health care reform

Las Vegas attorney Mark Hutchison says he will soon be going to Florida for oral arguments in the federal motion to dismiss the health care lawsuit being brought by 20 states including Nevada.
Reagan-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson will hear arguments challenging the states’ right to bring the suit on September 14, 2010 in the Northern District of Florida.

This morning in a statewide media conference call moderated by the Nevada News Bureau, candidate Brian Sandoval fielded questions on numerous issues including the 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the two-thirds legislative supermajority needed to increase taxes, tax policy, the Tax Pledge, budget cuts and higher education salaries, renewable energy mandates and the state’s health care reform lawsuit.

I've always liked Dean Heller. We might disagree politically, but my interactions with him have always been friendly. He seems like a truly nice person, the opposite of the what we see in some other Nevada politicians.

But watching him this week at the NNDA breakfast reminded me that Dean's ambition is clearly more important than adherence to truth.

You see, Dean used to come off as a lot more moderate than he does today. As assemblyman and Secretary of State, he championed causes that don't exactly line up with the national GOP's ideology.

Four attorneys with ties to the issues and parties of Nevada’s health care reform lawsuit gave their perspectives to media and political bloggers during a Nevada News Bureau-hosted conference call this afternoon.
Mark Hutchison, lead counsel for Governor Gibbons’ newly retained pro-bono team, said he plans to participate in a conference with US District Court Judge Roger Vinson next week as part of the process to join Florida and other states in an amended complaint challenging the federal government on provisions in the recently passed health care legislation.

The recently-passed health insurance reform bill will lead to major changes for Nevada’s Medicaid program.

In an act of defiance against the advice given him by Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto, Governor Gibbons appears to be arranging to have private counsel, acting on his behalf as Governor, file suit against enactment of the recently passed National Health Care Reform Act.

A dozen community and labor groups from Nevada have signed onto a letter to Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto urging her to support, not file suit, over federal health care reform.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons this week demanded the Attorney General join a lawsuit filed by 14 other Attorneys General to block implementation of federal health care reform, a package of changes that critics of the lawsuits claim are needed in Nevada, where an estimated 400,000 men, women and children lack health insurance coverage.

These days, I get a chuckle when I see people engaging in philosophical debates over health care reform, or "socialized medicine" as opponents call it.

I understand and respect the positions of those who think government should not be a part of the health care system, that the free market will fix everything. It's an interesting philosophical position, but it faces the brick wall of reality.

It was about midnight and tensions at the White House ran high on that January evening. House and Senate leaders had been haggling for days to merge their two health care bills. The heady momentum of passing President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority in both chambers had given way to the touchy task of reconciling two very different pieces of legislation. Their window for passing health care was closing: Republican Scott Brown was gaining ground on the Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began to speak.

Let me preface this by saying the just-passed health care reform law provokes strong opinions on both sides, and I'm not going to attempt in this post to pass judgement one way or the other.

But it seems very clear that embattled Gov. Jim Gibbons is trying to use this issue to boost his reelection chances, to the detriment of the state.

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What Sen. Reid is about to be praised for from coast to coast, and put him in the history books is what will likely make his re-election to the U.S.

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A long agonizing road to health care reform took another turn toward completion today as a reform bill, brokered largely by Nevada Senator Harry Reid, delivered the 60 vote

President Obama says he’s confident that the country will have a health care reform act passed and signed by him very shortly.

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As the Democrats push health care reform along in the Senate, Republicans dig in their heels like it’s life or death.

Following up on the progress forward of the Democrat sponsored National Health Reform Bill, Governor Jim Gibbons has called it a “stab in Nevada’s back” by steeply raising state costs for Medicaid.

At his much touted “Open Door Meeting” with state lawmakers and the news media, Governor Gibbons started the session with a dismal evaluation of the state budget, said more state worker pay cuts or fu

I congratulate and commend Harry Reid on his statement comparing the opposition against reforming health care to the opposition against abolishing slavery.

AARP endorses plan for health care reformBy Carla Sloan For the Nevada Appeal

Health care reform will correct a world of ills

COMMENTARY: Put politics aside and support health care reformBy Janice Ayres