ron wyden

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 [...]

Anticipating that the debate over reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act will soon come to the Senate floor, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday asked Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify key information about how the law’s “business records provision” has been used. They last sent a classified [...]

Few lawmakers on planet earth have pushed more persistently for health care reform in the past decade than Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). And although Wyden’s own enormous blueprint for a health system overhaul was largely ignored through this year’s debate, the Oregon Democrat has had a great deal of luck tweaking the Senate bill to [...]

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 [...]

Here’s a quick wrap-up of today’s health care news.
After a tumultuous week that saw the release of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-Mont.) long-awaited “Gang of Six” compromise health care reform bill, all eyes turn to gang-member Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who is almost certainly the only Republican on the committee — indeed, in [...]

It read to me yesterday like the torture documents requested in the Senate intelligence committee’s intelligence authorization bill were probably documents from the CIA supporting the dubious proposition that torturing detainees yielded valuable intelligence. But it’s unclear — they’re, of course, still classified — and some progressive senators, like Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Russ Feingold [...]

More on that new provision in the intelligence authorization bill pushing disclosure on the efficacy of torture. The measure was proposed by Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) to counter the Obama administration’s portrayal of torture as ineffective, and particularly in light of the release of the Justice Department’s 2002 and 2005 memoranda justifying its use. In [...]

Via Roll Call, a bipartisan group of senators on Friday urged Democratic leaders to slow the pace of the health reform debate to ensure that the final product actually reins in long-term health care spending.
“While we are committed to providing relief for American families as quickly as possible,” the lawmakers wrote, “we believe taking additional [...]

When the White House economic team last month rejected a Senate-passed stimulus amendment that would have taxed bailed-out companies at 35 percent for 2008 bonuses, sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) vowed he’d be back later for another try.
Today, he made good on that promise.

The finance industry might be floundering, it might be broke, and it might be ringing the tin cup for federal help. But don’t say Wall Street has lost its sway over lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Congress agreed on a final stimulus plan yesterday, but not before stripping out a provision forcing bailed-out banks to repay 2008 [...]