health care reform

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Faith in Obama Slips
 Faith in Obama Slips 
Aug 21, 2009 2:38 AM CDT

Faith in Obama Slips

(Newser) - Faith in President Obama is falling sharply amid the increasing polarization of the health care debate, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The president's overall approval stands at just 57%, down 12 points from its April peak, with his disapproval rating up to a highest-ever 40%. Pessimism about...

Inside the Real World of End-of-Life Care

End-of-life specialists are 'psychoanalysts,' 'detectives'

(Newser) - With so many up in arms about “death panel” rumors, the New York Times paints a picture of real-life palliative care providers, or end-of-life consultants. The Times follows one specialist in a field that requires its doctors to be “part psychoanalyst, part detective,” writes Anemona Hartocollis: He’...

Obama Urges Activists to Retake Health Care Debate

White House struggles to regain message control

(Newser) - President Obama urged the grassroots activists who helped him so much in the presidential campaign to do the same in the health care debate, Politico reports. “Now come on," the president told members of Organizing for America in a conference call today. "The best ambassadors for true...

Klein: 'Nihilists' Leading Republicans Off Deep End

What should be a faction is in charge of the party

(Newser) - Raising legitimate, fact-based opposition to political issues is one thing—but today’s Republican party seems "overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites" more concerned about returning to power than the public good, writes Joe Klein in Time. Where's the leadership? When Sarah Palin raised the ridiculous “death panel” specter—...

Obama on Right-Wing Radio: 'We're Going to Get It Done'

(Newser) - President Obama brought his case for health reform to talk radio today, telling a largely conservative audience that a public option is only a small part of his goal and expressing skepticism that any deal with Republicans is possible. On the public option, "what we've said is we think...

Policy-Wonk Pawlenty Steers Clear of Wackos
Policy-Wonk Pawlenty Steers Clear of Wackos
Interview
Aug 20, 2009 12:44 PM CDT

Policy-Wonk Pawlenty Steers Clear of Wackos

(Newser) - Voters are “ticked off and scared,” by Barack Obama’s health care plans, says Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, because those plans are “out of step with common sense, out of step with the notion that the government isn’t going to run everything.” Pawlenty, an oft-mentioned...

To Cure Health Care, See This Doctor
 To Cure Health Care, 
 See This Doctor 
OPINION
Aug 20, 2009 10:25 AM CDT

To Cure Health Care, See This Doctor

Mayo Clinic boss could be reform's 'Petraeus'

(Newser) - To fix health care, we need a commander like Gen. David Petraeus: “a professional who can break through the political chaff and describe a strategy for reform that can unite the country,” writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post. He nominates Mayo Clinic CEO Dr. Denis Cortese, who’...

NRA Shouldn't Tolerate Gun-Toting Protesters
NRA Shouldn't Tolerate Gun-Toting Protesters
OPINION
Aug 20, 2009 9:34 AM CDT

NRA Shouldn't Tolerate Gun-Toting Protesters

It's just not a safe way to use a firearm

(Newser) - If the National Rifle Association is really, to quote its website “dedicated to the lawful, effective, responsible, and above all safe use of firearms,” then it should loudly discourage people from carrying those firearms to political rallies, writes Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post. Politics aside, it’s...

Let's Make Health Insurance Policies Readable

Legal mumbo-jumbo means patients can't tell what they're covered for

(Newser) - There’s one important health care issue that’s generated little chatter: the oft-inscrutable language of insurance policies, writes Rhode Island health official John Cogan in the New York Times. Policies are penned at a grad-school level, which led his state to require, as of next year, that they be...

Poor Nations Pick Up Tab as Obama Woos Big Pharma

(Newser) - The Obama administration is thwarting poor countries' access to affordable drugs in order to win Big Pharma's support for health care reform, according to Doctors Without Borders and other NGOs. As the Los Angeles Times reports, governments from Asia to Latin America are feeling pressure from Washington on their use...

Kennedy Urges Mass. Leaders to Fill His Senate Seat Quickly

Looking ahead to his death, health care vote

(Newser) - In a letter indirectly invoking his own terminal illness and the current health care debate, Ted Kennedy has urged Massachusetts leaders to take special measures to make sure the state won't lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant, the Boston Globe reports. Kennedy called for the governor to...

Grassley: Town Halls Telling Us to Scale Back

(Newser) - Chuck Grassley, the leading Republican senator negotiating health care reform, said yesterday that Congress should pass a substantially narrower bill in the face of town hall anger. The Iowa legislator said baying crowds at public meetings had convinced him that the public has rejected "a government takeover of health...

Dems May Split Health Plan Into 2 Bills to Skirt GOP

(Newser) - Here's the latest health care strategy gaining traction among Democrats: Pass two bills instead of one. The idea, as laid out by the Wall Street Journal, goes like this: Democrats would tuck most of the legislation's more controversial spending measures—maybe even a public insurance option—into a first bill...

Michelle Can Be Obama's Best Weapon in Health Debate

(Newser) - The president appears oblivious to the pocket ace he’s holding on health-care reform, Josh Skolnick writes on the Stimulist: Michelle Obama. Here’s why the first lady should be injected into the debate:
  • Experience: At the University of Chicago, "her whole job was explaining medical decisions and health
...

Insurer Urges Employees to Protest Health Care Reform

UnitedHealth Group lays down AstroTurf

(Newser) - UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s second-biggest health insurance firm, has been encouraging employees to attend events protesting health-care reform, Talking Points Memo reports. In a clear-cut example of “Astroturf”—fake grassroots action—a memo to employees urges them to call an “advocacy specialist” who can provide talking...

Obama's Health Reform Waffling May Be Savvy

Prez perhaps following his predecessors in 'strategic uncertainty'

(Newser) - It may not be timidity that’s keeping Barack Obama from pushing harder for a public health care option. He may instead be employing a time-tested presidential technique: “strategic uncertainty,” writes Jill Lawrence in Politics Daily. Key for Obama is getting strong Senate support for a bill, and...

Woman to Pro-Health Reform Jewish Guy: 'Heil Hitler!'

(Newser) - In the latest health care-related video to go viral, a woman at a Las Vegas town hall on health care shouted “Heil Hitler!” at an Israeli man as he spoke to a local TV station about Israel’s “fantastic” national health care program, ThinkProgress reports. “Did...

Face It: the Public Option's a No-Go
 Face It: the Public 
 Option's a No-Go 
OPINION
Aug 19, 2009 8:31 AM CDT

Face It: the Public Option's a No-Go

'Political litmus test' wouldn't be effective anyway

(Newser) - The public health care option is simply a “political litmus test” pushed by left-wingers to represent their side of an “ideological war”—and it’s time to give it up, writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post. “There is nothing about having one government-owned health insurance...

Obama to Recast Health Reform as Moral Issue

Focus on legislative details has bogged down debate, supporters worry

(Newser) - President Obama is about to start focusing more on the moral aspects of health care reform, stressing the need to provide secure coverage to all Americans, the Wall Street Journal reports. The shift may reflect the concerns of some supporters that Obama has spent too much time talking about the...

Dems Look to Move on Health Bill Sans GOP

(Newser) - With the GOP line against President Obama's health care plan hardening, Dems see little hope of cooperation and are now poised to set out on their own, drawing a final plan solely from within their own party, the New York Times reports. The White House will still face the challenge...

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