust.

In a six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the health insurance lobby reiterated today that it won’t be supporting the $894 billion reform bill scheduled for a floor vote tomorrow, according to reports.
No shocker here. America’s Health Insurance Plans has long feared the consequences to business if Congress created a public insurance plan [...]

After months of insisting that single-payer health care receive at least a vote on the House floor, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has decided not to offer the provision at all, according to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Here’s Waxman’s statement on the decision:

Here’s some video from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) anti-health care reform tea party on Capitol Hill today. Bachmann distributed copies of the health care bill and implores protesters to each take a page and go ask a member of Congress to explain it to them. Later, crowds chant “Throw the bums out!” and taunt House [...]

It was widely reported that the corporate-funded, small-government, anti-health care reform group Americans for Prosperity was helping to organize Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) Tea Party at the Capitol today. ThinkProgress has video of AfP workers handing out signs and talking points to the Tea Partiers the group shuttled in from other areas. According to one [...]

In a letter today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest doctors lobby, announced its support for House Democrats’ proposed health reforms. But there’s a catch. Namely, AMA isn’t offering its outright support for the $894 billion proposal — the one that’s getting all the media attention. Rather, the group [...]

The House is poised to vote this weekend on an enormous proposal to overhaul the nation’s health care system, yet it remains unclear whether Democratic leaders will allow lawmakers to offer amendments on the chamber floor.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday morning that she hasn’t reached any conclusions. “We may not have any amendments,” [...]

We weren’t the only folks curious about the morning’s claim from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) that the GOP’s health reform bill covers more uninsured Americans than the Democrats’ proposal. The fact checkers at Media Matters were also left scratching their heads, and here’s what they found.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) just took to the House floor to decry the Democrats’ health reform bill because, she said, it would leave too many folks uninsured. She must not have read the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the GOP’s legislative alternative, which, CBO found, would leave 52 million nonelderly Americans uninsured in 2019 — [...]