The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged senate finance committee

Grassley Warns: Immigration Bill With ‘Amnesty’ Has Little Chance

By | 01.05.10 | 2:51 pm

Yesterday, reports emerged that liberal Democrats won’t push too hard to assist illegal immigrants under health care reform as long as the White House commits this year to separate immigration reform complete with a plan to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in More…

Grassley Wants ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Audit

By | 01.05.10 | 1:01 pm

Concerned that last summer’s $3 billion Cash-for-Clunkers program might be rife with waste and fraud, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, is asking administration officials today for an accounting of where exactly all of that money went. Specifically, Grassley wants to know how much of More…

Baucus: CHIP Expansion Was Highlight of the Decade

By | 01.04.10 | 5:58 pm

Last year’s expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program was the legislative high point of the last decade, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, told Montana’s Great Falls Tribune.

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the expansion of the Children’s

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Who Struck That Deal With Big Pharma Anyway?

By | 12.17.09 | 12:50 pm

While we’re on the topic of that $80 billion deal struck between Democratic leaders and the nation’s drug makers, it’s worth clarifying how it came to be. Many in the press have reported that the deal originated in the White House, which is perfectly understandable because More…

How Quickly They Forget

By | 12.01.09 | 8:58 am

Republican leaders in the Senate on Monday asked the top actuary at the Health and Human Services Department for a cost analysis of the Democrats’ health-care reform proposal. That would be exactly as dry as it sounds except for this: the actuary, Richard Foster, is the very same official muffled More…

Grassley Goes After Proposed Medicare Payroll Tax Increase

By | 11.24.09 | 11:53 am

It was inevitable that conservatives would attack the Senate health care reform legislation over the proposed o.5 percent hike in Medicare’s payroll tax for the country’s highest earners. Now they’re drilling down into the specifics.

Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, More…

A Sweetheart Deal for Big Business

By | 11.17.09 | 12:16 pm

As we mentioned here last week, the recently passed jobless benefits extension, though packaged as a boost for Main Street, provided many times more funding to the nation’s businesses, including the largest corporations. Specifically, the law allows companies to recover already-paid taxes by applying More…

Grassley Flips on Health Insurance Mandate

By | 11.12.09 | 5:20 pm

Here’s Sen. Charles Grasssley (R-Iowa) in June, telling Fox News that requiring people to buy health insurance is a good idea, analogous to states requiring drivers to purchase car insurance:

There isn’t anything wrong with it, except some people look at it as an infringement upon individual freedom.

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Rockefeller: Proposal to Repeal CHIP Is ‘Harmful’ and ‘Intolerable’

By | 11.04.09 | 3:17 pm

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 More…

Nine More Dems Urge Wyden ‘Free Choice’ Proposal

By | 10.30.09 | 2:39 pm

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 More…