Healthcare Legislation

The White House and several advocacy groups banded together Thursday in an attempt to pacify liberals who are furious over compromises made to the Senate healthcare legislation. The bill's advocates said that it still would make a difference in the lives of Americans, and warned that the cost of failure was high. Former President Clinton issued a statement that said: "America can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And this is a good bill." And abandoning the effort to pass healthcare legislation would be "a tragic outcome," David Axelrod, a senior advisor to President Obama, told MSNBC.

The Senate is poised to vote today on a $630-billion defense appropriations bill that also extends several expiring social programs. The bill, almost three months overdue, will provide $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and includes a 3.4% pay raise for soldiers. But it does not include money for President Obama's proposal to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, because the White House has not yet requested that funding. On the domestic side, the bill provides funding for two more months of expanded unemployment benefits for millions of people.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that anyone using harsh rhetoric to raise fears about the healthcare overhaul should apologize and get on with writing policy but that there's no reason to single out a Florida Democrat who said Republicans want sick Americans to "die quickly." "If anybody's going to apologize, everybody should apologize," she said when asked Thursday about Rep. Alan Grayson's comments on the House floor this week. Pelosi's response reflects what Democratic aides have said privately since Grayson's remarks sparked an uproar: that Republicans have routinely said with impunity that Democrats want to "pull the plug on Grandma" or create "death panels" to decide who deserves care and who doesn't -- even though no such provisions are in any version of the healthcare legislation.

President Obama, after sustaining months of criticism for not being clear about what he wanted in healthcare legislation, will post specific proposals for a comprehensive plan on the Internet by Monday, according to the White House. The posting would come three days before a televised meeting that Obama plans to convene with congressional Democratic and Republican leaders in hopes of restarting his stalled bid to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. "There will be one proposal.

After a final surge to overcome Republican opposition, congressional Democrats approved the last piece of their healthcare overhaul Thursday night, sending President Obama a package of changes to the landmark legislation he signed Tuesday. The so-called reconciliation package, which includes a major reorganization of the federal student loan program, passed the Senate on Thursday on a nearly party-line vote, 56 to 43. The end came after a grueling night and day of roll-call votes as Republicans sought to derail the bill.

The state of the economy likely will outweigh any other issue on the minds of voters in midterm congressional elections, which offer Republicans a significant opportunity to add to their numbers in Congress, a new bipartisan poll shows. The Battleground Poll, released Wednesday, shows a virtual tie between the Republican and Democratic parties when voters were asked which party's candidates they would favor in November.

Rahm Emanuel was agitated. With only seven weeks until Christmas, the opportunity to pass healthcare legislation seemed to be fading. The White House chief of staff feared that if the Senate left for the holiday without passing a bill, President Obama's top domestic priority would wither as lawmakers turned to other concerns next year. Democratic senators and administration officials gathered in a conference room outside Majority Leader Harry Reid's Capitol office. Emanuel wanted to know: Was there a chance the chamber could still act in time?

WASHINGTON -- To understand the choices before voters this fall, look to Congress this week, where the House and Senate are set to conduct show votes on measures that will have long lives on the campaign trail, but little expectation of becoming law. The contrast being presented is clear: The GOP-led House is scheduled to vote on a bill to repeal President Obama's healthcare law; the Senate, with its Democratic majority, will try to advance one...

WASHINGTON -- As Congress awaits the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's healthcare legislation, House Speaker John A. Boehner had a stern warning for rank-and-file Republicans he has struggled to keep on message. “There will be no spiking of the ball,” Boehner wrote in a memo to GOP lawmakers. Even though Republicans have opposed the law, and tried to repeal it, there will be no celebrations if the court strikes down the law or parts of it. Republicans have worked to keep their troops focused on what GOP leaders see is their best talking point heading toward the November election: jobs and the economy . “Republicans are focused on the economy,” Boehner went on in the memo circulated late last week.

Rahm Emanuel was agitated. With only seven weeks until Christmas, the opportunity to pass healthcare legislation seemed to be fading. The White House chief of staff feared that if the Senate left for the holiday without passing a bill, President Obama's top domestic priority would wither as lawmakers turned to other concerns next year. Democratic senators and administration officials gathered in a conference room outside Majority Leader Harry Reid's Capitol office. Emanuel wanted to know: Was there a chance the chamber could still act in time?