Health Care For America Now

NEWS

Can Obama overhaul health care? - Associated Press

Now for the hard part.

Even if the national credit card is maxed out and partisanship remains the rule for Washington's political tribes, President Barack Obama and Congress are plunging ahead with a health care overhaul.

Entitlement Reform Means Fixing the Broader Health System - Center for American Progress

Discussing long-term budget challenges earlier this year, President Barack Obama remarked, “Social Security, we can solve…. The big problem is Medicare, which is unsustainable…. We can’t solve Medicare in isolation from the broader problems of the health-care system.”

Obama names nurse to head healthcare access agency - Reuters

President Barack Obama has named a University of North Dakota rural healthcare expert to head the federal agency in charge of improving access to care in the United States, the White House said on Friday.

Health-Care Focus Next for Obama in Speech, Budget Proposal - Bloomberg

With the economic stimulus package signed, President Barack Obama this week will outline how he plans to provide affordable medical coverage for all Americans, an administration official said.

OPINION

Mugging Phil Bredesen - Wall Street Journal

"You have the spotlight shined on you and then come along and get mugged." That's how Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, describes his recent ambush by MoveOn.org after his name was floated as a possible secretary of Health and Human Services.

Whither health-care reform? - Washington Times

As we wrote Sunday: “This week represents a pivot for Mr. Obama, away from a focus on short-term economic problems and toward long-term fiscal problems. President Obama this week will open the debate on how to put the country on sounder long-term budget footing, while trying to pursue his own social programs.”

And now, healthcare - MN Daily

President Obama’s next major task must be an overhaul of our broken health care system.

How Impressed Should We Be with the Kennedy "Consensus?" - Change.org

People are talking about today’s article by Robert Pear of the New York Times on the efforts by Sen. Ted Kennedy and his staff to engage lobbyists and interest groups across the political spectrum in advance of beginning the legislative process for health care reform in the Senate.  Since last summer, Kennedy’s staff has been meeting regularly and at times simultaneously with an eclectic group representing AARP, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the American Cancer Society, the AMA, AHIP, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, PHaRMA, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.  Although the article promises big, the intelligence payoff is small.  After all these meetings, the working group has reached a consensus on a relatively minor point of policy – and on a point nearly all these groups have already agreed to in the first place.

Sneak Peek: What Obama Budget Will Say on Health - The New Republic

President Obama has said health care is the next major item on his domestic agenda and that it remains a “year one” priority. But just how big are his policy ambitions? And how, precisely, does he intend to pursue them?