Free Republic

Washington is captivated by the Senate melodrama over the so-called public option, salivating at the ring of Harry Reid's political bell (see below). But the most important health-care questions continue to be about the policy substance—particularly those that Democrats don't want asked. Foremost among them is: How will ObamaCare affect insurance premiums in the private health-care markets? Despite indignant Democratic denials, the near-certainty is that their plan will cause costs to rise across the board. The latest data on this score come from a series of state-level studies from the insurance company WellPoint Inc. At the request of Congressional delegations...

Rep. Frost (D) is "explaining" ObamaCare. "It would be unfair to pass ObamaCare without a way to pay for it." "Obama's feet aren't set in concrete. It would have been irresponsible for Obama not to go back on his promise not to tax health benefits." "Only rich and upper-class people will have their health benefits taxed. That's fair since they're rich." "We must ensure that great health costs can be paid by everyone."

President Barack Obama pushed urgently Thursday for passage of legislation to confront global warming, billing it as a job-creating machine rather than the costly ''job killer'' Republicans denounced. He telephoning wavering Democrats on the eve of what could be a historic House vote. Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama said Washington must not miss the opportunity to work on cleaning the air, creating new ''green'' energy jobs and moving the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The White House appeared concerned that momentum for the bill was...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...