Sen. Tom Harkin is pushing the reconciliation sidecar strategy to pass health care reform. From Omaha World-Herald: Harkin said he has been advocating in recent days for the House to pass the Senate version of the health care bill along with a package of revisions that would be passed through the reconciliation process, which would [...]

Sen. Tom Harkin continues to refer to the Senate health reform bill as a “starter home” in a new entry on the Huffington Post. Instead of that “partial loaf” analogy, I like to think of this bill as like a starter home. It is not the mansion of our dreams. But it has a solid [...]

Harry Reid is still waiting for a final CBO score on the merged Senate health care bill. The hope that, some time this week, he will get a score he is happy with and will be able to introduce the bill during the middle of the week. After the bill is introduced, Reid plans to [...]

In a conference call today, Senate HELP Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) again stated his conviction that health care reform will have a public option. In defense of the public option Harkin pointed out that a majority of Senate solidly supporting the idea. “There are 52 solid Democrats for a public option and only about [...]

Sen Tom Harkin (D-IA) has been a strong advocate for the public option. On a recent call with reporters, Harkin says a so-called “public option” will be in the senate bill. ”And especially if we’re going to have a mandate that everyone has to buy insurance, then certainly it would be bordering on the unconscionable [...]

This is a very interesting comment. As I chronicle in The Real McCain, because of his Vietnam experience, McCain was reflexively against using military force during his early military career. He chastised