Health Care Reform

Health Care Reform News

ER docs would get bulletproof lawsuit immunity, under Senate bill
A Senate committee advanced a controversial bill that would give emergency room doctors immunity from major lawsuits – even in cases of gross negligence. Approved on a 5-2 vote in the Health Regulation Committee, the bill would cap damages from lawsuit awards at $200,000 per incident for doctors, nurses and EMS personnel involved in ER cases.

Obama seeks to push healthcare to final vote
Although much uncertainty remains on the path to passage of the legislation, Obama opposed Republican calls to throw out broad bills passed by the House of Representatives and Senate last year and begin again with a more step-by-step approach.Americans are waiting for the administration to lead, Obama said in remarks at the White House backing a muscle tactic known as "reconciliation" as a way of overcoming rock-solid Republican opposition.

Fighting to protect tort reform laws
The movement to enact and preserve effective medical liability caps suffered a high-profile loss when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the state's noneconomic damage cap was unconstitutional. Justices on Feb. 4 said the 2005 law limiting damages to $500,000 for physicians and $1 million for hospitals violated the separation of powers between the Legislature and the judiciary. The Litigation Center of the American Medical Association and State Medical Societies and the Illinois State Medical Society jointly had filed a friend-of-the-court brief, urging the court to uphold the cap.

Pelosi: New Health Care Bill Will Be Ready in Days
President Obama will soon propose a health care bill that will be "much smaller" than the House bill but "big enough" to put the country on a "path" toward health care reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama's proposal likely will be introduced on Wednesday and will address both process and substance.

White House unveils compromise health care bill
The Obama administration raised the stakes in the health care debate Monday, releasing a new blueprint that seeks to bridge the gap between measures passed by the Senate and House of Representatives last year. If enacted, the president's sweeping compromise plan would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago. The White House said it would extend coverage to 31 million Americans.

Medical Insurers Slam Proposed Supervision
The Obama administration's proposal to create a federal body to oversee insurance premiums drew fire Monday from insurers, which contended it would do little to contain spending and could ruin some companies. The plan, which Mr. Obama hopes to include as part of his health-care overhaul, would create a new agency to be called the Health Insurance Rate Authority to review premium increases and block those it deemed unreasonable. That would add federal supervision to a patchwork of state insurance regulators that examine premium increases

Reid tries to resurrect public option
Ahead of next week's White House health reform summit, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has signed on to a plan to try to resurrect the public insurance option in the Senate and signaled a willingness to use a 51-vote majority if needed to get it through.Reid's announcement came as the White House went ahead with plans to craft its own health reform proposal ahead of the summit, a plan that could pass with 51 votes in the Senate, bypassing the threat of a Republican filibuster, according to Democratic officials.

Krugman Don’t Know Health Insurance
When I debated Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on health care reform, I asked him if he was familiar with the work of University of Pennsylvania economist Mark Pauly. Pauly is a leader in the economics of health insurance. He and his coauthors have shown that health insurance markets are way ahead of politicians — and way ahead of economists — in solving the problems that bedevil health insurance markets.

Sebelius Issues Sharp Rebuke Against Health Insurance Premium Hikes Across U.S.
News outlets paid close attention to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' release of a new report detailing double-digit insurance premium hikes for individual plans in six states across the country. Her examples included "requests that insurers made to state regulators to raise rates by 56% in Michigan, 24% in Connecticut, 23% in Maine and 20% in Oregon," The Wall Street Journal reports. "With the future of the health overhaul uncertain, the insurance industry finds itself in a delicate position.

No Place To Go: Even Severely Disabled Seniors Would Lose In-Home Care Under Proposed State Budget Cuts
Despite claims that proposed state budget cuts to programs that provide in-home care to disabled senior citizens will not affect those with the highest level of need, a new analysis by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research finds that even severely disabled seniors will experience a total loss of services.

Mass. Governor Wants to Cap Hospital, Doctor Rate Increases
Now that it’s expanded health-insurance coverage to nearly all of its citizens, Massachusetts is trying to figure out what to do about the rapid rise of health costs. The latest proposal comes from the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, who yesterday proposed a bill that would give the state the power to review — and, in some cases, reject — rate increases by doctors and hospitals.

Hawaii considers medical spending threshold for insurers
The chairs of the state House and Senate Health Committees have introduced bills in their respective chambers regulating the medical-loss ratio, the percentage of every premium that a company spends directly on members' care. The proposed law would mandate an 80% medical-loss ratio for individual and small group products and an 85% ratio for large group policies. Health plans also would be required to report their spending to the state each year.

Can the States Nullify Health Care Reform?
On February 1, Virginia joined 29 other states with pending legislation aimed at limiting, changing, or opposing national health care reforms. Timothy Jost asks, what is going on here?

Obama invites GOP leaders to health care talk
In the first major step to revive his health care agenda after his party's loss of a filibuster-proof Senate majority, President Barack Obama on Sunday invited Republican and Democratic leaders to discuss possible compromises in a televised gathering later this month. Obama's move came amid widespread complaints that efforts so far by him and his Democratic allies in Congress have been too partisan and secretive.

Idaho, Illinois allow external review of insurance denials
New laws in two states, Idaho and Illinois, will give patients the right to an independent review of health insurance benefit denials.Only five states now have no laws mandating external review of denials: Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Top Senate Democrat Outlines 'Nuclear Option' Strategy for Health Care
A top Senate Democrat for the first time Tuesday acknowledged that the party is prepared to deal with health care reform by using a controversial legislative tactic known as the "nuclear option" if Republican Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate election. Calling the state's special election "an uphill battle to put it mildly," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said "there are options to still pursue health care" should Democrat Martha Coakley lose to Brown.

California to Set Time Limit to See Doctors
California is poised to become the first state to set time limits for doctors to see patients, the Department of Managed Health Care said. Regulations to be announced Wednesday require family practitioners in health maintenance organizations to see patients seeking an appointment within 10 business days. The deadline for specialists is 15 days. A patient seeking urgent care that does not require prior authorization must see a doctor within 48 hours.

Democrats consider backup plan for health care reform
Faced with the once-unthinkable prospect of losing the Massachusetts Senate race, Democratic officials on Capitol Hill are quietly talking about options for passing health care reform without that critical 60th Senate vote. Top White House aides insist they are not engaging in any talk of contingency plans, because they believe Democrat Martha Coakley will beat Republican Scott Brown in Tuesday's crucial Senate battle.

Organized medicine pushes back on expansions of scope of practice
In 2009, physicians fought a blitz of scope-of-practice expansions by other health professionals on legislative, legal and regulatory fronts.Organized medicine defeated attempts by naturopaths to seek licensure, prevented chiropractors from being able to perform invasive procedures and achieved further regulation of lay midwives. The efforts were among more than 300 scope-related bills the American Medical Association tracked last year.

Obama Health Plan’s Success Rides on Cost Curbs
As Democratic Senate and House leaders privately hammer out a final compromise on their competing versions of health-care legislation, the controversies focus on a government-run option and abortion. These are irrelevant to the important decisions that will affect the credibility and sustainability of the measure.

For health care, a frantic ride in the final days
Like a roller-coaster ride on its last twisting turns, President Barack Obama's campaign to remake health care is barreling into final days of breathless suspense and headlong momentum. Democrats, led by Obama himself, are deploying this weekend to salvage an unpredictable Senate race in Massachusetts, while senior White House and congressional staffers in Washington hurry to finish work on cost and coverage options at the heart of the sweeping legislation.

Differences remain over what health care bill will look like
In the three weeks since the Senate passed its version of health care reform, Democratic leaders, the White House and rank-and-file members of Congress have been working behind the scenes to find common ground between the House and Senate bills. Negotiations are expected to pick up as House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill this week. The Senate is back in session next week.

Another Rank Health Care Deal
What happens when the irresistible force of the Democratic urge to tax runs up against the immovable object of Democratic loyalty to the labor unions? Another ugly deal in a health-care bill that already was a grotesquerie of pay offs to favored politicians and interests. The levy in question is a 40 percent excise tax on high-end employer-provided insurance plans that - typically - has been sold as a tax on "the rich." It's called the "Cadillac tax," a name redolent of corporate executives cackling in their Escalades over their cushy benefits.

AP sources: Employer health mandate may be dropped
House and Senate negotiators working on President Barack Obama's health overhaul bill appear likely to drop a proposed income tax increase on high-wage earners and possibly jettison a requirement for large businesses to offer coverage to their employees, Democratic officials said Tuesday. Negotiators are considering extending the Medicare payroll tax, which now applies only to income from wages, to cover some of the investment earnings of couples making more than $250,000 a year, and individuals earning above $200,000.

Obama Confronts Labor, Lawmakers on Plan to Tax Health Benefits
President Barack Obama, facing growing resistance among Democrats over his support for taxing health benefits, will confront U.S. labor leaders and House lawmakers this week on the issue. Union heads including Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO and Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union will meet with Obama today at the White House. They argue that the proposed tax on family insurance plans worth more than $23,000 would hurt too many workers.

Married Couples Pay More Than Unmarried Under Health Bill
Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress. The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."

Obama Presses House Democrats to Back Insurance Tax
President Barack Obama is pressing U.S. House Democrats to drop their opposition to a tax on high- end insurance plans as lawmakers try to craft a final health- care measure by early next month, a Democratic aide said. The president expressed a preference for a Senate proposal to tax so-called Cadillac plans in a meeting yesterday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top party lawmakers, the aide said. The White House meeting came on the eve of a conference call Pelosi plans for 1 p.m. today with House Democrats.

Health Care Spending Rose at Historically Slow Rate in 2008
Health care spending rose to a whopping $2.3 trillion in 2008 -- 16.2 percent of the nation's economy -- but Americans paid less than one-eighth of the total spending out-of-pocket while government and private insurers split the rest, according to a newly released government report. Spending per person totaled $7,681, with individuals paying roughly $912 of that, according to the report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The government and private insurance companies paid for the remaining costs.

Obama, Dems to sidestep GOP on health care
President Obama gave his blessing Tuesday for congressional Democratic leaders to bypass formal House and Senate talks to meld their health care bills, according to two congressional Democratic leadership sources. The two sources told CNN that Obama and Democratic congressional leaders will instead hold informal negotiations to sidestep possible Republican delays of the process, likely shutting out Republicans from talks on the final health care bill.

GOP pushes to air health bill talks
The top House Republican said Wednesday it would be “a disgrace” if Democrats ignored President Barack Obama’s campaign commitment to broadcast negotiations on the health care bill on C-SPAN. “Let’s be clear,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a news release. “Skipping a real, open conference would shut out the American people and break one of President Obama’s signature campaign promises.”

Democrats begin work to finalize health bill
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders are embarking on the tough work of ironing out differences between the House and Senate health care legislation with the aim of finalizing a bill quickly as midterm elections loom. "Now is not the time to get stuck on any one point," Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., said Tuesday as he headed into a meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders to discuss their priorities for the final bill. "The important thing for us now is to close ranks behind the president and get a bill done."

Senate Likely to Have Edge as Democrats Craft Final Health Bill
Senate Democrats will have the upper hand as U.S. lawmakers return to Washington this month to confront the last major hurdle in the effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. With Democrats in both chambers under pressure to craft compromise legislation, the biggest areas of contention are the different taxes the House and Senate chose to fund their bills, how strictly to bar federal money for abortion and whether to create a government-run program to compete with private insurers.

In Health Bill for Everyone, Provisions for a Few
Early versions of the Senate’s far-reaching health care bill said that small businesses with fewer than 50 workers would not be penalized if they failed to provide insurance. That was before labor unions in the construction industry went to work and persuaded Senate leaders to insert five paragraphs.

Prescription: more doctors
That 30 million Americans may soon be able to obtain health care insurance is at the core of the Senate and House health care bills. But let's be clear: "insurance" doesn't guarantee "care." Indeed, a recurrent theme on the Senate floor last week was that the legislation is giving "bus tickets" - that is, health insurance - to uninsured Americans. But there are no buses running on those routes.

N.J. could be first to target doctors who accept industry gifts
New Jersey physicians would have to refuse lunches from drug reps and publicly disclose any industry payments of more than $200 as conditions of licensure if new recommendations from the state attorney general's office are adopted. The proposals were among 22 recommendations included in a Dec. 3 report to Attorney General Anne Milgram

Medical Malpractice: Why CBO Upped Estimated Savings
Back in September, the Congressional Budget Office raised its estimate of how much money the feds would save if tort law were changed to reduce liability for doctors and hospitals. Even the new, higher estimates don’t suggest that tort changes (such as capping noneconomic damages) would be a silver bullet for health costs; CBO says the changes would lower the nation’s health-care bill by about 0.5%, and reduce the feds’ burden by $54 billion over 10 years.

Nelson's office asked AGs to 'call off the dogs' on health probe
"Call off the dogs" is the message Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D) sent a coalition of Republican attorneys general examining the constitutionality of the Senate's healthcare bill, according to media reports. That request, made by Nelson's chief of staff to South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster on Thursday, arrives just days after 13 states' top prosecutors signaled they would examine the legality of the bill's Medicaid provisions, which in part won Democrats Nelson's vote.

13 state AGs threaten suit over health care deal.
Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska's political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday. "We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Public option may be dropped from final health care bill
House Democrats are signaling that a final health care bill will drop the government-run public health insurance option favored by liberals but rejected by conservatives from both parties. A House-Senate conference committee will begin negotiations next month on merging health care bills passed by the Democratic majorities in each chamber

Top House Democrats Signal Willingness to Drop Government Insurance Plan
Two House Democrats who favor a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, acknowledged Sunday it might have to be sacrificed as negotiators work out a final agreement with the Senate. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the so-called public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.

Report outlines why and how often insurers rescinded coverage
A committee of the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners has released a draft report detailing rescission rates and practices of major insurers across the country between 2004 and 2008. The report comes on the heels of criticism from members of Congress, and years of state regulatory investigations and fines stemming from alleged improper rescissions of individual health policies. The NAIC received data from 49 companies that collectively cover 80% of the individual insurance market. Those companies reported revoking a total of 27,246 policies between 2004 and 2008, at an average rate of 3.7 rescissions for every 1,000 policies issued.

Next step: Turn two health care bills into one
The Senate on Thursday passed its version of the health care bill, inching the country closer to the biggest expansion of medical coverage since Medicare was enacted more than four decades ago. Senate Democrats declared victory after the 60-39 party line vote, but one of the most complicated tasks is still ahead. A conference committee must reconcile the differences -- notably a public option, how to pay for the plan that emerges, and coverage for abortion -- and merge them into one.

Senate approves health care reform bill
The Senate passed a $871 billion health care reform bill Thursday morning, handing President Obama a Christmas Eve victory on his top domestic priority. The bill passed in a 60-39 party line vote after months of heated partisan debate. Every member of the Democratic caucus backed the measure; every Republican opposed it.

Special deals, carve-outs keep health care afloat
Democrats call it compromise. Republicans call it bribery. But both sides agree that special deals are why the Senate is on track to pass a health care bill by Christmas. It wasn't clear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the support needed to move ahead with his chamber's health care bill until Sen. Ben Nelson, the last Democratic holdout, had a change of heart this weekend.

Changes in Senate Bill Give Democrats Little Wiggle Room for House Compromises
The Senate is preparing for another key vote early Tuesday morning on Democratic health insurance reform, putting it one step closer to a final vote on Christmas eve and leaving fewer opportunities for alterations before it reaches President Obama's desk. Finalizing the bill also comes much to the chagrin of Republicans who say President Obama broke campaign pledges by accepting the package.

Emanuel Tests Limits of His Persuasion in Health-Care Overhaul
When Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler saw that health-care legislation unveiled by House Democratic leaders in October threatened to squeeze drugmakers’ profits, he got on the phone with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Kindler was upset that the House measure would require pharmaceutical companies to forgo $140 billion in revenue over 10 years, said a person familiar with the discussion. He wanted assurance from Emanuel that the White House would honor an agreement to limit the drugmakers’ cost to $80 billion. The deal held.

Obama Presses Senators to Defy Past, Vote Health Bill
President Barack Obama and top Democrats said they are on the verge of passing the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health-care system in four decades after making last-minute changes to win over holdouts. “We are on the precipice of an achievement that’s eluded Congresses and presidents for generations,” Obama said yesterday after meeting with Senate Democrats. The bill includes “the most significant reforms to our health-care system since the passage of Medicare.”

Passage of Senate Health Care Bill Could Hinge on Abortion Funding
With Sen. Joe Lieberman apparently on board the health care reform train and the public option off the table, Senate Democrats are turning their attention to what could be the last remaining hurdle to passing a bill out of their chamber -- abortion funding. The abortion issue, and to a lesser extent Medicare cuts, remain major points of contention as at least one Democratic senator -- Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- indicated he'd break from party lines to strike down the sweeping legislation if the bill does not toughen restrictions to ensure taxpayer dollars don't fund

Obama: Health reform at ‘precipice’ of passage
Prodded by President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats won tentative backing from one holdout and worked intensely to satisfy another Tuesday as they grappled with the last, lingering disputes blocking passage of health care legislation by Christmas. Despite the push, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska remained publicly uncommitted — even after a private meeting with Obama.

Window closing for healthcare reform: Biden
Biden was speaking just hours before Democratic lawmakers were to meet at the White House with President Barack Obama, who is pressing them to reach agreement and pass a bill on his signature domestic policy issue. Obama has invested much of his political capital in trying to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a healthcare bill by the end of the year. The bill has been passed by the House of Representatives, but Democrats have struggled to win the 60 votes they need in the Senate.

McCain Takes Center Stage in Health Fight
Sen. John McCain kept a relatively low profile for months after he lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama. Those days are over. In the health-care battle, the Arizona Republican has suddenly emerged as the John McCain of old -- a vigorous political combatant. He has publicly hammered Democratic proposals, engaged in heated exchanges on the Senate floor and lent his voice to automated telephone calls pressuring Democratic senators in Arkansas, Colorado and Nebraska on their looming health-care votes.

Lieberman a major problem for Senate Democrats on health care
A few weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said colleague Joe Lieberman was the least of his problems in passing a health care bill. Today, Lieberman has emerged as the main obstacle to Reid's efforts to get a health care bill through the Senate before Christmas, if ever. An independent from Connecticut who sits with the Democratic caucus, Lieberman ratcheted up his public opposition to the bill Sunday.

Pelosi backs expansion of Medicare in Senate plan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voiced support for one element of the tentative accord -- to expand Medicare, the government health insurance program for those age 65 or older. "There's certainly a great deal of appeal about putting people 55 and older on Medicare," Pelosi told reporters as the Senate conducted its 11th day of debate on sweeping legislation. "That is something that people in the House have advocated for years," Pelosi said.

Obama Praises Senate Deal on Health Bill
A new agreement by Senate Democrats on legislation to overhaul U.S. health care got a blessing Wednesday from the White House."The Senate made critical progress last night," President Barack Obama said at White House event announcing funding for community health care. He praised lawmakers for striking a deal that would scale back a government-run insurance plan and expand Medicare to some people ages 55 to 64.

Health reform bills would set approval path for generic biologics
The two national health system reform bills would provide a first-ever approval process for generic biopharmaceuticals. But the bills also would give more protection to original biologic drugs than that supported by the Federal Trade Commission and proposed by President Obama's 2010 budget. Both the House-adopted health system reform bill and the Senate measure under debate would give brand-name manufacturers of biologic drugs at least 12 years before a competitor could introduce generic versions of the medications.

Senate rejects abortion measure in health bill
Democratic Senator Ben Nelson's amendment to tighten the bill's restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions, identical to a provision approved by the House of Representatives last month, was killed on a 54-45 vote. Without the abortion language, Nelson had threatened he would not back the final healthcare bill when it came to a vote. If he followed through, Democrats would be one vote short of the 60 they need to pass the measure.

Health-Care Bill Breakthrough Eludes Senate After Week of Work
Seven days of debate that stretched through the weekend have left Senate Democrats no closer to passing legislation to overhaul the U.S. health-care system. The lawmakers today plan to debate limits on the use of federal funds for abortion, a major issue dividing Democrats along with whether to create a new government-run insurance program. Behind closed doors, senators working on their own and with Majority Leader Harry Reid are finding compromise elusive.

Senators Push for Amendment to Restrict Funding for Abortion Coverage in Bill
In an effort to erect a wall between taxpayer dollars and abortion coverage, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled an amendment Monday that would place strict limitations on abortion as part of the Senate health care reform bill. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, along with other anti-abortion lawmakers, pushed for an amendment on the Senate floor Monday that would bar any private insurance company that gets federal money from covering abortions.

Obama Pushes Health Care Reform in Rare Capitol Hill Sunday Trip
President Obama appeared on Capitol Hill today during a rare weekend session to urge Senate Democrats to reach a compromise on a health care bill they hope to pass before year's end. Accompanying the president were Vice President Joe Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, White House health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle and White House senior adviser David Axelrod.

Senate debate on health care bill opens with heated rhetoric
The U.S. Senate on Monday opened what is expected to be a lengthy and rancorous debate on a sweeping bill to overhaul the nation's health care system. In statements laced with heated and conflicting rhetoric, Senate Democrats and Republicans outlined opposing positions on the 2,074-page Democratic measure that would provide health insurance to an additional 31 million people at a cost of almost $850 billion.

Senate ‘Horse Trading’ Begins as Democrats Take Up Health Bill
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid begins this week pushing for Democratic unity on health-care legislation, which may mean catering to the whims of 60 lawmakers who know that each of their votes is essential. All 58 Senate Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them backed Reid’s bid to start debate this week. Even so, at least four have said they won’t support the final product without changes, and concessions Reid made to two of them won’t be the last he’s likely to offer lawmakers.

Dems seek deal as Sen. debate begins
After months of buildup, the historic debate on health care reform opens on the Senate floor Monday — but the C-SPAN cameras won’t see the real action. The next phase in the Democrats’ health care push will be waged in the privacy of the Senate leadership office, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will attempt to do something that has eluded him all year: negotiate a compromise on the public insurance option that can garner 60 votes and win over a public still leery of reform.

In health-care reform, no deficit cure
As the long battle over health care is rejoined in the Senate this week, experts remain deeply divided over whether the legislation would rein in soaring health-care costs or simply add millions of people to a system that is already driving the nation toward bankruptcy. Optimists say the $848 billion package drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) contains all the most promising ideas for transforming the health-care system and encouraging doctors and hospitals to work more efficiently.

Senate Dems suggest they're open to altering health care bill
Amid conflicting and heated rhetoric, a political pragmatism began to emerge Sunday as senators prepared for a debate on a sweeping Democratic health care bill. Senate Democrats barely won a vote Saturday night to open debate on the 2,074-page bill. The debate on amending the proposal is expected to last for weeks and won't begin until after Thanksgiving.

Senator Proposes Delaying Health Care Reform to Pay for Afghanistan War
The Afghanistan war could be as much about dollars as sense for several U.S. lawmakers, including one top Republican who says national security is worth delaying health care reforms so Congress can pay for military operations. "The war is terribly important," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. "Jobs and our economy are terribly important.

Plan to Restrict Health Accounts Will Hurt the Disabled, Critics Warn
Families with special-needs children and people with chronic illnesses stand to lose hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in tax benefits under proposed health care reform legislation, critics say, warning that a plan to cap the amount of money people can put into special "flexible spending" health accounts will have "cruel" and "unintended consequences."

AMA meeting: Delegate vote refines AMA stance on system reform
Hours of intense but civil discussion at the American Medical Association's Interim Meeting ended on Nov. 9 with the House of Delegates affirming its support for the leadership's actions on health system reform and strengthening the Association's reform policies. Delegates adopted a 14-part substitute reform resolution that largely reaffirms existing AMA stances.

Democrats Show Signs of Disunity as Senate Health Debate Looms
Democrats who united last week to bring a sweeping health-care plan to the U.S. Senate floor still need to settle disagreement in their own ranks to pass President Barack Obama’s top domestic initiative. Majority Leader Harry Reid won over two holdouts in his party hours before a 60-39 vote Nov. 21, ending questions about whether Democrats could stick together to clear the first hurdle to passage.

Reid Pushes Holdouts to Vote for Health Bill Debate
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to give fellow Democrats details of his proposal to overhaul U.S. health care even as lawmakers raise concerns over issues from abortion to a government-run insurance program. Reid will meet with Senate Democrats at 5 p.m. Washington time and deliver a summary, North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad said.

Senate Still Waiting for Heatlhcare Bill
Looks like CBO is not going to deliver any cost analysis on a healthcare reform bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NE, is trying to bring to the floor this week. He has been going back and forth with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for some time now, massaging the numbers and policy to get a bill and total price tag that his Caucus can swallow.He will need every one of his 60 Democrats to vote to move forward to debate on the bill.

Lieberman Independence Hinders Democrats’ Health-Care End Game
Joseph Lieberman was re-elected to the U.S. Senate as a political independent after Connecticut Democrats snubbed him in 2006. Now, he’s living up to that designation as a potential obstacle to President Barack Obama’s top priority, health care. Lieberman, 67, has clout among Democrats as part of the 60- member party caucus Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to bring his health-care

Health-Bill Battle Won't Get a Recess
The fight over the future of the U.S. health-care system is heading outside the Beltway this week, as groups on all sides take advantage of Congress's Veterans Day recess to put pressure on lawmakers. Conservative groups are using the recess -- one week for the House and three days for the Senate -- to press lawmakers to vote no on the health-care overhaul plans.

First full Senate showdown on legislation could happen next week
The first crucial showdown over health care reform by the full Senate could come as early as next Tuesday. That's when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes the chamber will vote to start debate on health care legislation. Though Reid put the wheels in motion for next week's vote, nothing is guaranteed.

House Democrats Botched Health Care Bill, Republican Says
House Democrats missed opportunities to improve the House-passed health care bill when they rejected Republican ideas to limit lawsuits and give states more flexibility to enact innovative changes, a Republican lawmaker said Saturday. Delivering the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address, Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois said health care costs could be lowered by "reining in lawsuits" and allowing consumers to buy coverage from across state lines.

House, Senate differ sharply on health care reform
Where does the battle for health care reform go from here? More importantly, what does it mean for you? Democrats made history over the weekend when the House of Representatives approved the biggest expansion of medical coverage since Medicare was enacted over four decades ago. President Obama now stands closer to realizing the Democratic dream of universal coverage than any of his White House predecessors since Harry Truman after World War II.

Despite Uphill Climb, Reid Is Poised to Muscle Health Care Through Senate
Under pressure from the White House, Majority Leader Harry Reid says he plans to bring a health care reform package to the floor of the Senate next week, and his goal is to see it passed by the end of the year. But he faces an uphill climb in getting the required 60 votes necessary to start debate. First, Reid is awaiting final word from the Congressional Budget Office on costs and coverage implications of the still-secret bill he submitted more than two weeks ago.

Med school enrollment up, but residency slots remain flat
American allopathic medical schools enrolled 18,390 first-year students for 2009, a 2% increase from last year and a new high, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges.nnFour new medical schools accounted for half of the 2009 increase: FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami; University of Central Florida College of Medicine in Orlando; The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, Pa.; and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine in El Paso.

Obama: 'This is a Health Care Bill, Not an Abortion Bill'
President Obama said today that Congress needs to change abortion-related language in the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives this weekend. "I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama said. "And we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions."

Insurers, Drugmakers Turn to Senate for Health-Bill Changes
U.S. drugmakers, medical-device companies and insurers are gearing up for another chance to make changes to House-passed legislation overhauling the health-care system when the issue moves to the Senate. Drugmakers such as New York-based Pfizer Inc. want to alter a House provision that would put pressure on profits by letting the U.S. government negotiate prescription drug prices for patients in Medicare.

Healthcare measure faces tough path in Senate
After a landmark win in the House of Representatives, President Barack Obama's push for healthcare reform faces a difficult path in the Senate amid divisions in his own Democratic Party on how to proceed. On a 220-215 vote, including the support of one Republican and opposition from 39 Democrats, the House backed a bill late on Saturday that would expand coverage to nearly all Americans and bar insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

AMA Members Will Not Try to Overturn Health Care Reform Endorsement
Members of the American Medical Association disgruntled over the group's backing of the House health care reform bill have dropped their bid to overturn the endorsement, according to one source inside the group. The source told Fox News in an e-mail that some delegates have even become convinced that the bill, which passed by a narrow margin Saturday night, could be good for physicians despite lingering concerns about Medicare cuts.

Health Bill Garners Endorsements
House Democrats' health bill got a boost Thursday with endorsements by AARP and the American Medical Association, which President Barack Obama seized on to push for support with hours ticking down before a scheduled vote Saturday evening on the House floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) battled to gather the 218 votes she needs to ensure passage.

Health care bill ready for full House
House Democratic leaders have put the finishing touches on their health care bill and could bring it to the full chamber as soon as Friday. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, said Wednesday that the bill would probably come to a final vote Saturday.

Health reform bills light on medical liability reform
Medical liability reform so far has been kept out of the health system reform bills pending before Congress. But as merged legislation makes its way to the Senate and House floors, physicians and other advocates continue to push for lawmakers to add provisions that they say would not only ease medical liability pressures on doctors but also reduce costs for the entire system.

Reid indicates timetable for health care may slip
In a blow to the White House, the Senate's top Democrat signaled Tuesday that Congress may fail to meet a year-end deadline for passing health care legislation, leaving the measure's fate to the uncertainties of the 2010 election season. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke as Democratic officials said it could be December before Senate debate begins in earnest on the issue atop President Barack Obama's domestic agenda,

GOP Health Bill Gives Insurers More Leeway
A House Republican health-care bill wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance, Minority Leader John Boehner said Monday. Republicans haven't released full details of the party's bill, but Mr. Boehner said the legislative proposal would be made public in the next couple of days.

Republicans aim for rival health plan in House
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to offer an alternative to Democrats' massive healthcare reform bill that would not raise taxes or require people or businesses to buy health insurance, the House Republican leader said on Sunday.

States likely to shape health reform
The debate over whether to let states opt out of any government-run health insurance plan overlooks a key facet of the health-care measures being assembled in Congress: When Washington is done, the shape of any new health-care system is likely to be finalized in Lansing and Boise and Baton Rouge.

House Health Plan Has Public Option, Millionaire Tax
House leaders unveiled an $894 billion plan to overhaul the U.S. health system by creating a government-run insurance program, requiring employers to cover workers and imposing a surtax on the wealthiest Americans. The legislation comes after three months of negotiations among Democrats and represents the most sweeping health-care changes since the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly.

CBO: Public option premiums higher than private plans
The public insurance option would typically charge higher premiums than private plans available in the exchange, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill. That surprising conclusion raises doubts about Democratic promises that a government-run insurance plan would provide a lower-cost alternative to consumers

House Democrats to unveil health bill
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives finished work on Wednesday on a healthcare bill that includes a government-run insurance plan, requires individuals to buy health coverage and imposes a surtax on the wealthy to help pay for it. The measure, the product of weeks of closed-door talks to merge three pending health bills, will be unveiled by party leaders on Thursday and submitted to the full House for debate as early as next week.

Public Option Back From the Dead?
As ABC News first reported last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is including a new government-run health insurance program, the so-called public option, in the health care bill he will bring to the Senate floor. Such a significant breakthrough greatly increases the chance that the public option, once considered dead in the Senate, will be part of the final health care bill.

Government-Run U.S. Health-Care Plan Gains Support With Opt-Out
Senate Democrats are leaning toward including a government-run insurance plan in a health-care measure that would let individual states opt out, a proposal House leaders signaled would be acceptable. The establishment of the so-called public option to compete with private insurers is opposed by Republicans and has split Democrats.

Dems want faster health bill benefits
Democrats are pushing Senate leaders and the White House to speed up key benefits in the health reform bill to 2010, eager to give the party something to show taxpayers for their $900 billion investment in an election year. The most significant changes to the health care system wouldn’t kick in until 2013 – two election cycles away.

Reid Leads Democrats In Carving Out Favors for States on Health
Nevada would get help with its Medicaid bills. The elderly in Florida and New York would receive additional Medicare benefits. And workers in so-called high-risk professions such as firefighting and construction would get a break on a new insurance tax.

Agency Predicts Health Care Bill Will Cost $829 Billion
A compromise health care proposal widely seen as having the best chance to win Democratic and Republican support would cost $829 billion over the next 10 years, nonpartisan budget analysts concluded Wednesday. It also would reduce the federal deficit by more than $80 billion, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

White House Officials Meet with Senate Democratic Leaders on Health Care
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, along with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and White House Health Policy Adviser Nancy Anne DeParle were just a few of President Obama's advisers who met with Democratic leaders to discuss crafting out a final health care bill.

Unions Spurn White House to Oppose Senate Health Bill
Twenty-seven U.S. labor unions defied White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and announced their opposition to the $829 billion health-care measure passed yesterday by the Senate Finance Committee. The unions say in a full-page newspaper advertisement today that lawmakers need to make “substantial” changes to the bill or they will urge their members to seek its defeat on the Senate floor.

Political Battle Looms After Health Care Bill Passes Key Senate Hurdle
After an overhaul package that was months in the making cleared a major hurdle Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now must grapple with stiff Republican opposition and warring factions among Democrats as they try to bring an acceptable bill to the floor. The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 to send its version of reform legislation to the Senate floor,

Health-Care Plan Future Rests on Snowe, Democrats
The future of U.S. health-care legislation now depends on warring Democrats, number-crunching analysts and, possibly, one senator from Maine. The Senate Finance Committee tomorrow is scheduled to vote on a plan to curb rising medical costs and cover tens of millions of uninsured Americans at a cost of $829 billion over 10 years.

Baucus Bill Gets CBO Nod, Committee Vote Set for Next Week
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus' bill got a thumbs up from the Congressional Budget Office, clearing the way for a committee vote, but health care overhaul is still nowhere near the end of the road.CBO's scoring provided a boost to the momentum, but Democrats still need to iron out key differences among the various bills. The CBO analysis concluded the Baucus measure would come in under budget at $829 billion, and would expand coverage to 94 percent of eligible Americans.

Obama Sees Consensus on Health Care
President Barack Obama said Saturday he's seeing "unprecedented consensus" behind overhauling health care, though he acknowledged continued partisan gridlock in Congress. "The historic movement to bring real, meaningful health insurance reform to the American people gathered momentum this week as we approach the final days of this debate,"

Is the Health Care Public Option Dead?
After months of debate and missed deadlines, the public option has emerged as the main sticking point. From the beginning, some Democrats said they wouldn't pass a bill without a government-sponsored, public option, while other Democrats and most Republicans said they'd say no to any plan that included one

GOP says Obama's tax pledge violated
Senate Republicans accused Democrats of violating President Obama's campaign pledge not to impose new taxes on families making less than $250,000 in order to pass health care reform. They argue that proposed fines for failure to purchase health insurance and a reduction in the tax break available for medical expenses

Baucus health plan attracts no GOP backers
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee released his long-awaited health care reform bill Wednesday morning -- with none of the Republican support backers had sought. The bill also attracted immediate criticism from both liberal and conservative lawmakers

Health Reform: ‘Income Redistribution’ or Safety Net?
Efforts to provide universal health insurance will result in higher premiums for the young and healthy in order to subsidize the older and sicker, according to an op-ed piece in today’s WSJ. Such a move is essentially income redistribution, argue the authors Michael Leavitt, former secretary of Health and Human Services,

Pelosi: House Bill Will Include Public Health Insurance Option
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters at a Thursday briefing that she was glad to see the Senate making progress on its version of health care reform but she emphasized that the House plan would look markedly different - by including a public option.

Health care proposal mandates coverage, drops public option
The seemingly elusive effort to reach a consensus on health care reform got a new boost Wednesday with the launch of a plan believed to have the best hope, thus far, of winning support from centrist Democrats and Republicans. The proposal, crafted by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, would cost $856 billion over 10 years and mandate insurance coverage for every American by 2013. It lacks a government-run public health insurance option favored by most Democrats and President Barack Obama, but contains provisions to meet other major goals for health care reform.

Mandated Health Insurance Squeezes Those in the Middle
President Barack Obama and his congressional allies have made insuring nearly all Americans a major goal of overhauling the nation's health-care system. One of their toughest challenges will be trying to cover people like Ron Norton of Worcester, Mass. Mr. Norton, 49 years old, is an adjunct professor at a local community college who earns about $40,000 a year. He's also one of roughly 200,000 Massachusetts residents who remain uninsured despite a state law requiring residents to have health insurance.

Snowe Urges Obama Drop Public Plan in Health-Care Overhaul Plan
Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine said there is “no way” a health-care overhaul that includes a public option can pass the Senate.

Snowe, one of six negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee, said that to gain more Republican support, President Barack Obama should explicitly drop the idea of a federally backed insurance program to compete with private insurers such as Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc.

Senators Dismiss House Health Plan, as White House Sends Mixed Signals
Top senators on Sunday dismissed the House health care reform plan as too costly and too partisan to advance, pinning hopes for a deal on negotiations in the one Senate committee that has not yet approved a bill.

But the White House would not go so far. It continued to send out mixed signals over whether it believes the most controversial element of the House bills -- a government-run insurance plan -- is politically viable. And the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate seemed to hold out hope that the so-called "public option" has a future in health care legislation.

Will Illegal Immigrants Get Insurance Coverage with Health Reform?
Will or won’t illegal immigrants be insured in a health care system overhaul? The question has come to the forefront since Rep. Joe Wilson’s cried out “You lie!” during president Obama’s health care speech the other night.

Though the answer isn’t entirely clear, the WSJ notes that the House health reform proposal excludes illegal immigrants from the mandate of buying health insurance or paying a penalty. It also denies them the “affordability credits” that would reduce their out-of-pockets costs of buying insurance on their own, but they could participate in the insurance exchange, where individuals and small businesses can shop for coverage. Obama’s plan wouldn’t allow them to participate in the exchange at all, according to the WSJ.

Last Senate panel sets timetable for health care
A leading Senate negotiator acknowledged Wednesday that a bipartisan deal on health care is unlikely, vowing to move ahead on a bill fulfilling President Barack Obama's top domestic priority whether it has Republican support or not.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he will formally introduce his own proposal next week, and convene his panel to begin drafting a bill the week of Sept. 21. He said he believes Congress can finish a bill by the end of the year.