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Senate Finance Committee members have been notified that the committee's health reform bill was filed today. S. 1796 weighs in at 1,502 pages, according to a Senate Republican leadership source. It's still not up yet on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov. We'll post a link as soon as we get one.

White House discreetly labors to weave coalition on health care WASHINGTON - Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead. President Barack Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers. But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily...

Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, said that while he liked the idea of a public option, he knew a bill that included the provision would be a death sentence for health care reform. But Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Charles Schumer of New York, who sponsored the public option amendments, both indicated that they don't think the debate about the public option is over. Despite his proposal being voted down, Schumer said Tuesday, "Today the odds went up that there'll be a public option in the bill." There's been a lot of focus on the plan in...

Updated at 4:05 p.m. ET with vote on Schumer amendment. A key Senate panel shot down two amendments on Tuesday afternoon to add a government-run health insurance plan to its health care bill. Getting to the crux of the nation's current health care debate – whether there should be more government involvement in health care -- the Senate Finance Committee spent hours debating the merits of a government plan, or "public option," before voting down two separate proposals.

Senate Committee Votes Against Government-Run Public Option Insurance Plan

Some(1) have tried to ease concerns about President Obama's plan to reform health-care by stating that at this point there isn’t exactly a specific bill to be for or against. Well, as an avid reader of New York Post headlines and Sarah Palin’s Tweets I can assure you that Ralph Wigglesworth has already heard all he needs to know. To be frank, what it is I'm hearing is that even after last week's hugely successful public Tea-bagging of Washington much of the public (this is the same selfish public that's for a public-option...what a coincidence!!) finds the arguments of the...

On a Thursday night Republican Governors Association conference call with conservative activists, moderated by Erick Erickson of RedState, Gov. Tim Pawlenty broached the possibility of “asserting the 10th Amendment” to keep Minnesota from fully participating in a health care plan passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. The 10th Amendment reads:

Breaking News Sen. Finance Chairman Baucus Concedes 'Public Option' Can't Pass the Senate

The only way a "public plan" can achieve its stated goals is to pay doctors and hospitals less than what private health plans pay for the same services. Doctors and hospitals in Alaska already lose money on Medicare, and make up for their losses on current government programs by charging everyone with private health care coverage more for the same services. Current proposals for a "public plan" would place unsustainable financial pressure on doctors and hospitals. Some of the proposals suggest paying providers rates close to that which Medicare currently uses to underpay health care providers. Others suggest "negotiated" payments,...

"Why can't they make Medicare the public option? Allow anyone to be part of Medicare. . . . Seems reasonable unless I'm missing something." Quoting comment #19 on Democratic Underground website thread titled "White House appears ready to drop 'public option'"

'Public option' in health plan may be droppedSHERYL GAY STOLBERG Last Modified: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 5:17 a.m. PHOENIX — The White House, facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate. The “public option,” a new government insurance program akin to Medicare, has been a central component of Mr. Obama’s agenda for overhauling the health care system, but it has also emerged as a flashpoint for...

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. With multimillion-dollar jury awards in medical malpractice suits driving up the cost of liability insurance for physicians -- and thus the cost of health care to consumers -- President Barack Obama today backed a health care malpractice reform plan that would create a "public option" law firm to sue doctors for "reasonable" damages. "We need to keep these ambulance-chasers honest," Obama said. "These sharks are becoming obscenely wealthy by tugging the heartstrings of compassionate jurors, who then grant ridiculous damage awards for pain and suffering, which makes malpractice insurance rates skyrocket and jacks...

Some of us may have seen James Carville say that Public Option is out. This is just a Democratic strategy that is again a partial truth only to shut us up while they work on getting it through. This fight is far from over. Democratic strategist Howard Dean laid out the Democratic plans this morning on MSNBC to ultimately put in Public Option such that they will have it in the House bill, but not the Senate bill. When they reconcile the two bills for Obama's desk, it will only need 50 votes in the Senate, and they can "forget...

...Americans fighting against government-run health care are out of the woods yet. Conrad insists that the Senate could pass health reform that includes health insurance co-operatives. Co-operatives do have a long and proud tradition in many sectors of the U.S. economy, but details matter. Conrad says these health co-ops will not be “government-run and government-controlled” but instead “membership-run and membership controlled.” But others in Conrad’s caucus have a starkly different co-op goal. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pushing a vision of co-ops that are: 1) run by the government, preferably the federal government; 2) funded or subsidized by the government;...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's health secretary is suggesting the White House is ready to accept nonprofit insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run public option in a health overhaul plan. A Republican senator says that is worth looking at. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says Obama still believes there should be choice and competition" in the health insurance market — but that a public option is "not the essential element."

".....Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange......."

Launching a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities will be the "only one choice" left for the United States if new economic sanctions fail to convince Tehran to halt its bomb-making program, according to Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Only through "crippling sanctions do we have a chance to convince the Iranians to stop this nuclear weapons program," Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut, told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Stiffer sanctions are necessary in order to "save ourselves" from having to make the most difficult choice, which he said was "doing nothing in regard to a nuclear Iran,...

WASHINGTON – Cells taken from men's testicles seem as versatile as the stem cells derived from embryos, researchers reported Wednesday in what may be yet another new approach in a burgeoning scientific field. The new type of stem cells could be useful for growing personalized replacement tissues, according to a study in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. But because of their source, their highest promise would apply to only half the world's population: men. Embryonic stem cells can give rise to virtually any tissue in the body and scientists believe they may offer treatments for diseases like Parkinson's and...

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on partial birth abortion, proponents of abortion have reacted as if the sky were falling. Abortion proponents have grimly announced that a "womans right to choose" is in peril. Of course, they speak about the "right to choose" only in the abstract; they are careful not to identify the choice they have in view. The morality of any "choice" under consideration, however, cannot be divorced from the thing that is being chosen. Choices are not mere abstractions. They are concrete, and they have consequences. Let's not kid ourselves about...

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) is asking whether he can take money from donors who want him to be president, then give it back later. The Federal Election Commission said Wednesday that it will look into the novel question. Obama is indicating that he wants to at least keep the option of using the public financing system for his presidential campaign if he becomes the Democratic nominee. To do so, the Illinois senator could not spend any money from contributors for political purposes, but instead use federal funding that is expected to total about $85...