Health Care Reform, Republicans Vs. Democrats | featured news

You may have heard or read about the ugly scenes on Capitol Hill yesterday, when a few conservative activists shouted racial and homophobic epithets at Democratic lawmakers. Today the conservative activists are back. And so is the ugliness--only this time, a few Republicans were actually encouraging them.

After hundreds of hours of congressional debate, a summer of rowdy town hall meetings and a Massachusetts election that upended all political calculations, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders spent Thursday talking still more about reforming the U.S. health care system.

President Obama will meet with Democrats and Republicans to talk about health care reform February 25, and the meeting will be broadcast live, a senior administration official says.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are at odds over how far to go in preventing insurance companies from covering the procedure for woman who would get subsidies.

As the Senate Finance Committee continued to debate its version of a healthcare overhaul bill Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans clashed over abortion -- potentially complicating President Obama's drive for action this fall.

Signaling a fading chance for compromise, a leading Republican negotiator on health care legislation on Saturday criticized Democratic legislative proposals as budget-busters that would reroute Medicare spending and restrict medical choices.