Here's the nightmare: The House passes the main Senate bill first, locking in (at least temporarily) the Cornhusker kickback, the Cadillac tax, etc. The House passes the reconciliation fix and sends it to the Senate. But in order to get sufficient votes for it in the House, the leadership has to...
Read more »
The abortion "handshake deal" that Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer struck with Ben Nelson was a bad one. Via TWI, Sara Rosenbaum, a health policy expert George Washington University, released her analysis on the Nelson amendment, and concludes that it could lead to insurers dropping : Taken together, the provisions of the...
Read more »
As far as anybody knows, Harry Reid is the only person who knows what went to CBO to be scored, and what's in the manager's amendment. Given what he had slipped into the merged bill--that provision that allows annual limits (neither the HELP nor Finance committee bills left that door open to insurers,...
Read more »
Filed under: Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Abortion, Health Care, The CapitolistSen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, plans to introduce an anti-abortion amendment to the Senate health care reform bill.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he expects a measure later this week that is similar to the House amendment, which restricts direct or indirect...
Read more »
Have you heard this one yet? That the Senate public option requires a "monthly abortion fee"? Apparently, Boehner claims on his blog that "a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan" under the Senate bill. Here's what RHRealityCheck has to say about the fiction, and the...
Read more »
The extreme abortion language included in the House bill has been left out of the Senate bill, in favor of a provision that more closely tracks with the Capps amendment that was originally included in the House bill, only to be replaced by the Stupak Coathanger amendment, as well as used for the original...
Read more »
Like most anti-choice efforts we've seen come out of Congress and state legislatures in the past 30+ years since abortion was legalized, Stupak's Coathanger amendment is another attack on the practical side of the issue: on access. Rather than going for Roe and actually proposing something that could result in it's being overturned, he's...
Read more »
One of the statics that's been tossed out quite often since the House passed the Stupak amendment is this one, here used by E.J. Dionne at TNR. Whatever else is true, Stupak's amendment is unlikely to have a significant effect on the availability of abortion, since most abortions are not paid for...
Read more »
As you may recall, 176 Republicans voted "Aye" for the Stupak-Pitts coathanger amendment this week. Only one GOP vote was contrary, and it was a "Present." Pretty solid Republican opposition to providing a level playing field for all women when it comes to obtaining a medical procedure that has been legal for 36...
Read more »
So Joe's at it again, being with us on everything that matters, except the war and comprehensive healthcare reform. BTW, he's still lying about it. Ezra's much nicer about it, saying that maybe Lieberman has some special knowledge about how the public really will increase the deficit, while every economic analysis complete says the...
Read more »
TweetMeme – Political News