health care reform

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Fat Chance Lawmakers Will Read Health Bill: Hoyer

(Newser) - House lawmakers may well be be voting before the end of summer on a momentous health-care reform bill. But that doesn't mean they're actually going to read the bill. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer laughed off the suggestion when CNS News posed it. “If every member pledged to not...

Abortion Could Kill Health Reform

(Newser) - Could abortion be the hidden trap that kills health care reform? Federal regs already prohibit the use of Medicaid money for the procedure, but 19 anti-abortion Democrats got in front of the issue last month, Time reports. They sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi warning that they won’t support...

Health Reform Must Pass the Test of Prostate Cancer

Efficacy should trump novelty in care choices

(Newser) - Forget public options and universal mandates. The real litmus test for health care reform is prostate cancer testing, writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times. Treatments for the disease range in cost from a few thousand dollars to more than $100,000. "You can probably guess which treatments...

Reid Pulls Plug on GOP-Friendly Health Plan

(Newser) - Harry Reid yesterday pulled the plug on painstaking efforts to win bipartisan support for health care reform, telling Max Baucus to drop a proposal, aimed at wooing Republicans, that would tax health benefits and leave out a public insurance option. The Senate majority leader told Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman...

Public Option 'Negotiable' in Health Reform: Emanuel

Obama OK with trigger backup to private plans

(Newser) - President Obama wants a public health care option, but he’s not married to the idea, Rahm Emanuel tells the Wall Street Journal—as long as real competition is somehow injected into the insurance market. “The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private...

Hospitals Agree to $155B in Future Savings

Will accept lower payments for Medicaid, Medicare

(Newser) - The nation’s hospitals have struck a deal with White House and Senate negotiators that will save the government $155 billion over 10 years, the Washington Post reports. The hospitals will accept lower-than-expected Medicare and Medicaid payments, and a gradual reduction in the amount paid to help care for the...

Krugman: Yes, We Can Afford Health Care
Krugman: Yes, We Can Afford Health Care 
OPINION
Jul 6, 2009 9:43 AM CDT

Krugman: Yes, We Can Afford Health Care

Kennedy-helmed HELP committee delivers feasible, cheap plan

(Newser) - The Congressional Budget Office has spoken: We can afford universal health care. Sure, we should have known that all along, writes Paul Krugman of the New York Times. Every other advanced country has it and spends less than we do. But last week the notoriously tight-pursed CBO scored a proposal...

Ex-Lawmakers Lobby Hard for Health Industry

Medical interests shelling out $1.4M a day to limit reform

(Newser) - The health care industry is making a record-breaking lobbying push to shape and soften health care reform, the Washington Post reports, laying out $1.4 million a day on an army of some 350 former Capitol Hill staffers and members of Congress. Three of every four health care lobbying firms...

Obama to Lefties: Don't Bash Health Care Moderates

President urges advocates to promote his health care agenda instead

(Newser) - President Obama wants his liberal allies to stop heckling moderate Democrats on health care, the Washington Post reports. “We shouldn’t be focusing resources on each other,” Obama said in a phone call with a handful of senior House and Senate lawmakers. Grass-roots groups have been slamming legislators...

Senate Dems Shave $400B Off Health Care Bill

Plan charges employers who don't insure, has gov't option

(Newser) - Senate Democrats outlined a revised health care bill last night that lops $400 billion off the price tag of an earlier trillion-dollar proposal. The plan trims costs, the AP reports, by including a government-run insurance option to compete with private insurers and charging employers $750 annually for each employee not...

Health Insurance No Guarantee Against Ruin

Three-quarters of those bankrupted by medical costs were insured

(Newser) - As lawmakers weigh health-reform plans, it’s becoming increasingly clear that just having coverage won’t necessarily protect individuals from financial disaster, the New York Times reports. Some three-quarters of those bankrupted by health care costs were insured at the time of their ailment. “Underinsurance is the great hidden...

Wal-Mart Backs Plan to Make Employers Provide Coverage

(Newser) - President Obama has a big new supporter in his push for health-care reform: Wal-Mart. The nation's largest private employer reversed course today and told the White House it supports the idea of requiring large employers to provide health insurance to workers. Most large corporations, along with the US Chamber of...

Dems Put Pragmatism Before Policy
Dems Put Pragmatism Before Policy
OPINION
Jun 30, 2009 8:56 AM CDT

Dems Put Pragmatism Before Policy

Desperate to pass bills, Congress quick to forgo ideals: Brooks

(Newser) - The Democrats learned lasting lessons from the Clinton health care battle: Let Congress, not the White House, write the bills; don’t try to fight the corporations; and avoid failure at all costs. As a consequence, writes David Brooks in the New York Times. the party has taken a “...

Forget Bipartisan Backing for Health Care Reform Bill

(Newser) - Barack Obama can keep up the bipartisan talk, but it looks like Democrat-sponsored health care reform legislation in Congress has very little chance of winning meaningful GOP support, per the New York Times. GOP lawmakers are balking en masse at the provision for a public plan to challenge private insurers,...

Baucus Hustles Health Industry for Savings

'Shakes down' docs, hospitals, pharma to help trim cost of plan

(Newser) - Max Baucus is “shaking people down” to pay for health care reform, one industry insider tells Politico, pressuring hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors to find savings. “They’re playing hardball, and they’re serious about it,” the insider says. The drug maker trade group PhRMA has...

Obama Needs to Toughen Up on Health Care: Krugman

President is dooming reform effort with 'giveaways': Krugman

(Newser) - Barack Obama loves to talk about his post-partisan approach to politics, finding common ground on domestic policy and bringing Republicans into his fold. But on many issues Obama "searches for common ground where none exists," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes, and the resulting bills are far...

On Health Reform, Obama Should Heed His Doc, Not AMA

Medical association is wrong yet again: Kristof

(Newser) - Its membership may abide by the Hippocratic Oath, but the American Medical Association is definitely doing the public harm in its opposition to meaningful health care reform, writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. The AMA has become infamous for its lousy political stands: it supported segregation, backed tobacco,...

Ex-Exec: Insurers Rip Off Customers
Ex-Exec: Insurers Rip Off Customers
Jun 24, 2009 8:10 PM CDT

Ex-Exec: Insurers Rip Off Customers

Senate panel hears of junk policies, efforts to dump sick peope

(Newser) - In the latest battle in the public vs. private health insurance debate, private insurers took a beating today on Capitol Hill. The gist, as presented by a Senate report and testimony from a former PR executive: Insurance companies routinely make consumers pay for bills the companies themselves should cover, sell...

Public Option Pivotal to Health Reform: Reich

Obama can't give in to critics

(Newser) - As wrangling over health care reform drags on, President Obama is putting the idea of a public option on the back burner. But public competition would drive private plans to offer better, less expensive care, cutting the massive costs that are hindering progress, writes Robert Reich in the Wall Street ...

If Health Care Push Fails, Blame Dems
If Health Care Push Fails, Blame Dems
OPINION
Jun 22, 2009 10:48 AM CDT

If Health Care Push Fails, Blame Dems

Public wants a public option; why do 'centrists' oppose it?

(Newser) - Now ought to be a good time to reform health care. With costs up and coverage down, polls show the public overwhelmingly favors change. Unfortunately, “a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it’s 1993,” writes Paul Krugman of the New York Times. These...

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