NEWS

Public option backers fight on – Politico

The forces in favor of a public health insurance option roared back Thursday on Capitol Hill after weeks when their cause looked bleak.

Health Care Overhaul Rests On Senator Reid – NPR

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hails from the hard-rock mining town of Searchlight, Nev. He once made a name for himself there as an amateur boxer. But in what may be his biggest fight yet, Reid is playing referee. He is leading the effort to combine two sharply different health care bills.

CBO Estimates House Health Bill at $905B or Less – Washington Post

Congressional budget analysts have given House leaders cost estimates for two competing versions of their plan to overhaul the health-care system, concluding that one comes within striking distance of the $900 billion limit set by President Obama and the other falls below it.

White House helped create corporate-backed health care campaign – Politico

At a meeting last April with corporate lobbyists, aides to President Barack Obama and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups, that has played a key role in bolstering public support for health care reform.

Labor unions turn against parts of health bill – USA Today

A coalition of labor unions is emerging as a leading critic of an $829 billion health care bill heading toward a Senate vote, complicating debate among Democrats over how to pay for the measure.

‘Cadillac Tax’ Slammed in New Health Care Ad – The Note

A proposed tax on high-cost health insurance plans, the so-called “Cadillac tax,” is blasted in a new television ad by a union-funded group called Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

CNN To Disclose Castellanos’s Health Care Industry Ties – Huffington Post

A day after Media Matters revealed that CNN contributor Alex Castellanos’ consulting firm is connected to the recent anti-health care reform advertising blitz from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), CNN has announced that they will hereafter disclose Castellanos’ ties to the health care industry in future appearances.

Health-Care Grudge Match! – Time

On the surface, there was nothing unusual about the Oct. 6 telephone call between White House health-care boss Nancy-Ann DeParle and Karen Ignagni, the leading medical-insurance lobbyist in Washington. The two women have known each other for years and often speak several times a week. Though Ignagni’s group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), has long been leery of — and at other times downright hostile to — the health-care bills moving through Congress, an uneasy truce was holding between the insurers and a White House bent on reform. But just barely: when DeParle and a Senate aide asked Ignagni during the call to confirm a rumor that her industry was about to release a report attacking the measure being prepared by Senator Max Baucus, DeParle recalls, “she said, ‘No, we are miles away from putting out a report.’”

OPINION

A Hatchet Job So Bad It’s Good – Paul Krugman

In the past, the insurance industry’s power has been a major barrier to health-care reform. Most notably, the industry paid for the infamous “Harry and Louise” ads that helped kill the Clinton plan. But times have changed.

Mark Pryor Won’t Filibuster The Health Care Bill – Firedoglake

Based on this interview by Mike Stark, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor apparently would not join a Republican filibuster of health care reform legislation, barring something “completely objectionable.”

AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka: Real Health Care Reform or Bust – Crooks and Liars

The AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka talks to Alison Stewart about their new ad on health care reform. Trumka was asked if the rumors were true that Raum Emanuel put pressure the union not to run the ad. He said they were not true and that is not the way the Obama administration operates.

Public Option Opponent Mike Ross Proposes Opening Medicare To More Americans – Think Progress

The Hill is reporting that Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) — who led a group of seven centrist Blue Dogs who objected to a public option that reimbursed providers based on Medicare rates — is floating a proposal to open-up Medicare to Americans under 65, “but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates“.

The familiar arc of Democratic legislative compromise – Congress Matters

So why didn’t Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) or Ron Wyden (D-OR) vote against the Baucus bill in the Finance Committee?

(compiled for Health Care for America Now)