Stories

Instead of asking conservatives to call home-state senators with pleas for votes against health care reform, the Republican National Committee is asking its membership to contact the offices of two Democratic senators deemed “critically important” to squashing any up-or-down vote on the reform bill.

The Register’s Kathie Obradovich reports that U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin will not make it to the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in person tomorrow night because he’ll be busy trying to pass health care reform in Washington, D.C. In his absence, the party will play a video greeting from him during the event.
Perhaps more notably, [...]

Not only is U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin confident that the Senate Democratic Caucus will be able to block filibuster attempts on a health care reform bill, but he is looking forward to the jockeying that will come from both political parties once the bill is signed.

Harkin said he “can only hope” that Republicans who have opposed reform efforts will make the legislation a theme in their speeches on the campaign trail.

“I hope it is an issue next year,” he said.

A little more than half of Americans believe health care reform would do more harm than good, according to a University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Wednesday.
The national phone survey of 772 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, found that 52 percent believe government action would do more harm [...]

Not only will the Senate be working weekends through December on health care reform legislation, but it could also spend the upcoming weekend in session, Sen. Tom Harkin told D.C.-based newspaper The Hill.

The vast majority of Democratic opposition to the final health reform bill in the U.S. House came from members whose districts are more rural than the nation as a whole.

Even if Democrats manage to pass health reform legislation, if it contains an individual mandate it could prove unconstitutional, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Thursday.
During an interview with KAYL radio in Storm Lake and the Marshalltown Times Republican, Grassley said that even though he’s never studied law and is not a constitutional expert, he still [...]

Though it’s been little mentioned throughout the health reform debate, there’s a showdown brewing between House and Senate Democrats over the future of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, previously known as SCHIP.
House lawmakers have proposed to do away with the program at the end of 2013, transitioning millions of kids instead to private plans [...]

A last-minute amendment to the health care reform bill that passed the U.S. House on Saturday is disruptive to the current ban on federal funding for abortion services and could lead down a slippery slope that prevents women from accessing services with their own money as well, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Tuesday.

U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) made a significant sacrifice to cast his vote against the Democrats’ health care reform package, which passed by only a handful of votes Saturday night in Washington, D.C.
He skipped his son’s wedding.