Talking Points Memo reports that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, says Republicans are close to supporting Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill. “We’re very close to a deal and there…
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 muzzled by the Bush administration in 2003 when Democrats asked for a similar examination of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit — an unfunded initiative that Republicans rammed through Congress in order to solidify the seniors’ vote in the run-up to the 2004 elections.
With the nation’s insurers having dropped their support for the health reforms moving through Congress, Senate Democrats are taking daring steps to rally the backing of another powerful medical lobby: doctors.
For Erinn Ackley, it was her father’s insurance company denying claim after claim for a bone marrow transplant to treat the leukemia that eventually killed him. For Mark Gendernalik, it was his insurer’s agent refusing referrals for diagnostic tests for his three-month-old daughter, who was suffering seizures. And for pediatrician Mel Stern, it’s been a decades-long scuffle with insurers over claims payments — a battle that’s forced him to stock his office with folks dedicated solely to the task of paperwork-shuffling and claims-haggling.
Arguing that the town hall forums of August have “changed the direction” of the health care reform debate, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), said Thursday that he nonetheless expects a bill to pass before Christmas — though it “may…
The Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock was trailing Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) as the senator made appearances across the state to talk about health care. Hancock reported yesterday afternoon that, at a rally in Winterset, Iowa, Grassley — the ranking Republican…
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