Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
GOP Leaders Say No To Hearings, Vote On An Obama Pick For The Supreme Court
Senate Republicans on Tuesday united behind an official position on how to deal with President Obamas expected nominee to replace the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia: no hearings, no votes and no new justice until Obama is out of office. Presidents have a right to nominate, just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a morning floor speech. In this case, the Senate will withhold it. (DeBonis and Kane, 2/23)
Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and now founder and CEO of The Daschle Group, talked to RealClearHealth's Karl Eisenhower about the polarized climate in Congress and the nation, and what he recommends to find areas of consensus. ... "[T]he basic question involved here between House and Burwell is the question of delegated authority: Does the Affordable Care Act provide the delegated authority to the administration to make its judgment about the administration of the Affordable Care Act. I believe it does. The Congress made a very deliberate decision when they passed the law in 2010 to give the administration great flexibility. They did that for two reasons. One, because they weren't sure just how a lot of these circumstances could be addressed. And two, there were some very dicey politics involved in many of the decisions, and they really didn't want to have to get involved in those political questions." (Eisenhower, 2/22)
About 20 women came to the abortion clinic here on a recent morning, hurrying past the shouting protesters as volunteer escorts held up umbrellas to shield their faces. Inside the Reproductive Health Services clinic was Dr. Willie Parker, an Alabama native and one of a few physicians willing to face the professional shunning and the personal threats that come with being an abortion doctor in the conservative Deep South. He travels constantly among three different cities, two in Alabama and one in Mississippi, to provide a service that no local doctors will. (Eckholm, 2/24)
