Senate Finance Committee

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking Dr. Donald Berwick, who now heads the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to disclose any conflicts of interest arising between his new role and his old one as the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

In a July 29 letter, Grassley -- the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee -- asked Berwick to honor promises he made to Grassley while his nomination was still pending in the Senate. Berwick was recess-appointed by President Obama on July 7 while Congress was on its July 4 break.)

Now that Berwick has been recess-appointed, Grassley wants the doctor – who defends health care rationing and has praised Britain’s government-run National Health Service – to keep his promise and allow the Senate to examine the books of IHI, as well as the list of donors it gave to the Internal Revenue Service...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The pro-life lawmakers who led the fight to stop the massive abortion funding in the Senate health care bills during committee consideration plan to reintroduce their amendments on the Senate floor.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee rejected the pro-life amendments during the consideration of the Baucus and Kennedy health care bills. The amendments were defeated on largely partisan votes with most Democrats voting against them and most Republicans voting for them.

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Health care reform cleared a major hurdle Tuesday, as the Senate Finance Committee voted to send its version of the legislation to the Senate floor after months of closely watched deliberations.

The committee voted 14-9 in favor of the package. One Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, broke with her party to support the bill. All 13 Democrats on the panel voted in favor of it, while the rest of the Republicans opposed it.

The panel was the last of five to act on health legislation, and the vote marked the biggest advance so far toward health care reform, as the committee's legislation is considered the best building block for a compromise plan in the full Senate...

Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama's plan to remake the nation's health care system is about to take its biggest step yet toward becoming reality.

The pivotal Senate Finance Committee was poised to approve sweeping legislation Tuesday requiring nearly all Americans to purchase insurance and ushering in a host of other changes to the nation's $2.5 trillion medical system.

Much work would lie ahead before a bill could arrive on Obama's desk, but action by the Finance Committee would mark a significant advance, capping numerous delays as Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., held marathon negotiating sessions -- ultimately unsuccessful -- aimed at producing a bipartisan bill...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Senate Finance Committee has put off a vote on the fifth pro-abortion health care bill until next Tuesday. News of the decision comes at a time when speculation is rampant that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will use an unrelated bill to get the pro-abortion health care package through the Senate.

The panel had been expected to vote on the Baucus bill this week, but Reid announced today that the vote would not take place until next week.

Republicans, with the exception of pro-abortion Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, will likely vote against the measure while Democrats will support it.

There is a chance pro-abortion Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and John Rockefeller, of Oregon and West Virginia, will not support the measure because they want the government-run health care option added to it. That would open the Baucus bill up to even more abortion funding...

Nearing the finish line of the health care marathon in the Senate Finance Committee during the wee hours on Friday morning , Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) sponsored the “wrap-up amendment” that stealthily gutted important Republican amendments to the “conceptual draft” of a bill that were agreed to or voted through in committee. This wrap-up amendment passed 13-10 on a straight party line vote, allowing Democrats to vote favorably on some high-profile issues, only to pull them back substantially under the cover of darkness in the wrap-up.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Finance Committee voiced strong concerns over this last-minute maneuvering to eviscerate protections for seniors, veterans and the shrinking number of folks who still have a job in the days of Obamanomics...

The long quest to reform the nation's health-care system entered uncharted legislative territory early Friday when a key Senate panel wrapped up work on its bill and House and Senate leaders prepared for historic floor debates.

The Senate Finance Committee, the fifth and final congressional panel to contribute to the legislation, dispensed with its last amendment at 2:08 a.m., sending President Obama's top domestic policy initiative to a threshold that has eluded presidents since Harry S. Truman. As the panel completed the measure that is expected to form the backbone of health-insurance reform legislation, a political consensus large enough to carry the plan to final passage appeared to emerge...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.

“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life,” Carper told CNSNews.com...

WASHINGTON - Health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama all but cleared a major hurdle in the Senate early Friday as Democratic liberals and moderates on a key committee closed ranks behind the most sweeping set of changes in a half-century.

Obama hailed the developments in the Senate Finance Committee as a milestone, and said in a written statement, "we are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't."

The legislation is designed to spread health insurance to millions who now lack it, and cracks down on industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions...

Members of the Senate Finance Committee rejected an amendment Wednesday to strengthen anti-abortion provisions in the Senate's health care overhaul bill.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, whose amendment lost 13 to 10, argued before the panel that tightening is needed to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortion.

"I want assurances that taxpayer dollars will not be used to fund abortions," Hatch said before members of the committee.

But a host of Democratic senators were quick to blast Hatch's amendment, calling it "offensive" to women and claiming it seeks to change current law...