January 9, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Two days before she suffered a bullet wound the head in an assassination attempt, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took to the floor of the House of Representatives to participate in the first-ever reading of the Constitution of the United States into the official record of House business. She read the First Amendment, which reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 other people, six of whom have already, tragically, died from their injuries, the national political establishment (media, pressure groups and elected officials) has turned its attention to the perils of extremist and vitriolic rhetoric. We are being asked to consider whether the use of metaphorical violence (putting Rep. Giffords in the crosshairs, which both Sarah Palin and her 2010 opponent did) leads to actual violence, and while direct responsibility is not being alleged, the ethical obligation to honor our democracy with civil discourse must be considered.
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January 9, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Christina-Taylor Green was born on 11 September 2001, a day of national tragedy for the United States, and she died yesterday in Tucson, in a hail of gunfire, as a result of the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Christina-Taylor was seen by her family as a sign of hope, something beautiful born in the midst of a terrible tragedy.
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January 9, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
Speaker of the House John Boehner this morning announced he has directed the Capitol flag be flown at half-mast to honor the service and the sacrifice of Gabe Zimmerman, director of community outreach for Rep. Giffords. Zimmerman was a social worker before serving with the Congresswoman, and was engaged to be married. He is universally described as a principled public servant whose work was rooted in a deep personal kindness and commitment to the people.
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January 9, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, of South Carolina, said the climate of hostile and vitriolic rhetoric that has overtaken much of the right is partly to blame for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Inglis urged his fellow Republicans to honor the principled public service of Giffords, saying “I hope what even the staunchest Republican could say is, ‘We’re all Democrats today for Gabby,’ and let’s just come together as a nation and figure out a way to get out of these problems”.
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January 8, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot today in an assassination attempt during a public outreach event in Tucson. She was prematurely reported killed by CNN and NPR, but her status is listed as critical, and she is said to be “responding to commands”. The bullet reportedly “passed through her brain”. At least 9 other people were brought in for emergency treatment of wounds suffered. One 9-year-old child, a 63-year-old federal judge, and at least three others have reportedly died.
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March 23, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama today signed into law the healthcare reform legislation he and the Democratic party have been crafting and defending for over one year. He noted, in his remarks, that while “a host of desperately needed reforms will take effect right away”, the bill will be phased in over four years in order that it be implemented as responsibly as possible. He said the new reforms are a sign of the nation’s ability to great things and to forge a path for social justice.
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March 21, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reported at 8:50 pm EDT today that “the Democrats are going to win”, explaining the House is on the verge of passing the Senate version of the legislation, with the possibility of “tweaking” the legislation after the fact, and predicting that “Pres. Obama may sign healthcare reform into law within 24 hours”. Republican strategists have now begun talking about a new “repeal and replace” strategy, which they will use throughout 2010 to try to convince the American people that they should be elected to undo the reforms.
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March 21, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
So that’s what this effort is all about. Toughest insurance reforms in history. A marketplace so people have choice and competition who right now don’t have it and are seeing their premiums go up 20, 30, 40, 50 percent. Reductions in the cost of health care for millions of American families, including those who have health insurance. The Business Roundtable did their own study and said that this would potentially save employers $3,000 per employee on their health care because of the measures in this legislation.
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February 28, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Republican House minority whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said today on Meet the Press that Republicans want healthcare reform, but they favor a “common-sense, modest, incremental approach”. The statement is sly and problematic: Cantor wants to imply that incremental is responsible, playing on the emotional fetish that brings many to conservative politics, but he is simply fudging the facts and reframing an historically irresponsible approach in order to attack the president. Incremental fixes to the pervasive healthcare crisis have so far failed to reverse the trend toward ever-higher costs and ever-less-competent insurers.
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February 27, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Republican party’s Congressional leadership is participating in a bipartisan healthcare reform summit moderated by Pres. Barack Obama, at Blair House near the White House. The “square-table” discussion includes the leading budgetary and health policy partisans from the House and Senate, as well as Pres. Obama, Vice Pres. Biden and Sec. of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The president invited Republicans to “show me what you got”, and to lay out constructive alternative ideas for healthcare reform, in the interest of building consensus.
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December 20, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Democratic leadership has scheduled an historic vote on healthcare reform legislation for 1:01 am Monday morning. All 100 senators are expected to participate in the vote for cloture, which would end debate and clear the way for a straight up-or-down vote on passage of the comprehensive health insurance reform package, later this week. The bill has been the subject of intense negotiation, fierce criticism and major compromise, though all of the compromise was within the ideologically diverse 60-member Democratic caucus.
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December 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The last time a Patient’s Bill of Rights was within reach was roughly a decade ago, and it was supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, from Ted Kennedy to John McCain. It included the right to an appeals process so you could challenge an unfair decision by an insurance company before a third party. It included the right to choose your own doctor. It included the right to access information about what your health insurance plan means for you. And it called for a new level of transparency so that patients would know if their doctors had a conflict of interest when providing services.
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December 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
After nearly a full year of partisan wrangling and internecine disputes between liberal and conservative Democrats, the sponsors of healthcare reform have reportedly secured their 60th vote in the Senate, the vote needed to break a filibuster, end debate and bring the bill to a vote for passage. Once the public option for low-cost healthcare and an expansion of Medicare were stripped from the bill, Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) signed on; progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) then threatened to withhold support, but agreed to support the measure once $10 billion were set aside for community health clinics, and now, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the last holdout, has reportedly voiced his support for the reforms.
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December 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a fiercely progressive independent and a strong leader in the Democratic caucus, today introduced an amendment to extend the Medicare program to all Americans, creating a universal, single-payer healthcare plan that would be able to pay for any bills across the entire privately-administered health services sector. The Republicans demanded that the amendment be read word by word, out loud, into the record.
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November 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Republican party has developed an increasingly obstructionist, radical ideology, based on fundamental distortions of the process of government and the aims of opponents. Party strategists openly admit there is a calculation that such distortions will “reframe” the Democratic agenda in a light average Americans view as hostile to their interests, and so indirectly, will generate support for the Republican party. But they have failed to produce viable policy proposals that deal with the pressing crises of this historical moment.
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November 21, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has announced she will vote to support cloture, which will allow debate to move forward in the Senate on healthcare insurance reform legislation. Lincoln joins other conservative Democrats, Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, in supporting her party leadership’s call for a vote to begin debate on the healthcare insurance reform legislation.
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November 9, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
The progressive organizing group MoveOn.org has announced huge success in collecting funds to mount primary challenges to any Democratic senator who acts to block an up-or-down vote on healthcare reform. In just one week, their Health Reform Accountability Pledge campaign collected $3,578,117 in pledges. The organization’s statement about the fundraising success reads: That’s how much [...]
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October 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Insurers campaign to kill healthcare may be helping renew support for the public option, as Congress prepares to vote. A shift in subsidies is driving a clean energy boom in the American west, and emissions legislation is likely to pass Congress this year. Financial regulatory reform will establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Immigration and gay-rights reform will likely wait till 2010.
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October 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign demonstrated an unprecedented level of achievement for organizing new voters and winning donations from lower-income voters, then mobilizing millions of supporters to fan out across the country and disseminate the campaign’s message of positive change. Republican opponents of healthcare reform are engaged in a high-stakes political gamble, banking on the [...]
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October 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The health insurance industry has released a sponsored “study” to show that if the Senate finance committee’s version of healthcare reform were to pass, they would explode costs over the next few years by as much as 40%. The report is being greeted with outrage, as the insurance firms, which stand to reap possibly hundreds of billions in new business from expanded coverage, appear to be trying to extort a strict universal mandate with harsh penalties for noncompliance.
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October 5, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: 2 Comments
Something seems very wrong with Max Baucus. The Democratic senator whose party placed him in the chairmanship of the Senate finance committee, charged by Pres. Obama with crafting legislation that could achieve the president’s stated goals, while bringing centrist Republicans on board, has become one of the chief proponents of the very arguments entrenched corporate-interest Republicans are making to try to kill the Democratic reforms.
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September 28, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The vehement opposition being engineered by the Republican party against the market-oriented “public option” is proof the party does not favor market diversification or consumer choice, but rather rigged games that give huge payouts to specific interests. The Republicans’ argument is that private insurers should not diversify the plans they offer or have to compete in a more dynamic and diverse marketplace.
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September 24, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The legislature of the state of Massachusetts has voted to grant Gov. Deval Patrick (D) the power to appoint an interim replacement for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D). The move means the Democratic party will see its fragile 60-vote majority in the United States Senate restored, in time for crucial votes on healthcare reform this fall. Today, Gov. Patrick has named Paul Grattan Kirk, Jr. to the interim post.
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September 23, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
The President’s plan prohibits insurance companies from rescinding coverage that has already been purchased except in cases of fraud. In most states, insurance companies can cancel a policy if any medical condition was not listed on the application – even one not related to a current illness or one the patient didn’t even know about. A recent Congressional investigation found that over five years, three large insurance companies cancelled coverage for 20,000 people, saving them from paying $300 million in medical claims – $300 million that became either an obligation for the patient’s family or bad debt for doctors and hospitals.
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September 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
At rallies around the country, an increasingly hateful tone, complete with visual and rhetorical references to racist slurs against Pres. Obama, has emerged. From hanging the president in effigy (a rhetorical ‘lynching’) to portraying him as an African tribal witch-doctor, a monkey or an old-time minstrel show performer, extremist elements have penetrated conservative rallies against proposed healthcare reforms.
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September 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The most aggressive argument Republicans are now making about healthcare reform is that it would allegedly “gut Medicare and Medicaid”, two government-administered health insurance programs that provide treatment coverage for the elderly and the poor, respectively. The irony that emerges from the incoherent oppose everything Obama wants strategy being used by Republicans, shadowy front groups paid for by individuals linked to the insurance lobby, and conservative PACs, is that they are actually now arguing in favor of ‘socialized medicine’.
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September 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Senate finance committee’s version of healthcare reform, the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, has finally been released, and while opposed by both the conservative base and Democratic progressives, is being praised for cost-effectiveness and for achieving important reform goals. The Congressional Budget Office says it would save $49 billion over 10 years and would not add to the federal deficit.
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September 15, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
And based on a brand-new report from the Treasury Department, we can expect that about half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. If you’re under the age of 21 today, chances are more than half that you’ll find yourself uninsured at some point in that time. And more than one-third of Americans will go without coverage for longer than one year. I refuse to allow that future to happen. In the United States of America, no one should have to worry that they’ll go without health insurance – not for one year, not for one month, not for one day.
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September 13, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The scope and variety of lies being told about the nature of proposed healthcare reforms in the United States are threatening to undermine the possibility for meaningful reforms that would save literally tens of thousands of lives each year. Those lies need to be dispelled, or reform will be delayed and more lives lost.
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September 11, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Rep. Charles Boustany, an experienced cardiologist who says he wants health insurance reform and to cut costs across the system, and who delivered the Republican response to Pres. Obama’s address on Wednesday, again misrepresented the president’s position on healthcare reform, saying Obama has not focused any attention on the doctor-patient relationship.
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September 10, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Obama went to Capitol Hill last night to talk tough to Congress and speak truth to the American people. He framed his speech in terms of a call for responsible, cooperative action to solve the nation’s healthcare crisis, saying: “The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action… Now is the time to deliver on healthcare.” And he repeated: “Now is the time to deliver on healthcare.”
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September 10, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem for the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.
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September 9, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Perhaps the single most important tool Republicans have used to spur opposition to plans for healthcare reform —moreso even than their misuse of the word “socialism”— is their claim to seniors that Obama is planning to take your Medicare away. Currently proposed reforms have inefficiency cuts, designed to make Medicare more cost-effective, but not one part of the proposed reforms would reduce anyone’s benefits or access to care.
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September 9, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Rep. Charles Boustany lied repeatedly in his official Republican response to Pres. Obama. The first major lie was his reiteration of the false claim that Obama is proposing a “government takeover” of healthcare that would “replace” healthcare American families already have. Not only has that never been proposed; Obama had just explained that the public option, if passed, would only apply to the uninsured.
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September 9, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has announced he will push ahead with major healthcare reform legislation next week, whether he has Republican support or not. The bill he will present to the Senate finance committee would assess fees from private insurers to help pay for extending care to the uninsured, but would not create a “public option” for buy-in health insurance. Baucus says a public option cannot win passage in the Senate.
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September 9, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) is presently preparing his “rebuttal” to Pres. Obama’s major policy address to a special joint session of Congress, on the issue of healthcare reform. Boustany is in some respects a moderate Republican, a physician who has worked in healthcare, healed actual people, and who believes in major health insurance reform. He is not emblematic of the mainstream of Republican elected officials, many of whom have vowed to “kill reform” no matter how many Republican ideas get worked in by Pres. Obama.
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September 9, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The Republican party is suffering a period of decline and isolation. Certain elements in its leadership seek an ideological “purification” of the party, ousting anyone who does not agree with a hardline right-wing philosophy of evangelical conservatism — often with a near messianic devotion to militarism or to Machiavellian manipulations as a means to an end.
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September 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
There is talk in Washington of replacing the ‘public option’ for health insurance, to be included on the health insurance exchange for affordable comprehensive coverage, with a ‘trigger option’. The concept would see the reforms go through without a government-backed low-cost public option for health insurance, but with the stipulation that if the private insurance firms fail to meet standards for affordable, high-quality comprehensive healthcare, in any given state or market, a public option would be implemented.
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September 4, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
In an interview with the McAlester News-Capital newspaper, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) —the senior senator from his state— strung together one lie after another, in an apparent effort to slander Pres. Obama and derail healthcare reform. There are no softer words for Inhofe’s incessant lies and fabrications. He has apparently pledged his time and energy to the hard labor of being an inveterate and unapologetic professional slanderer.
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September 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has told a town hall meeting that he doesn’t need to read legislation on healthcare reform or to know any details of what’s in it, he will oppose it out of hand. Astonishingly, the senator told the citizens gathered that “I don’t have to read it, or know what’s in it. I’m going to oppose it anyways”. He didn’t say “let them die” about people in need of medical care who are uninsured, but the sentiment just might be there.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, has announced he will work with lawmakers to arrange for an interim appointment to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, until the special election, now scheduled for 19 January 2010, allows voters to choose a senator to complete the last three years of his current 6-year term. The announcement paves the way for negotiations with state lawmakers about how to appoint a “caretaker”, and who should get the appointment.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Deval Patrick, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is now “coming out strongly in favor of the idea” of naming an interim replacement for the late Sen. Kennedy, at Sen. Kennedy’s request, to avoid leaving his state with a vacancy in the Senate for several months, as reported by the New York Times. After initial skepticism, there are now reports suggesting state lawmakers may be leaning toward supporting such a move.
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August 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama and Sen. Orrin Hatch, two men whose views differ in countless ways, but who became, each in his time, close and trusted friends to Sen. Ted Kennedy, should meet privately, then with Congressional leaders, to hammer out workable reform to extend healthcare coverage to all Americans, and honor the life’s work of the late senator. After an initial agreement to commit firmly to weeding out obstructionists and working toward virtuous compromise, Hatch and Obama should gather together a panel of key senators to establish a commitment to passing reform that extends coverage to all Americans.
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August 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
While Republicans have been celebrating the rhetorical chaos seen at some town hall meeting events to discuss comprehensive healthcare reform, it is conservative “blue dog” Democrats who have been holding up passage of the reforms outlined by Pres. Obama and fashioned by Congressional leaders. Now, a study from the non-profit Center for Public Integrity finds that the Blue Dog coalition’s members have been taking more financial contributions from the healthcare industry than any other group.
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August 26, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
In this video, Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks about his personal connection to and passion for the issue of reforming healthcare in the United States so that people at an economic disadvantage are not forced to suffer preventable complications and death due to inadequate available coverage and/or treatment.
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August 23, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Life expectancy in the United States is 78.11 years, 50th in the world, behind the Wallis and Futuna Islands and just ahead of Guadeloupe. Canada is 8th, at 81.23 years; France is 9th, at 80.98; Sweden is 10th, at 80.86. Despite Canada’s “socialized” healthcare system, the average Canadian can expect to live more than three years longer than the average American.
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August 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Has the Republican party lost its way? Has it entered a long period of wandering in the wilderness, in the absence of fresh thinkers and new ideas? How could a single political entity, with all three branches of the American government firmly in its grasp and in ideological unison, just a few short years ago, be so cast aside by the tides of democratic process and public sentiment? The short answer: a lack of genuine services to offer the people who decide who fills the positions of power in the people’s government.
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August 20, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), popularly known as the “Lion of the Senate”, who has served 47 years in the upper house of the US Congress, is battling an aggressive brain cancer, and has been relegated to a long absence, even as the nation debates the issue that has most consumed his efforts as a legislator. Healthcare reform has been Ted Kennedy’s primordial concern throughout his time in the Senate, and it has never been closer, but at a time he is needed on Capitol Hill, he is sidelined by gravely ill health.
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August 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and a seasoned Capitol Hill negotiator, says it has become clear that the Republican party will oppose any version of healthcare reform, because they see it as a way to hurt Pres. Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress. Congressional leaders have signaled their willingness to sideline obstructionist Republicans and push ahead with major reforms.
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