Health Care For America Now

NEWS

Senate Confirms Kansas Governor as Health Secretary - New York Times

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human services on Tuesday, allowing President Obama to fill the last vacancy in his cabinet with a seasoned politician who will take charge of the fight against swine flu.

Committee to weigh reform proposals - Politico

The Senate Finance Committee will consider health care reform proposals Wednesday aimed at making doctors and hospitals more accountable, and boosting medical research with a tax on private insurance companies.

Caucuses Unite in Push for Public Health Insurance - Roll Call

The leaders of four House caucuses on Tuesday called on Democratic Congressional leaders and President Barack Obama to ensure that a public health insurance plan is part of comprehensive health care reform legislation this year.

Baucus digs into health care reform - Billings Gazette

Ezra Klein, a prominent left-leaning blogger and journalist who covers health care and politics from Washington, D.C., was in Montana last week to talk about health care reform.

Specter Switch Good News For ObamaCare - Forbes

Sen. Arlen Specter's historic decision to jump parties is a huge shot of adrenaline to the new administration's health care agenda.

Fox's Cameron provides bad medicine in health care report - Media Matters

Summary: Carl Cameron falsely suggested that President Obama has proposed a health care system similar to those of England and Canada — models Obama has explicitly rejected — and uncritically aired a misleading portion of a Conservatives for Patients' Rights ad.

OPINION

What Does Specter’s Switch Mean For Health Care Reform? - Think Progress

When it comes to health care reform, Sen. Arlen Specter may be one of the few (former) Republicans open to negotiation. A co-sponsor of the Wyden-Bennett health bill, Specter has been a strong proponent of reforming the health care system. He supports allowing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate Medicare’s prescription drug prices, drug importation and SCHIP expansion.

What's up with the budget and reconciliation, anyway? - Congress Matters

I started writing in yesterday's "This Week in Congress" about what was going on with the budget over the next few days, and I decided I needed to just keep it simple for TWiC, and come back to some of the detail later on, but still try to keep it manageable. Here's how I started off, which you might recognize from TWiC.

How Stupid Do They Think You Are? - The New Republic

When we last saw Conservatives for Patients Rights, they were trying to derail health reform by making wildly misleading arguments about health care abroad. Now the group is back and they are…still trying to derail health reform making wildly misleading arugments about health care abroad.