The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged public plan

Clyburn: ‘The Senate Is Not the Only Game in Town’

By | 12.17.09 | 4:48 pm

As the Senate continues to slog toward an agreement on health care legislation, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) had a terse reminder for upper-chamber leaders: the House is a force in this debate as well. From his interview with CNN’s “Newsroom:”

The thing that’s a little bit

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Plenty of Barriers to That Senate Public-Option Deal

By | 12.09.09 | 12:34 pm

Democratic leaders have been busy patting themselves on the back this morning following the tentative deal struck last night between liberal and conservative Democrats over how to approach the public option. Details remain purposefully thin while the Congressional Budget Office crunches the cost estimate, but the More…

UPDATED: Senators Reportedly Reach Tentative Deal to Drop Public Option

By | 12.08.09 | 8:35 pm

Breaking news from The Associated Press:

Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from healthcare legislation.

No further details were immediately available.

Lieberman Loves the Spotlight

By | 12.08.09 | 1:16 pm

A few months back, Nate Silver pondered the motivations of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), pointing out that the impetus behind the senator’s staunch opposition to a public insurance plan doesn’t seem to fall into any of the traditional categories.

This week, Lieberman confirmed Silver’s suspicion that the Connecticut More…

Lieberman Leaves the Public Option in Doubt

By | 11.24.09 | 8:57 pm

Public option supporters who have looked at TWI’s Senate Public Option Scoreboard in the past few hours are probably dismayed to see that the math simply doesn’t add up for passage of health reform legislation with a government-run health insurance plan. That’s the result of comments today by Sen. More…

Brown Predicts Success of Public Option

By | 11.23.09 | 3:51 pm

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 More…

Breaking Down the Senate Health Plan Numbers

By | 11.19.09 | 9:20 am

Now that the veil has been lifted, here are a few of the important numbers surrounding the Senate’s health reform bill, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office.

  • $848 billion: Ten-year cost of the proposal, all of it offset by revenue increases and budget cuts elsewhere.

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Who Benefits Most From Health Insurance Reform?

By | 11.12.09 | 1:15 pm

Not the blue states.

There are roughly 46 million people living in America without health insurance coverage, representing about 15 percent of the nation’s population, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. But they aren’t distributed evenly around the country.

Ben Nelson: A Man of the People?

By | 11.11.09 | 12:06 pm

As Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) marks his line of opposition to a public insurance plan in the Democrats’ health reform bill, it’s worth noting that no industry has given more to Nelson’s congressional career than the insurers. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, insurance More…

Ben Nelson: I’ll Block a Health Care Bill That Includes a Public Option

By | 11.11.09 | 9:55 am

Sen. Ben Nelson, the conservative-leaning Nebraska Democrat, vowed to filibuster health reform legislation if it includes a public health insurance plan, ABC News reported yesterday.

“Well, first of all, it has more than a robust public option,

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