tom harkin

Just hours after Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced that he’d whip “aggressively” for the public option if the House includes it in its reconciliation bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., killed the idea. The Washington Post quotes Pelosi saying today that the public option won’t be a part of the health reform legislation the lower chamber [...]

WASHINGTON– Last week, as House Democrats took to the floor with near-unanimous praise for legislation to help the unemployed and stimulate the fragile economy, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) offered a wildly different message.

“This bill,” he said, “represents a textbook example of how not to deal with the economic challenges that our country faces.”

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.

At a fundraiser in Iowa Sunday, the new chairman of the Senate health committee, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, declared that a health-reform bill would pass both houses of Congress “by Christmas” and that it would include a government-run, not-for-profit health-insurance plan.
“Mark my word — I’m the chairman — it’s going to have a strong [...]

As stress in the farming sector rises across Colorado and nationwide, some mental health professionals are hoping the federal government will step in to fund mental health services through the 2010 Farm Bill.

But proponents of the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network have just one last chance to convince Congress to fund — and not just authorize — a comprehensive mental health program for the agriculture sector. Its passage looks doubtful at best.