First Edition: January 16, 2011

Today's headlines include news about public opinion regarding the GOP health law repeal effort.

Kaiser Health News: Key GOP Adviser Regrets Lack Of Bipartisan Accord
Mark Hayes, the former minority health policy director and chief health counsel on the Senate Finance Committee who has since left the Hill, had a clear view of how the  negotiations surrounding the health care overhaul played out in the summer of 2009. Hayes sat down with Kaiser Health News' Bara Vaida to discuss his career and to reflect on being in the middle of the drafting of the health law (Vaida, 1/7).

Kaiser Health News: Zeke Emanuel, Adviser On Health Reform, Leaves White House
Kaiser Health News staff writer Christopher Weaver reports: "For the first time in the Obama presidency, the White House is without an Emanuel. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health care adviser in the Office of Management and Budget, departed earlier this week. His brother Rahm, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, stepped down last fall to run for mayor of Chicago" (Weaver, 1/6).

Kaiser Health News Documents: The GOP Reform Bill And A Related CBO Analysis
KHN has posted two documents now in the news: The 2011 GOP Health Law Repeal Bill and details related to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the GOP proposal.

USA Today: Gallup Poll: U.S. Split On Health Care Law Repeal
Americans are closely divided over whether the new Republican-controlled House should vote to repeal the health care law that was enacted just last year, a Gallup Poll finds (Page and Kennedy, 1/7).

Politico: Anti-Reform Dems Cool To Repeal Vote
Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) attacked the health care bill in March as a massive government overreach, weighted down with new taxes but short on real reforms. But repeal it, the way House Republicans would? No way, says Shuler, one of his party's most conservative members (Brown and Haberkorn, 1/7).

The Washington Post: CBO Says Health Care Repeal Would Deepen Deficit
Rescinding the federal law to overhaul the health-care system, the first objective of House Republicans who ascended to power this week, would ratchet up the federal deficit by about $230 billion over the next decade and leave 32 million more Americans uninsured, according to congressional budget analysts (Goldstein, 1/7).

The New York Times: Republicans Are Given A Price Tag For Health Law Repeal, But Reject It
The nonpartisan budget scorekeepers in Congress said on Thursday that the Republican plan to repeal President Obama's health care law would add $230 billion to federal budget deficits over the next decade, intensifying the first legislative fight of the new session and highlighting the challenge Republicans face in pursuing their agenda (Herszenhorn and Pear, 1/6).

Los Angeles Times: Cost Of Healthcare Repeal Put At $230 Billion
The Republican plan to repeal the healthcare law would drive up federal deficits by $230 billion by 2021, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded Thursday, undercutting GOP efforts to seize the mantle of fiscal responsibility (Levey, 1/7).

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Governors Seek Leeway To Cut Medicaid Rolls
Republican governors are pressing the Obama administration to make it easier for states to cut Medicaid enrollment, setting up a fight over one of states' costliest programs (Adamy, 1/7).

NPR: Blue Shield Of California Asked To Delay Rate Hike
California's top insurance watchdog is asking one of his state's biggest health insurers to delay a planned rate increase for nearly 200,000 policyholders. For some, the rate hike by Blue Shield of California would be as high as 59 percent. It would be the third hike since last fall. Blue Shield says the increases are not related to health care overhaul (1/7).

Los Angeles Times: California Insurance Commissioner To Blue Shield: Delay Rate Hike
California's new insurance commissioner called Thursday for health insurer Blue Shield of California to delay controversial new rate hikes for 60 days, saying recent increases by the industry were alarming (Helfand, 1/6).