Health law, Medicare both hot issues in House and Senate races

News outlets examine how health issues are playing out in a House race in Pennsylvania and a Senate race in Massachusetts.

NBC/PhillyBurbs: Fitzpatrick Cites CBO Report As Broken Health Care Promise
Pouncing on a government report that says nearly 6 million Americans will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama's health overhaul, Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick on Thursday said "we're on the road to a government takeover of our health care system." Fitzpatrick, who has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, called the Congressional Budget Office's new estimates "sobering" and said the "cost of Obamacare was underestimated by a Congress anxious to push it through." Those penalized -; mostly middle class Americans -; would be hit with the tax for not having insurance. The revision, 50 percent higher than a previous projection of 4 million in 2010, amounts to a broken promise, Fitzpatrick said (Weckselblatt, 9/21).

WBUR: Brown And Warren On Health Care: Two Views Of The Problem
He doesn't want to turn Medicare into a voucher program (like many of his GOP colleagues) -; neither does she. He wants to cut "waste, fraud and abuse." She wants to cut costs. WBUR's Martha Bebinger offers this portrait of the two U.S. Senate candidates from Massachusetts -; Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Democrat Elizabeth Warren -; and their differing views on health care: Brown does not support the Romney-Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a premium support (some call it a voucher) program with seniors buying coverage on their own. Nor does Warren, who says the main problem with Medicare "is the rise in health care costs, and we've got to bring health care costs under control for everyone. And so the question is how we provide needed medical care for all our people at a price we can afford" (Zimmerman and Bebinger, 9/20).