Henry Waxman

As Washington again debated health reform last week, Coloradans enrolled in insurance giant WellPoint’s Anthem individual group plan reeled from a 19.9 percent rate hike. Indianapolis-based WellPoint levied the double-digit increase here quietly in January, without a sound from Colorado lawmakers. A state insurance commissioner told the Independent he was unsurprised by the increase and “signed off” on it back in September.

Democratic leaders face a major decision now on health care reform– yet another one this year that will throw into relief the interests that compete in American representative democracy. They have to choose between either closing the “doughnut hole” and offering full coverage for millions of low-income seniors on Medicare who need to buy prescription drugs or sticking to a deal they made with the nation’s major drug companies. According to the deal, the government agrees not to use its bulk buying power to lower the cost of drugs, so long as the drug companies dole out $80 billion over the next decade to subsidize health reform.

Controversial Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is hosting a “House Call” urging Tea Party activists to storm the Capitol today to oppose health care reform. The underlying politics of this is simply pathology, says longtime journalist Marc Cooper.

A group of national-security hawks who view the Clean Energy Act as critical to shoring up national defense say they’re determined not to allow the legislation to be pigeonholed as strictly environmental law. They say they’re taking their message across the country to voting districts where constituents rate national security a high priority but where there remains significant opposition to the act — and Colorado could be ground zero for the campaign.

Even as some House Democrats moved closer last week to installing first-of-a-kind limits on the carbon emissions blamed for global warming, others are in a full-court press to kill a separate White House effort to curb those same greenhouse gasses.

WASHINGTON — Even as Democrats in the U.S. House are celebrating their deal with conservative-leaning colleagues on climate change legislation, the real winners under the compromise have been the coal, electric and auto industries, which are largely the source of the nation’s carbon emissions.

Henry Waxman, D-Calif., may not “have the nuts” to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act (at least according to his GOP counterpart on the House Energy and Commerce Committee), but some Colorado environmentalists say the bill itself doesn’t have the teeth it needs to truly transform America’s energy infrastructure.

In Capitol Hill’s Rayburn office building, in the private chambers of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, hangs an enormous satellite photograph of the planet earth. Beneath the picture is a couch, where, according to sources familiar with the committee, long-time Chairman John Dingell is fond of sitting. From that couch, they say, the venerable Michigan Democrat, who has served for 53 years, has been known to point up to the photo and say, “That is the jurisdiction of this committee.”

They might be known best for their anti-marijuana television ads, but the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has gained additional attention from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, amid questions of the office stumping for vulnerable Republican candidates before the 2006 election.

According to a release from the committee today, former White [...]