Health Care Summit – Excerpts of Opening Remarks
This video highlights President Obama's opening remarks at the White House health care summit.
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This video highlights President Obama's opening remarks at the White House health care summit.
Democrats can't use reconciliation to pass a bill until they end disputes within their own ranks.
To get health reform passed, Democrats could use a process called budget reconciliation, which allows them to advance the bill with a simple majority. Republicans say the process was not designed for such a large bill, but reconciliation has often been used to move major health policy.
With comprehensive health care legislation foundering, House Democrats are turning to a narrower piece of legislation they hope has populist appeal: repealing the antitrust exemption for health and medical liability insurers. Policy makers disagree on the effect the repeal would have.
A Center for Public Integrity analysis shows that more than 1,750 a diverse list of companies and organizations hired about 4,525 lobbyists to influence health reform bills in 2009.
Three veteran state insurance commissioners said they'd welcome federal advisory help, but draw the line at giving the government authority over rates, a power they say states should retain exclusively.
Just days before a bipartisan White House summit on health care, President Obama unveiled a proposal that closely tracks the Senate-passed health legislation with some modifications.
Just days before a bipartisan White House summit on health care, President Obama unveiled a proposal that closely tracks the Senate-passed health legislation with some modifications.
Read the full text of President Obama's health care proposal, which he will bring to his Thursday health 'summit' with Congressional leaders.
President Obama has scheduled a bipartisan summit for Feb. 25 to discuss ways to pass health care overhaul legislation this year. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders in both chambers are trying to resolve differences between House and Senate-passed health care bills and make progress on the issue once lawmakers return from the President's Day recess.
Twenty-seven years ago, President Ronald Reagan and a Congress split between Republican and Democratic control agreed to a radical new payment scheme for Medicare. The resulting legislation trimmed billions of dollars from the federal budget and caused medical inflation to plummet, yet still maintained quality of care.
As health care legislation falters, health groups worry that proposed spending cutbacks might be used to narrow the budget gap, not expand coverage.
The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, several senators who now oppose an individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it. In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea.
Too many Democrats seem not to grasp the choice before them - the legislation simply has too much to offer to believe for a minute that doing nothing is the better choice.
As a part of our "Are You Covered?" series, KHN and NPR also examine how the health overhaul would impact the uninsured.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that President Obama's Feb. 25 bipartisan summit is to "get Republicans to re-engage in the process. It is not acceptable that half the legislative body pushed away from the table months ago and said 'we do not want to participate.'"
For most of last year, Republicans spent their time attacking Democratic plans for reform, rather than describing their own. But now they've put a plan on the table. Showcasing that plan--and comparing it to what the Democrats have proposed--might help clarify a few things.
With health care legislation stalled, the GOP is touting its plan which includes allowing Americans to buy health coverage from another state. Democrats include a version in their bills. Critics say this would erode consumer protections.
It's not that President Obama and his advisors don't recognize their budget problem. They speak frequently about the dangers of business as usual. The problem is that the president's stated solution will never work.
With health care legislation stalled, the GOP is touting its plan which includes allowing Americans to buy health coverage from another state. Democrats include a version in their bills. Critics say this would erode consumer protections.
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