Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama has told the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a rule that would not allow hospitals to deny visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners. The president’s memo Thursday notes that “There are few moments in our lives that call for great compassion and companionship that when [...]

“A fiscal Frankenstein”; so said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) about the health care bill just passed by the Congress. Soulmate Republicans echoed his warning, predicting budgetary doom. But GOP legislators who cry fiscal wolf are twice trapped. For eight years, they aided and abetted as President Bush turned a budget surplus into a $1.2 trillion deficit. [...]

Republicans were for President Barack Obama’s requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it. The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that’s been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. [...]

Tea Party activists, who are becoming a force in U.S. politics, want the federal government out of their lives except when it comes to creating jobs. More than 90 percent of Tea Party backers interviewed in a new Bloomberg National Poll say the U.S. is verging more toward socialism than capitalism, the federal government is [...]

Compare the Senate version of the health care reform bill with what it will look like with the House’s changes. Update (Mar. 21, 2010 4:55 p.m.): This has been updated with the Manager’s Amendment. via Side by Side: Health Care Bills | ProPublica.

Nearly half of Americans give a thumbs-up to Congress’ passage of a healthcare reform bill last weekend, with 49% calling it “a good thing.” Republicans and Democrats have polar opposite reactions, with independents evenly split. via Gallup. One of the key talking points of reform’s opponents — that passing reform was an outrage because it [...]

The same day a brick crashed through her Niagara Falls office, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) says her staff discovered an assassination threat aimed at her family members. The Democratic headquarters in Rochester was also targeted. No one was inside when the brick was hurled through the Democratic Patry Headquarters on University Avenue. Attached was a note [...]

Asked if insurance companies might raise their rates on health coverage and blame the increases on the new health-care bill, Pelosi said that the insurance companies should be aware that they’re not “automatically included” in the new health exchanges the bill creates. “Unless they do the right thing, they’re not going in,” she said. “They [...]

When Bush supported the partial privatization of Social Security, the proposal was so unpopular with the public that the Republican majority in Congress never allowed it to come to a vote. Bush touched the third rail of American politics — and was promptly electrocuted. Last but not least, one of the arguments that Republicans opportunistically [...]