olympia snowe

The Democrats’ plans to overhaul the nation’s dysfunctional health care system took a giant step forward Tuesday when the Senate Finance Committee passed a $829 billion proposal designed to expand coverage to millions of uninsured Americans while reining in runaway health care costs.
The vote was 14 to 9, with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) the only [...]

The wait is over. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) just announced that she’ll support the $829 billion health reform bill soon to be voted on by the Senate Finance Committee.
“I do it with reservations,” she said, citing some of the most controversial provisions, including a broad Medicaid expansion and penalties to be applied to those who [...]

There’s a great deal of focus on Sen. Olympia Snowe this week as the Finance Committee inches its way closer to a vote on health reform legislation, but the Maine Republican gave no clues in this morning’s opening statement about whether she’ll support the proposal.
Instead, Snowe used her initial five minutes to voice concerns about [...]

With so much speculation on whether Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) will support the health reform bill finalized by the Senate Finance Committee last week, the world might be surprised to learn that some panel Democrats are also wary of the legislation. Yet Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have both “refused to pledge [...]

A little after midnight, nearing the end of yesterday’s marathon health reform debate in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) had the stage, and the audience fell strangely silent. Rockefeller talked about his experiences as a VISTA volunteer in Appalachia decades ago; he talked about the destitution and absence of health care in [...]

After seven long days of partisan haggling, the Senate Finance Committee early Friday morning wrapped up its debate on the panel’s sweeping health reform legislation, including a last-minute deal to ease the penalties on those who fail to comply with the requirement that nearly everyone buy health insurance.
Coming into the day’s debate, the bill would [...]

In a perfect display of how much of the Senate Finance Committee’s public debate over health reform is really not public, the panel this afternoon approved — without discussion and without a roll-call vote — a controversial amendment granting states the flexibility to drop some Medicaid patients after 2010.

Among the most contentious questions facing Senate Finance Committee members this week revolves around how much flexibility the states should have to set their own Medicaid eligibility under the Democrats’ sweeping health reform proposal. While it’s often discussed that the bill, written by Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would open Medicaid coverage to most everyone [...]

There were 564 amendments filed to the enormous health reform bill being considered this week in the Senate Finance Committee. This morning — 26 hours after the debate began — the panel is still arguing over the first.
A provision sponsored by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) would force committee leaders to draft legislative language — in [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed Tuesday that the Senate this year will consider controversial legislation allowing Americans to buy their prescription drugs from abroad, where they sell for much less than they do domestically.
In a Sept. 22 letter to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Reid promised that [...]