Medicare Is Dead—Long Live Medicare: Steele

(NEWSER) - The RNC has joined the fracas over health care reform with a proposed “seniors’ bill of rights” that guards against Medicare cuts, ABC News reports. “Our seniors have really come under fire in the last few weeks,” says RNC chair Michael Steele—who backed Medicare cuts as a Senate candidate in 2006. His argument today on Good Morning America: "We should protect the seniors' ability to access health care." More»

Republicans relent after weeks of procedural delays

(NEWSER) - The Senate unanimously confirmed Regina Benjamin as US surgeon general yesterday after Republicans ended a procedural delay that had dragged on for several weeks. Mitch McConnell and seven other GOP senators said they stalled because of an administration “gag order” that prevented insurers from giving their opinions on the effects of pending health care reform to senior citizens on Medicare. Benjamin said the news was “just sinking in." More»

Keep plans private, creating gov't care 'by proxy'

(NEWSER) - Amid “widespread national revulsion,” Obamacare as it stands “is dead,” but the Democrats can revive it if they’re willing to make some key concessions, writes Charles Krauthammer—a nonpracticing physician in addition to pundit—in the Washington Post. What they must do:

1. Dump the public option.
2. Forget about “any reference to end-of-life counseling.”
3. Don’t let government decide what procedures are best.
4. Don’t treat the overhaul as a cost-cutting measure.

(NEWSER) - Both chambers of Congress will likely miss President Obama’s August deadline for a health care reform bill, slowing “the momentum behind the president's top priority,” Jay Newton-Small writes in Time. “Why can't a popular president with poll numbers in the 60s and super majorities in both chambers of Congress get this done?”

• The Costs Question: "So much of the potential cost savings of overhauling the entire health care system is unknown and impossible to predict with any accuracy," and all the conflicting numbers give ammunition to opponents.

(NEWSER) - Drawing on the momentum the GOP has gained in the health care debate, RNC chair Michael Steele today called President Obama’s plans a “dangerous experiment,” the Washington Post reports. "This reckless approach is an ill-conceived attempt to push through an experiment and all of us should be scared to death," Steele said in a speech at the National Press Club. Asked whether he'd characterize the plan as "socialism," Steele responded, "Yes. Next question," the AP reports. More»