Healthcare

The Senate Finance Committee will convene its first hearing of 2009 on comprehensive health reform next Wednesday, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced Friday.

The hearing will be part of a kind of soft launch of the Democratic health reform agenda next week.

On Monday, President Obama will host a summit on fiscal issues at the White House. Tuesday night, Obama is expected to feature health care in an address to a joint session of Congress. Finally, on Thursday, the White House will issue a skeleton version of Obama's first budget request, which Capitol Hill Democrats hope includes at least some hints of how the president wants to tackle health care this year.

The Finance Committee hearing will focus on budgetary questions about health reform; Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf will testify.

Baucus and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have been working on dual tracks for months to prepare a legislative vehicle for health reform, something the senators and their House committee counterparts dropped out last month amid controversy over unpaid taxes. Read more...

President Obama will sign an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) today at 4:30 p.m., according to the White House, enacting legislation that has been a top priority for congressional Democrats since the 110th Congress.

The House passed an SCHIP extension today 290-135, sending it to Obama's desk. The bill reauthorizes SCHIP for the next four and a half years at higher funding levels.

The House passed a previous $35 billion expansion in 2007, which President Bush vetoed. Democratic leaders tried and failed to override the veto in October of that year.

"This is the beginning of the change that the American people voted for in the last election and that we will achieve with President Barack Obama," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has led the Democratic crusade for SCHIP expansion, said on the House floor today. "We look forward to this afternoon when the President of the United States will sign this legislation."

After the House of Representatives this afternoon passed a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) this afternoon, President-elect Barack Obama praised the measure and pledged to sign it should the Senate put it on his desk.

"In this moment of crisis, ensuring that every child in America has access to affordable health care is not just good economic policy, but a moral obligation we hold as parents and citizens. That is why I

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that the healthcare reform plan put out by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) this week represents "a giant step" toward getting all Americans insured.

Baucus's plan, released Tuesday, seeks to increase coverage for Americans by expanding Medicare and Medicaid and require companies to provide healthcare benefits to employees.

See Sweeney's full statement below:

Today

Olympic swimming champion Ryan Lochte toured the Capitol Tuesday to meet with some of the most powerful members of Congress to push a bill on muscular dystrophy.

He effused a manner of cool and calm about the power of the lawmakers with whom he was meeting. "Should be painless and fun," he said Tuesday morning of his upcoming meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Having just emerged from meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), he was asked how it went.

"Oh, really good," the 24-year-old said. "I just liked being in the presence of him."

The bill Lochte is helping to push is the Paul Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Care Act. It is part of a reauthorization bill that is expected to be marked up tomorrow in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill is then expected to be voted on as part of a suspension package next week. In Lochte

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is considering coming back to the Senate for the first time since his brain cancer diagnosis to vote against a Republican filibuster on a Medicare bill, CNN reports.

Democrats last week fell one vote short of breaking the filibuster on a bill that would reverse a cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

The vote is expected later this afternoon.

The Senate has reached a deal to reauthorize a federal program to fight HIV and AIDS worldwide.

The extension of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which had called for $15 billion in funding when it was created five years ago, calls for $50 billion more to combat HIV and AIDS. It had been stalled by a group of seven Republican senators, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), due to their concerns over the spending increase.

"I would certainly hope that my colleagues on the other side would not block this bipartisan agreement -- especially with the G-8 Conference coming soon," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a statement announcing the deal. "If the other side does choose to block us from moving forward, I am determined to move forward and plan on offering a consent agreement so that we can complete this legislation early in the next work period."

Reid thanked Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Richard Lugar (R-Neb.) for leading negotiations over the reauthorization. He also acknowledged Coburn, a spending hawk who has also been a supporter of the program, for his work on the bill.

See Reid's full statement after the jump. Read more...

House Republicans today unveiled their "American Families Agenda," a range of proposals including 47 bills that, Republicans say, would update laws to reflect the needs of modern families.

The agenda's premise is that American families have changed since the 1950s: more single parents and working mothers have meant a new set of needs for families -- needs laws should address.

The agenda includes bills to increase domestic energy production, train underprivileged women under the Small Business Administration, allow workers to trade overtime for time off, provide tax credits for health insurance, and increase penalties on sex offenders.

House Republican Conference Vice Chair Kay Granger (Texas), who spearheaded the agenda, says it will assure five solutions for families: healthcare and retirement security, access to education, protection for children from predators, support for military families, and more time and money (including lower energy costs, assistance for small businesses, and facilitation of taking time off work).

Granger unveiled the agenda at a press conference this afternoon with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.), House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.), and other Republican House members.

See Granger's release here.

UPDATED 5:57 p.m.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) are seeking to mandate a periodic report on the prevalence of runaway and homeless youth.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would submit the report to Congress every five years. The report would include population estimates for homeless and runaway individuals aged 13 to 25, and HHS would analyze the demographic's obstacles to finding housing and healthcare, interviewing sample groups as part of its research.

Yarmuth and the senators have included the mandate in bills to reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA). The first report would come no less than two years after Congress passes the legislation.

According to Leahy spokeswoman Erica Chabot, a 2002 appropriations bill mandated that HHS develop methods for testing incidents of youth homelessness, but a study was never conducted.