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TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) – Arizona Senator John McCain wants President Obama to start health care reform all over again. He argues polls suggest Americans want a clean start and he says it needs more bipartisan support. "This bill was written by Democrats for Democrats and then they tried and I understand power. What they try to do is peel off a couple of Republicans as they did with the stimulus bill and call it bipartisan," McCain said.

Backroom deals have marred the debate over health care reform and poisoned the public’s attitude toward the legislation, Sen. John McCain said Sunday. “Overwhelmingly, the American people are saying stop and start over,” McCain (R-Ariz.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They don’t like these cynical deals.” (snip) McCain said he hoped last week’s health care summit at the Blair House could be “the basis for some good negotiations...” (snip) “Let’s start over,” McCain said, citing malpractice reform and allowing insurers to sell across state lines as reforms Republicans could support. “We want to sit down and have negotiations. We...

He told me on GMA this morning that doing nothing is not much of an option and that he would “be glad to go over again” to continue the discussion.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the members of the Senate Republican delegation to Thursday's White House health-care summit, and the list includes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The Arizona Republican is not known as a health-care expert. But as the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, McCain offered a sweeping reform plan with some elements that overlap with the Obama proposal, and others that would have represented a radical departure from the current system.

In the wake of a political setback for national health care legislation, Senator John McCain, the losing candidate in the last presidential election, advised his victorious 2008 adversary on Sunday that the way to get meaningful changes passed is to “start from the beginning” by meeting with Republicans. Mr. McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said on the CBS news program “Face the Nation” that President Obama should sit down with Republican leaders and begin adopting some of their ideas for improving the nation’s health care system such as overhauling medical malpractice lawsuits, allowing residents of one state to buy health...

For months Democrats, including President Obama, courted Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, hoping to win her vote for major health care legislation. And now that the legislation is stalled, following the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday, Ms. Snowe said she tried to warn Democrats, including Mr. Obama, that they were pushing too hard too fast. “It really is a reflection of the country, frankly, and having to build the right consensus and not overreaching with very expansive policy,” Ms. Snowe said of the outcome in Massachusetts. “I am not surprised in what occurred on...

"I think that first of all- just so were past campaign mode- I think its important for everyone to get some form of health care. So to offer a basic plan for everybody, I think is important. Its just a question- were gonna raise taxes- were gonna cut a half a trillion from Medicare- were gonna effect veterans care." I think we can do it better. And to just be the 41st Senator, and bring it back to the drawing board. There is(sic) some very good things as you just pointed out, in the national plan that is being proposed....

(snip) VAN SUSTEREN: Would you be willing, and this is maybe a given, but let me ask you anyway. Would you be willing to sit down with the president? Are Republicans willing to? Democrats say you Republicans are obstructionists, that you won't talk you and are just trying to abort the whole process. What are you willing to do? MCCAIN: We are willing to sit down. He wanted to be in on the takeoff. If you want us in on the landing, let us in on the takeoff. The fact is this process was partisan totally throughout. I've been a...

The Democrats’ biggest accomplishment of this decade was getting a package through both houses of Congress mandating that every American have health insurance. Their biggest accomplishment of the next decade will be watching it fail. Then they can get what they really want, a government takeover of health care. That’s my prediction. It’s based on what I call the Frito-Lay theory of health reform: Mandates are like potato chips; you can’t have just one. Just for fun, I ran that theory by someone who has been watching the health care debate up close, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, a...

As haggling between House and Senate versions of national health care reform gets under way in Washington, Massachusetts residents may be feeling a bit of dejà vu. The insurance mandates and cost controls being negotiated on Capitol Hill are the same polarizing issues that echoed in Beacon Hill chambers three years ago. In 2006, then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed the nation's most ambitious and complex health reform initiative with the goal of providing universal health care coverage to all Massachusetts residents. Like the bill taking shape in Congress, the state's health legislation required all residents to obtain health insurance or face...

Currently, the only people left defending the Massachusetts health care reform are liberals who want to see Obamacare passed ... and Mitt Romney. On Sunday, while the Senate debated a bill to have the government takeover the health care system, Romney went on CNN and argued that his state takeover of health care worked out quite well for Massachusetts. Asked by John King to respond to criticism offered by his likely 2012 presidential rival Tim Pawlenty about how spending exploded in Massachusetts after the implementation of RomneyCare, Romney responded...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Sunday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has his facts wrong in criticizing the health care plan Romney instituted in his state. Pawlenty has repeatedly pointed to the Massachusetts plan of his potential rival for the 2012 Republican nomination as the perfect example of how not to do health care reform. The Minnesota governor has made that case in numerous interviews, speeches and op-eds that, while not focused on the Massachusetts program, make his criticism of it clear. Presented with a clip of Pawlenty arguing that the Massachusetts plan did not come close to meeting...

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is pledging to fight health care reform efforts as the Senate prepares to hold its first full-chamber vote on health reforms Saturday. The Obama administration and Democrats want to create a government-run system as a public option to offer insurance to uninsured and operate alongside private providers. McCain and U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., oppose the public option. In an e-mail to supporters, McCain pledged to fight the public option, saying it would drive up costs for consumers and widen the federal deficit.

More than a million low-income Massachusetts residents covered by Medicaid will be required to pay more for doctor visits and receive prior approval for some medications under a plan announced today by the Patrick administration to begin to close a $307 million shortfall in the state's MassHealth program.

(snip) Although some in the party believe that it should be tilting right in whom to support in future elections, he said, "I will be by and large supporting conservative Republicans" but would not rule out backing some moderates, referencing former President Reagan. "He was the one who coined the term 'the big tent.' He also said that you don't build something by subtraction. So we welcome people who agree with us on most issues. Some will be very conservative on some issues. Some will be less so on others. We welcome you into the party." (snip) "We have a...

(Washington, D.C.) -- Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) predicted on Thursday that there will be a constitutional challenge to the provision in the health care bill under consideration in Congress that would require all Americans to buy health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government has never before mandated that Americans purchase any good or service. When asked by CNSNews.com on Thursday where in the Constitution is Congress given the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance, McCain said, “That is an excellent question and I’m sure that if they pass health care legislation, I think there...

Republicans will enact the health reform proposal they unveiled this week if they take back the House, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pledged Thursday. Appearing on the Republican National Committee's (RNC) online town hall, Boehner and other House and Senate leaders said they sensed momentum behind GOP efforts to halt Democratic health reform legislation, which is set for a vote on Saturday. "If we get in the majority after the election, I plan to enact our healthcare plan," Boehner said during the town hall.

NOVEMBER 2, 2009 GOP Set to Propose Its Own Health Bill By GREG HITT WASHINGTON -- Republicans are preparing an alternative health-care bill to Democratic legislation, House Republican Leader John Boehner said, marking a shift in strategy as the full House is set to begin debate on the issue this week. Mr. Boehner said Sunday the Republican bill would extend health-insurance coverage to "millions" of Americans but wouldn't try to match the scope of the House Democratic bill unveiled last week. The Democratic legislation, if passed, is estimated to expand coverage to more than 30 million Americans now without insurance....

(snip) SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about health care quickly. It looks like that’s coming finally to a head in the Senate. It looks like that the majority leader, Harry Reid, is going to put the government- run insurance option in there, the so-called public option. Do you think at this point that that will pass the Senate?MCCAIN: I think that the Democrats have the votes. I think that Blue Dogs bark but never bite. So I don’t think they have a problem over in the House side.MCCAIN: In the Senate, I think that the Democrats are very aware that...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says health care is a right; President Obama says health care is a right; the 2008 Democratic National Platform says health care is a right. Republicans say that health care is not a right. Right? Former Republican Senate majority leaders Bill "bought and paid for by the AMA" Frist and Bob "bought and paid for by Big Pharma" Dole support health care reform, but the Republicans in Congress, who have to answer to the voters, are balking. As much as I deplore with every fiber of my being every facet of the federal government’s intrusion into...

Cape Cod, Mass.My husband retired from IBM about a decade ago, and as we aren't old enough for Medicare we still buy our health insurance through the company. But IBM, with its typical courtesy, informed us recently that we will be fined by the state. Why? Because Massachusetts requires every resident to have health insurance, and this year, without informing us directly, the state had changed the rules in a way that made our bare-bones policy no longer acceptable. Unless we ponied up for a pricier policy we neither need nor want—or enrolled in a government-sponsored insurance plan—we would have...

Sen. John McCain will hold a town hall on health care from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Sahuarita school district auditorium, 350 W. Sahuarita Road. Doors open at noon. Parking is available behind the school district administration building, whose driveway is west of the varsity baseball field. Parking also is available off the driveway to the middle school and primary school, which is the first driveway east of Rancho Sahuarita Boulevard. The format and other details will be made available Tuesday, McCain’s office said.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is the chief proponent of a public option "trigger," but she said Monday that she does not expect one in the Finance Committee bill. In fact, the trigger has barely come up in the Gang of Six talks. "It probably will be a straight co-op at this point," Snowe said. "We did not discuss the trigger to be part of the co-op, at least in the framework we have before us." She said she wasn't abandoning the idea, which Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) panned on the Sunday talk shows. "It may be something down the road,"...

A retired teacher died of a burst stomach ulcer after a paramedic told her to ‘stop being such a drama queen’ and failed to take her to hospital, an inquest heard yesterday. Mother-of-three Eileen Ellis-Whitfield, 63, died just hours after an ambulance was called to her home when she fell seriously ill with chronic stomach pains.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker Believes There is Still Room for Compromise on Health Care. BY SHAILAGH MURRAY Republican Sen. Bob Corker stood before a packed high school auditorium this week for his 24th and final town hall meeting of the summer, sketching out his vision for the bipartisan health-care plan he says he is convinced Congress can pass.

The Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan negotiating team is expected to continue talks Friday on a health care reform plan that the vice president predicted would eventually pass the Congress. "As bleak as it looks, you know, always darkest before the dawn," Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday, after a speech at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank. "The prospects of success are high. I think they are very high." The Finance Committee's "gang of six" -- three Republicans and three Democrats -- plans to hold its second teleconference call since the August break. The group was given...

Sen. Mel Martinez will hold a health care forum tomorrow in Hialeah with Sen. John McCain and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “This is going to be a frank discussion with health care providers, patients, and other stakeholders to air concerns about the current system and what steps Congress should take to address the problems," the retiring Martinez said in a statement.

KANSAS CITY, MO - Three Republican senators came to Children's Mercy Hospital Monday to meet with health care professionals. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said we should focus on only the problems that need fixing and not revamp the whole thing. Senator McConnell joined Senators John McCain and Kit Bond before an invited crowd of mostly health professionals on Monday. "We have committed an act of generational death by laying on our children, grandchildren these multi-trillions of dollars," Sen. McCain said. "All of it, it strikes me argues once again for a much more targeted, incremental approach to health care...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain is coming to North Carolina to speak about health care alongside two other GOP senators. McCain will join North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at event in Charlotte on Tuesday morning. McCain and McConnell are traveling around the country to discuss health care and take questions from those involved in the debate.

If you are curious about how President Barack Obama's health plan would affect your health care, look no farther than Massachusetts. In 2006, the Bay State enacted a slate of reforms that almost perfectly mirror the plan of Obama and congressional Democrats.Those reforms reveal that the Obama plan would mean higher health insurance premiums for millions, would reduce choice by eliminating both low-cost and comprehensive health plans, would encourage insurers to avoid the sick and would reduce the quality of care. Massachusetts reduced its uninsured population by two-thirds — yet the cost would be considered staggering, had state officials not...

Health Care: "First, do no harm" is never the maxim of Washington politicians. With a public uprising killing ObamaCare, Sen. John McCain wants "to sit down with the president" and resuscitate it.IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For FailureAt a town hall in Sun City, Ariz., on Tuesday, the defeated Republican presidential nominee displayed a chart featuring some good health care reform ideas. They included tort reform to reduce the $200 billion a year added to health costs thanks to medical malpractice awards; a sizable tax credit to pay for insurance; and allowing Americans to cross state lines to...

Reform: If Massachusetts is any guide, the passage of ObamaCare is almost certain to increase demand and worsen the shortage of doctors. Access to health care doesn't mean much if there's no doctor to provide it.Suppose health care reform passes and all are insured, by force or otherwise. The U.S. will be short 124,400 front-line physicians by 2025, according to the Association of Medical Colleges. That does not include the 15,585 new primary-care providers the administration plan is estimated to require. The Massachusetts reforms enacted in 2006, designed to provide universal coverage, provide an insight into what we might expect...

(CNN) -- If Washington wants health care reform with bipartisan support, experts say consider what former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accomplished as governor in Democratic Massachusetts. "You don't have to have a public option," Romney said. "You don't have to have the government getting into the insurance business to make it work." Three years after enacting its own version of reform, Massachusetts now has near-universal coverage. Taxpayer watchdogs say it's affordable. "There is this widespread assumption, that is treated as fact, that it's breaking the bank in Massachusetts ... it's not breaking the bank at all." said Michael Widmer...

It will U.S. Sen. John McCain’s turn next week to face raucous crowds at health care town halls. The Arizona Republican will host town hall meetings Aug. 25 in Sun City and Aug. 26 in Phoenix. They will be focused on health care and reforms pushed by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. That includes the possibility of a government-run system to cover the uninsured and operate alongside private for-profit insurance companies. The contentious health care issue has prompted ornery crowds to boo and criticize Democratic lawmakers at similar town halls in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Florida. Protesters on the...

Warrenton, Virginia (PRWEB) August 18, 2009 -- Today, the Social Security Institute (SSI) joined with Patients First to carry an urgent message to three critical states: ObamaCare as originally conceived is dead, and the real danger now is RINOcare or ObamaCare Lite, which the Administration is trying to smuggle into law disguised as a "bipartisan compromise." The purpose of the tour is to convince critical Republican Senators in these states that the time has come to abandon unrealistic and potentially dangerous efforts to negotiate a bipartisan compromise. Instead, the Congress should put consideration of major healthcare reform on hold for...