Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

June 29, 2009

Daily Pulse on Health Care Politics

CQ Politics reports a big topic of the Sunday talk shows was on how to achieve a bipartisan health care deal. The consensus was it's not going to be easy.

Case in point: Roll Call reports that legislation pushed by a bipartisan Senate duo -- Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bob Bennett (R-UT) -- has been "gathering dust."

The pair have 11 other co-sponsors already -- six Democrats, one Independent and four Republicans -- on their bill, but Bennett "said he believes the bill has lacked traction with Senate leaders because neither he nor Wyden is in a position to place it at the center of the debate."

Bloomberg reports HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she "counts no more than 10 Republican votes in the Senate for overhauling the U.S. system of care."

However, on ABC News, White House adviser David Axelrod said the bill "will be bipartisan by definition. The Senate health committee accepted 82 Republican amendments. Republican ideas will be included with this process, we hope it will come with Republican votes as well."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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