I love good news like this:Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Insurers such as
WellPoint Inc. and
Blue Cross Blue Shield and drugmakers are redoubling their efforts to fight proposals to overhaul the U.S health-care system, adding another obstacle as legislative hurdles mount.
The insurers oppose competition from a new government-run program that’s included in both the House and Senate plans. The trade group representing drugmakers such as
Pfizer Inc. says a House provision to allow the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare would cost tens of thousands of jobs.
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi won passage of her version of the legislation on Nov. 7 only after forcing her party’s liberal wing to make concessions and can’t count on those votes for a final version. In the Senate, time is running out to get a bill passed this year, leaving the effort vulnerable to a loss of momentum and a new backlash from Republicans in 2010.
“They know they don’t have 60 votes,” said former Senator
John Breaux, who now heads a
lobbying firm that represents the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry’s Washington trade group. “They have to go back to the drawing board” on the plan to set up a government-run insurer, he said.
The House version passed 220-215 after Pelosi agreed to allow an ultimately successful vote that puts limits on the use of federal funds for abortion, setting up a later fight. The measure also includes a new government insurer, the so-called public option, that will pose less of a threat to private insurers than the original proposal.
Continued:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSkKYFb.82VMAlso yesterday:
Republicans take aim at vulnerable Democrats in health war!Within minutes of Saturday’s historic House
vote on health care reform, Republicans pronounced the political death of Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.), pointing to the vulnerable freshman congressman’s vote in favor of the bill.
And in the aftermath of the politically charged vote, Perriello wasn’t the only Democratic congressman whose fortunes were being reassessed. The GOP, which voted nearly in lock step against the measure, began crowing about the demise of various other
vulnerable members and seized on the moment as a milestone in the path back to a House majority.
Other than Perriello — who was the target of 12 consecutive postvote GOP e-mails accusing him of breaking his promises — a handful of members immediately stood out for casting especially tough votes.
Three of them are junior legislators from highly competitive Ohio districts: first-term Reps.
Mary Jo Kilroy and
Steve Driehaus, and Rep.
Zack Space, a second-term Democrat from a district that backed GOP presidential candidate John McCain in 2008.
Kilroy, who is facing a 2010 rematch against the Republican she narrowly defeated by 2,300 votes last year, took to the House floor Saturday morning to declare her support for the bill.
“This is a moral issue,” Kilroy said, in a speech that noted her own trials with multiple sclerosis.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29306.html