So it looks as if the Senate’s bill will be released tomorrow and WSJ shares the broad strokes…
Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn’t be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health [...]

Not only that it’s fully paid for.
That’s the latest report from the CBO and it’s encouraging to say the very least.
Here’s more from The Hill:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over [...]

The bill that Baucus passed today didn’t have a public option in it. Let me repeat that…Baucus’ bill had NO PUBLIC OPTION in it.
Yes, there are decentralized not-for-profit co-ops, but that’s definitely not a public option as had been proposed.
Here’s more about what’s in the bill, from Politico:
The bill requires individuals to buy insurance, or [...]

Listen, I truly hope that the Dems don’t use the reconciliation process to try and get the health care reform bill passed. Why? Well, it seems if they took this path they’d have to break up the legislation in two pieces, the budget portion and the insurance reform portion. The budget they could do via [...]

So Canada has basically decriminalized marijuana possession and Mexico has added cocaine, meth, heroin and LSD to the mix.
Wonder what’s going to happen in the US in the next decade…especially given the current reality in California where shops are selling pot out in the open?
The Daily Beast has more…
In an effort to garner control in [...]

Roll Cal has more (subscription required) reports that Max Baucus is setting this new date and my guess is that it’ll all come down to whether or not the Dems can get the Repubs to jump on the health care co-ops.
Here’s more on what’s moving through the committees…
Four congressional committees have approved bills, largely on [...]

The following story doesn’t say it explicitly, but when both Dems and Repubs are saying yes to this, you know it’s going to pass.
From Politico:
On ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in response to a question by host George Stephanopoulos about extending benefits: “I think that is something that the administration and Congress [...]

In one of those “every silver lining has a cloud” kind of situations, state and federal government road maintenance funds are dwindling as people drive less and use less gasoline per mile as they buy more fuel efficient cars. The federal government had to put $8 billion into the Highway Trust Fund because plummeting gas [...]

They’re actually going to go on vacation instead of trying to pass it.
Wow…
Reid told reporters he expected the Senate Finance Committee would approve its version of the legislation before the Senate starts its recess August 7.
“We’ll come back in the fall,” and work in the full Senate on the bill, he said.
Get ready for the [...]

In my last post I detailed some of the roadblocks that have kept the Democratic leadership in Washington from finding a way to pass a major health care reform bill with a public option. They’ve whittled the cost of the bill down a few hundred billion dollars by negotiating concessions from drug companies and hospitals, [...]

The Obama administration has managed to collect some concessions from hospital groups and drug companies, to the tune of over $200 billion in savings over ten years. This is nothing to sneeze at, but it still leaves the lion’s share of the proposed legislation searching for funding. Setting a requirement for employers to pay a [...]

I’ve written quite a bit about the co-op option recently because it seems like a viable bipartisan solution.
Now it looks like the White House is signaling that they’re willing to forgo a government run, public plan and accept alternatives (like co-ops) to garner Republican support.
From Who Runs Gov:
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met [...]

Congressional Republicans have been telling voters that the cap and trade energy policy that’s set for a vote on Friday will cost each household about $3,100.
CBO puts the lie to those numbers and shows that they’re nearly 20 times the actual costs…in 2020.
From Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Climate change legislation pending in Congress would cost U.S. [...]

After the CBO projected major deficits, the plan was revised and recirculated. And this comes just in the nick of time, as Daschle & Dole’s “state run healthcare” plan has made a major splash today.
Ezra Klein got his hands on the latest and describes it as such…
Sources say that it’s a major scale-back of the [...]

Does anyone care about the opinions of former Senate majority leaders? What if one was once his party’s presidential nominee and another one nearly became President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services?
Today, former Senate majority leaders Bob Dole, Tom Daschle and Howard Baker released a health care plan they claim includes the kind of [...]

This has been a long time coming, especially when you consider that the tobacco companies have never had to share the ingredients in their products with the public.
From NY Times:
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, as it is called, stops short of empowering the F.D.A. to outlaw smoking or ban nicotine — strictures [...]

Looks like the Dems are going to have to fight the largest physician’s organization in the world.
Yikes.
From NY Times:
[...] in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to [...]

Today, Congress sent President Obama the much talked-about bill setting in place new rules for the credit card industry.
The new restrictions will protect debt-ridden consumers from many of the surprise charges common in the industry, like over-the-limit fees and a charge to pay the bill by phone. People under 21 also will find it difficult [...]

A 90 to 5 vote is a good show of bipartisan legislation, right?
Well, yes and no…
From CNN:
The Senate on Tuesday voted 90-5 to approve a bill that will make it tougher for credit card issuers to raise fees and interest rates starting early next year. [...]
The bill will now go to the House, which is [...]