NEWS

Mandate minus price controls may increase healthcare costs - Los Angeles Times

With lawmakers reluctant to limit what insurers may charge, there’s little to slow soaring premiums. Coupled with millions of new customers, that adds up to higher costs for taxpayers and consumers.

Democrats Win First Battles Over Plans to Curtail Health Costs – Bloomberg

Senate Finance Committee members clashed over Medicare cost-cutting plans, with Democrats winning the first skirmishes yesterday over how to curb spending in the federal program for the elderly.

Where $2.2 trillion was spent on U.S. health care – USA Today

Only two in 10 Americans say their health insurance coverage and the quality of the health care they receive will improve if a bill passes Congress this year, despite President Obama’s promises to improve the system for those with and without insurance.

Reformers Target Insurers with Protest Billboard – Washington Post

It isn’t exactly subtle, but it certainly is likely to catch the attention of passersby. The liberal pro-reform Health Care Action Now (sic) coalition has drawn up a billboard targeting health insurance companies for "making our country sick."

Dog Fight: Dueling Whip Counts Hold Fate Of Public Option – Huffington Post

The Blue Dog Coalition is engaged in a member-to-member whip operation in the House, beginning with a survey of its 52 lawmakers, to find out where they stand on critical health care issues. The principal focus is the public insurance option, but the canvass also touches on various tax and revenue increase proposals to pay for reform.

Kennedy Confidant Expected to Take Senate Seat – New York Times

Senior Democrats in Washington said Wednesday that they expected Gov. Deval Patrick to name Paul G. Kirk Jr., a former aide and longtime confidant of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to Mr. Kennedy’s seat on Thursday.

OPINION

The Republicans’ Deaf Ear Is a Preexisting Condition – Dana Milbank

The Senate Finance Committee was barely an hour into its consideration of health-care reform on Tuesday morning, but Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) already knew where he stood.

Health Care Reform Action: Rallies, a ‘Die-In’ and a Visit from the VP – AFL-CIO

In Hartford, Conn., union and health care activists marched on the headquarters of health insurance giant Aetna. In Minnetonka, Minn., the target was the posh headquarters of UnitedHealthcare. And in Fargo, N.D., demonstrators took a list of health care reform demands to the offices of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.

Kamikaze Obstructionism – Ezra Klein

The Republican Party’s strategy against health-care reform has been something of a kamikaze mission: destroy the bill through a strategy that also destroys the party, at least in the short-term. The hope is that if they win the war, they’ll be in better shape come the 2010 midterms. Maybe that’ll work. Maybe it won’t.

(compiled for Health Care for America Now)