Lawmakers from around the United States are sounding off on health care legislation ahead of their return to Washington.
The New York Times: "Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who predicted that President Obama's effort to overhaul the health care system would become his 'Waterloo,' is doing his best to make that happen. … Mr. DeMint, 57, is a first-term senator, a back-bencher with little influence in Washington's corridors of power. But at home he is stoking anger over the health care issue as he advances his free-market philosophy, gains national attention and, perhaps, helps derail Mr. Obama's agenda. If that agenda is not stopped at health care, Mr. DeMint warned at a town-hall-style meeting in Greenville, 'he'll continue to spend and borrow this country into oblivion'" (Seelye, 8/30).
The New York Times in a second story details the possibility that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, could become the sole Republican negotiator in the Senate Finance Committee talks on reform: "Ms. Snowe and two Republican colleagues, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, have been privately negotiating a health care plan with three Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee in what has become known as the Group of Six. But Mr. Grassley and Mr. Enzi have, during the August recess, become increasingly at odds with Democratic approaches to health care. … (She) said she was still working out the answer (to what it will take to get her support), though she said the August recess had led her to believe that Congress might have to scale back its health care expectations" (Hulse, 8/28).
The Washington Post reports: "Instead of what Democrats suggest, Enzi said Saturday that the Senate should "enact common-sense reform that will actually cut costs," including provisions to help small businesses insure their workers while reforming the tax code and medical malpractice system" (Pershing, 8/30).