Blog - Articles Tagged 'health care'

After three full days of talk and no action, the Senate is finally set to take the first of what is expected to be dozens of votes on health care reform tomorrow. According to the Senate Democrats' calendar, they will vote on the first four amendments -- two from the Democrats and two from the Republicans.

Strict abortion funding language similar to what Rep. Bart Stupak [D, MI-1] added to the House health care bill, which most agree goes beyond the restrictions that already exist under existing law, will get a vote in the Senate.

Despite months of calling for more transparency and a slower pace with health care reform, Senate Republicans today blocked a Democratic proposal to require all amendments to the health care bill to be posted online for 72 hours before a vote.

Today, the Senate begins what by all accounts will be a lengthy and contentious debate of their health care reform legislation. Read, discuss and link to individual sections of the bill:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act>>

The Senate health care reform bill (viewable here) contains numerous provisions that stress disclosure and transparency, specifically online disclosure and transparency. These provisions acknowledge that information that is meant to be disclosed and available to the public must be made available online.

Update, 10pm ET: Here it is, the Senate's version of the health care reform bill: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (link opens in browser as a 2,074-page .pdf). For ongoing coverage, follow OC on Twitter, and click through for early reactions...

With pro-choice, anti-public option Sen. Olympia Snowe [R, ME] wielding heavy influence in the Senate's health care negotiations, a trade-off of the House bill's provisions seems likely.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are extracting chunks of legislative text from the OpenCongress health care bill page (H.R. 3962), giving their take and opening them up for discussion. They're using OpenCongress' bill text permalinking tool to refer people back to the specific lines of text in the 1,990 page bill that they're talking about.

On Thursday morning, Democratic leaders will unveil the final version of the health care legislation that be voted on by the full House during the week of Novemember 2nd. UPDATE: And here it is:

H.R. 3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act

Bloomberg reports that the health care bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee (S. 1796) contains numerous provisions aimed at specific states. These enticements could be used to secure wavering Democrats or allow senators in tough 2010 election races to tout to constituents.

Negotiators in both the Senate and the House are looking to finalize health care legislation this week so they can get official budget scores and bring the bills to the floor for debate and votes. Click through for more on the state of the negotiations as well as complete lists of all the bills that will be coming up for votes this week.

The Senate Finance Committee -- the most conservative committee in Congress -- has officially approved their health care bill, sending the issue to the full Senate for debate and votes and essentially sealing the deal that President Obama's health care reform plan would become law.

In the continuing health care debate the public option remains as the key puzzle piece in the Democrats' health care package. Today, the Senate Finance Committee is debating and voting on amendments to include a public option in their version of health care reform legislation.

Don't believe the hype. Nobody in Congress is considering going "nuclear" with health care legislation. Fox News and other media outlets may be saying otherwise, but they are wrong.

The mark-up of the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill is currently underway. (You can watch the proceedings on C-Span here.) While much of this morning may be filled with vacuous speech-making by the committee's members, there are over 500 amendments to be voted on over the next few days. Slate has done an excellent job in creating a Google spreadsheet of every (or almost every) amendment to the bill. Check it out as a guide to the process.