Cover the Uninsured Weekly News Digest - Week of November 16, 2009

Reid pushes for votes on health-care bill
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid worked Thursday to nail down the votes needed to move to a final debate on health-care legislation, but a tepid assessment of the public insurance plan he crafted emerged as the latest potential obstacle to the passage of the far-reaching changes.
(Source: Washington Post, Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray, 11/20/09)

House OKs $210 Billion to Help Out Doctors
The Democrat-controlled House voted Thursday to add more than $200 billion to the deficit to prevent steep Medicare payment cuts to doctors, a move Republicans denounced as a political payoff.
(Source: Associated Press, Erica Werner, 11/20/2009)

Senate Health Plan Seeks to Add Coverage to 31 Million
Democratic leaders in the Senate on Wednesday unveiled their proposal for overhauling the health care system, outlining legislation that they said would cover most of the uninsured while reducing the federal budget deficit.
(Source: New York Times, Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn, 11/19/2009)

Mammography Outcry Points to Trouble for Healthcare Reform
A core tenet of the healthcare overhaul President Obama is pushing through Congress is that medical care can be improved -- and costs contained -- if the country relies more on experts to determine which procedures and treatments work best.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, Noam N. Levey, 11/18/2009)

Coverage Mandate Under Fire
Conservatives have opened a new front in the health-care debate with the assertion that under the Democrats' plan, people who refuse to buy health insurance could spend five years in prison.
(Source: Wall Street Journal, Naftali Bendavid, 11/18/2009)

White House Backs Bill Supported by Doctors' Group
The White House on Wednesday urged Congress to pass a bill to boost Medicare payments to doctors, a step that could shore up support from an influential doctors' lobbying group for a broad healthcare overhaul.
(Source: Reuters, Donna Smith, 11/18/2009)

AP Poll: Fine Print in Health Care Prompts Worries
What's it going to cost me?
(Source: Associated Press, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Trevor Tompson, 11/16/2009)

Health Bill Foes Solicit Funds for Economic Study
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.
(Source: Washington Post, Michael D. Shear, 11/16/2009)