House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has an impressive record with passing big votes, but according to this article on The Hill a robust public option may be too much for the Congress to handle. Pelosi is relying on a complex series of whips to keep the factional Democratic party in line. There are two votes that will be particularly hard for her to get: Rep. Frank Kratovil (Md.): Kratovil is considered one of the most endangered Democrats in this year’s freshman class. He became the poster child for incivility when protesters hanged him in effigy. So it was a surprise when Pelosi snagged his vote on climate change by making Maryland farmers eligible for as much as $1 billion in incentives for reducing emissions. But she might not get him this time; Kratovil has said he’s a no on the healthcare ...

A bill to freeze cuts to doctors’ Medicare payments – one that should have been heavily bipartisan – is now in serious danger of passing. The American Medical Association (AMA) promised Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) 27 Republican votes, but now it appears there are as few as two. Undoubtedly, 27 is an ambitious number for any bipartisan bill, but the enormous drop in support is indicative of an overwhelming feeling in Washington. It is a sentiment against any healthcare reform, one that has grown within the Republican party and continues to spread across the aisle to conservative Democrats. Though we at Election Stocks still believe something will pass reforming the healthcare system, these kind of let downs are still quite alarming.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a target of month's end to enact health care legislation, while in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to complete legislation by the end of the first week in August. However, progress towards clarifying the way forward remains cloudy with yet another setback in Congress on Thursday, when a key group of House Democrats demanded changes in legislation, claiming the emerging bill "lacks a number of elements essential to preserving what works and fixing what is broken." This followed concerns about a proposed new tax on generous health insurance benefits provided by some employers raised earlier in the week. On a positive note for the government, leaders from hospital industry trade groups were expected to appear with Vice President Joe Biden to announce that hospitals are ready to give up about $155 billion over 10 years in government payments, with ...

Some interesting news as Boone Pickens continues to put pressure on Washington to come up with an energy plan. a href="http://www.pickensplan.com/news/2009/07/08/nat-gas-bill-introduced-in-the-us-senate/"Legislation is now being discussed/a about a bill to promote use of vehicles that run on cleaner burning natural gas.br /br /ulliU.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) were joined today by energy-independence advocate T. Boone Pickens to tout new legislation that would boost vehicles that run on clean natural gas. The NAT GAS Act, introduced today by Menendez and co-sponsored by Reid and Hatch, would extend and increase tax credits for natural gas vehicles and refueling./li/ulpspan style="text-decoration: underline;"strongBackground on legislation/strong/span /p div class="entry"liExpands and modify the alternative fueled vehicle and refueling property tax credits as follows:/li blockquote liMakes all dedicated natural gas-fueled vehicles eligible for a credit equal to 80% of the vehicle’s incremental cost. Only some dedicated natural ...