Julie Rovner is a health policy journalist who has covered Capitol Hill since 1986. She is currently a part-time health policy correspondent for National Public Radio and a special correspondent for National Journal's Congress Daily.
Recent Stories
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was able to get the bill passed while the Senate couldn't by appending it to a more popular bill. Republicans complained that the cost of the measure was not offset and also charged that it was repayment to the AMA for endorsing the Democrats' health care bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to outline a new health care bill soon designed to meet President Obama's goal of expanding coverage without adding to the deficit. Reid wants to bring the measure to the Senate floor in the next few days.
Observers say the ultimate impact of the House abortion amendment could be to change abortion from being a procedure routinely covered by most private insurance plans to a procedure routinely excluded — even in cases of medical emergency.
House lawmakers on Saturday passed a sweeping bill that would overhaul the nation's health care system. The measure, supported mostly by Democrats, contained an abortion amendment that required the party to make a significant shift to the right.
The House of Representatives passed a bill to overhaul the nation's health care system Saturday night. The vote was close, 220-215, and it only included a single Republican. To pass the bill, Democrats also had to allow a controversial amendment banning abortion funding in both public and private plans in the new marketplaces the bill would create. But as NPR's Julie Rovner reports, passage represents a major hurdle cleared for President Obama's top domestic priority.
The House of Representatives debated Saturday over the long-awaited bill. Republicans appeared universal in their opposition to the Democratic plan. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scrambled to collect the 218 votes necessary for passage by luring conservative Democrats with a possible compromise on abortion.
The health care legislation in the House is named for John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan. He is the longest-serving member in the history of the House, and he was there when Medicare was passed. Dingell's father first introduced a bill calling for universal health coverage in the 1930s.
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows the recently released Republican plan won't significantly expand insurance coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who lack health insurance. And on Saturday, debate begins on the Democrats' health bill in the House.
After months of criticizing Democrats' plans to overhaul the nation's health care system, House Republicans are finally putting their own proposal on paper. They hope to offer it as an alternative when floor debate begins, possibly by the end of this week. The Republican's posted their bill online Tuesday night.
House Republicans on Tuesday produced a health care bill as an alternative to legislation by majority Democrats. The 230-page measure focuses more on lowering costs than on expanding coverage. The Democratic bill is 1,990 pages.
Lawmakers thought they had crafted "abortion-neutral language," essentially maintaining the status quo, but neither side of the debate is happy. And the issue is causing headaches for the Catholic Church, where opposition to abortion is running headlong into support for a health overhaul.
House Democrats bowed toward their more conservative members with their new health care overhaul bill, which was unveiled Thursday. Throughout the negotiations, Republicans remained firmly on the sidelines, leaving Democrats to cobble together a bill that can satisfy enough of their own members to make a majority
Nearly all seniors are covered through Medicare, but legislators still need their support for a health care overhaul bill. Democrats have packed their bills with perks for seniors in an effort to win their backing, but, one analyst says, they haven't necessarily done a good job of publicizing that.
A public option looks likely to be included in both the House and Senate versions of health care bills expected to be brought to their respective floors early next month. But even if lawmakers can get a bill passed and signed by President Obama, they are faced with a potential public relations problem: Most of the benefits don't actually take effect for three years or more.
This could be the week House and Senate leaders unveil the health overhaul bills they intend to take to their respective floors for debate. The government-run public option may still be on the table. Senate Democrats are trying to come up with a bill that can overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.
