Earlier today the Senate voted on the very first amendment to their health care reform legislation. It was an amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) dealing with cost-sharing for women’s preventive care. It should have been a relatively uncontroversial amendment. It passed with a near-party-line vote 61-39. Ben Nelson and Russ Feingold were the [...]

Politico is reporting that Snowe, Lincoln, and Landrieu have submitted an amendment that would effectively eliminate all state regulations concerning what insurance companies must cover: SA 2859 Snowe/Landrieu/Lincoln – nationwide plans: deletes state opt out language, adds rating requirements to plan requirements If you live in a state with strong minimum benefit insurance regulations (California, [...]

Politico has a letter sent by Judd Gregg (R-NH) to his Republican colleagues. It outlines the rights of the minority. There are some amazing potential delay tactics that I was not even aware of. (It is very much worth a read.) If the Republicans are willing to use all the tricks at their disposable to [...]

Ben Nelson is currently threatening to filibuster reform if it does not contain a version of the anti-choice Stupak amendment: The Senate health care bill does not provide federal money for abortion, maintaining the status quo. But like Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a sizable bloc of conservative House Democrats, Nelson says that’s not good [...]

The more I look at the merged Senate bill, the more I’m afraid that Harry Reid might have been laying the ground work to betray progressives on the issue of the public option, and gain the support of Olympia Snowe. Many of Snowe’s top demands managed to make their way into the bill. Harry Reid [...]

Like a monster in some B horror movie, the trigger is a terrible idea that just will not die. I guess as long as you have a massive heath insurance lobby willing to spend millions to keep your pet creature alive, it will never truly meet its end. Tom Carper is now working with Olympia [...]

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) reinvented/cribbed/copied Sen. Olympia Snowe’s trigger proposal while hoping no one notices this effort to kill the public option. Could Carper’s former chief of staff and current WellPoint lobbyist be helping?

Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE) is well know for his repeated attempts to kill the public option. For months he has been promoting several different terrible “alternatives” he invented. Now Carper thinks Democrats should embrace Olympia Snowe’s worthless trigger proposal. When it comes to the controversial public insurance option, Snowe is a proponent of a “trigger,” [...]

There is some good news and bad news today on how Harry Reid plans to pay for health care reform. It looks like instead of increasing the Medicare tax for people making over $250,000 (as was reported earlier), Reid is thinking about applying the Medicare tax to those individual’s capital gains. This seems like a [...]

First Read is speculating that the Reid will “try” to publicly push for a public option on the Senate floor, and when that fails, he will accept some worthless fig leaf like the Snowe’s trigger or Carper’s Plan B. Two strategies for Reid: Here’s something to ponder: What’s the better strategy for Reid — calling [...]