Politics, personalities swirl around health overhaul

Jun 17 2011

Whether it's more skirmishes over the individual mandate, pushes to repeal and replace the sweeping overhaul or state-level pressure to join lawsuits challenging the measure, the health law continues to be a part of high-stakes political discourse.

Politico: Jon Huntsman's Utah Health Reform Shows Detached Style
As the governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman said he was "comfortable" with the idea of an individual mandate for health insurance and signed a bill requiring his state to study the costs and benefits of one. As a soon-to-declare Republican presidential candidate, Huntsman rails against the individual mandate in the Democrats' health reform overhaul and says he never supported one in Utah (Kliff, 6/15).

The Associated Press: Pawlenty Denies He Pulled Punches On Health Care
Republican presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty is denying he softened his criticism of former Gov. Mitt Romney's health care policies in a nationally broadcast debate. The former Minnesota governor tells CBS's "The Early Show" that he kept up his attack on the Romney health care program for Massachusetts in the debate among seven Republicans competing for the party's presidential nomination. On Sunday, Pawlenty had likened Romney's health care to the one pushed through by President Barack Obama, calling it "Obamneycare" (6/15).

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tommy Thompson Rips Health Care Law In Talk To GOP Donors
Pushing back against claims that he supported "ObamaCare," Tommy Thompson told a group of GOP donors in D.C. Wednesday that the new health care law "has got to be repealed and replaced and re-written" (Gilbert, 6/15).

CQ HealthBeat: New Hampshire AG Can't Be Forced To Join Health Care Lawsuit, Court Says
The New Hampshire Supreme Court issued an opinion Wednesday that state lawmakers can't require the state attorney general join a multi-state challenge to the health care law. The Granite State dispute again signifies the importance that the lawsuits filed against the overhaul have taken on in statehouses across the country as the GOP and members of the tea party push back on the law's constitutionality at the grass roots level. There are 26 states that have joined the suit, led by Florida, and two more are pursuing their own separate challenges to the law (Norman, 6/15).