President Obama has signaled that he might be willing to scale back his proposed healthcare overhaul to a version that could attract bipartisan support, but it was not clear that even a stripped-down bill could get through Congress anytime soon, the New York Times reports. Inside the White House, top aides to the president said President Obama had made no decision on how to proceed, and insisted that his preference was still to win passage of a far-reaching healthcare measure that would extend coverage to more than 30 million people by 2019, reports the Times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggled to sell the Senate version of the legislation to reluctant Democrats, even as party moderates raised doubts about forging ahead without bipartisan support, the Washington Post reports. Despite Republican Scott Brown's victory in a Senate special election in Massachusetts, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) have pledged to complete work on the massive bill they started nearly a year ago. But they have yet to identify a clear way forward that will appeal broadly to their rank-and-file, the Post reports.
President Barack Obama expressed support for scaling back a health bill to "core elements," an indication that the White House might be backing away from the type of broader overhaul that Congress had been working on, the Wall Street Journal reports. Obama told ABC News that lawmakers should "move quickly to coalesce around" parts of the healthcare bill that both parties can agree on, "core elements" that include insurance reform.
Nashville City Council members said they were impressed by plans from Market Center Management Co., which wants to spend $250 million to convert an existing convention center into a medical trade center. Market Center wants to turn the Nashville Convention Center into a 15-story facility where hospitals and other healthcare companies can comparison shop for beds, technology, and other products.
Opponents of the healthcare overhaul are laying plans to use court challenges, state laws, and ballot initiatives to unravel any bill that emerges from Congress. Republican attorneys general and governors in more than a dozen states are threatening to file suit to block a particular provision of the Senate bill that gives a special financial deal to Nebraska. Several have expressed interest in a broader legal challenge to the overhaul even if that provision is removed, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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