HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM - 2009
Last updated on November 19, 2009
Federal Legislation
Comprehensive Articles
- Health Care/National Journal (Public Access)
- Comprehensive guide to the 2009 national health care debate
- Use pulldown menu for links to various draft bills, Congressional Budget Office reports, Executive Branch reports, and lobby group positions
- Additional reports available from the broader National Journal web site (UMich Only)
- CQ Weekly Report (UMich Only)
- Analyzes current legislation, identifying the most important bills, summarizing their status, and providing roll call votes
- Especially good for providing behind-the-scenes information
- Sample articles
- Health Care in
America (CNN)
- News articles and blogs on 2009 health care debate
- Kaiser Health Care
Reform
- Identifieds central issues and analyzes various proposals on health
care reform
- Interactive SIDE-BY-SIDE comparisons of various proposals and a cost
calculator
- Public opinion polls
Bills
- THOMAS (Public Access)
- Search database for bills by keyword, sponsor, stage in legislative process
- Provides the text, a summary, every floor action,
links to the Congressional Record, reports, and roll call votes
- House
- H.R. 3200
- America's Affordable Health Care Act sponsored by John Dingell
- Includes text of legislation, legislative status, and Congressional Budget Office
Cost Estimate
- Senate
- Health Care
Reform Resource Center (Stabenow)
- Copies of the merged Senate bill introduced by Senator Harry Reid on
November 18, 2009
- Copies of the House-passed bill
- Numerous budget analyses and summaries
Bipartisan
Congressional Analyses
- Congressional Research Service Reports
- These are short reports, usually under 20 pages, with a concise
analysis and history of bills before Congress
- Health insurance is covered heavily in the 111th Congress but
historical reports go back over 50 years
- Congressional
Research Service Reports via LexisNexis Congressional Universe
[UMich Only]
- Full text of CRS reports, 1916 to present
- Searchable by keyword and date
- PDF format of complete text
- Open CRS [Public
Access]
- Search engine for major collections of CRS reports
- Reports are VERY current
- Some search results have gibberish titles but the full text is fine
to read
- Also provides an RSS feed at http://opencrs.cdt.org
- Health
Insurance Reform and the 111th Congress (UMich Only)
- Summarizes the bills in the 111th Congress but written in May 2009
so does not currently include H.R. 3200
- Public Access
Copy
- Congressional Budget Office
(Public Access)
- Agency analyzes costs of various Congressional bills
- A special section on Health
Care Reform
- General Accounting Office
- Lists of recently-released "Reports and Testimonies" beginning with
August 1995
- GAO policy documents and decisions of the Comptroller General
Congressional Committees
- Congressional
Universe/LexisNexis Congressional (UMich Only)
- Indexes committee hearings, prints and reports since 1789
- Provides the full text of all published hearings, 1833-2003, and committee prints since 1830
- Provides access to the full text of selected published and not-yet-published hearings
beginning 1988 and reports since 1989
- Most publications for the past six years are available in the
Documents Center in paper copy under their SUDOCS (Y1, Y4 or Y10) numbers
all publications are available in the Documents Center on microfiche
- Video on Congressional
Universe (9 minutes, wmv)
- Focuses on search techniques but pre-dates full text of hearings, committee prints, CRS Reports,
and bound Congressional Record
- Congressional
Hearings via GPO/FDSYS (Public Access)
- Full text of selected Congressional hearings beginning with 1995, and committee
prints since 1987
- Searchable by keywords in the full text, metadata, date, committee
and subcommittee, nominee, SUDOCS class number
- Search results may be narrowed by data, committee, organization,
committee member, or location
- Full text available in pdf
- Hearings also browsable by committee
- Main Committees
Executive Branch
- White
House
- Transcript and details of President's speech to Congress on
September 9, 2009
- Text of full plan
- Health Reform.Gov
- President Obama's web page supporting health care reform
- Includes his budget message on health reform and means for reducing health care costs
- The President's speeches on health care reform
- Detailed state factsheets documenting statistics on health care quality and access
- Opportunity for citizen input
Professional Groups
Michigan Legislation
Comprehensive Summaries
- Gongwer Michigan Report (UMich Only)
- Daily articles about major Michigan legislative issues beginning 1993
- Identifies bills, committees, legislators for follow-up
- May summarize state legislative hearings, which are generally not printed elsewhere
- Detroit News (UMich Only)
- Full text of the Detroit News since 1999
- There is currently no source for archived articles from the Lansing State Journal, the state's newspaper of record
- Search for current bills by keyword in this or previous sessions
- Provides the text of bills, legislative status, and any Fiscal Agency reports that may exist
- As of July 26, 2009 there were 175 bills under health insurance
- You can do an Advanced Legislative Search to find those with House Legislative Analyses or Senate Fiscal Analyses, presumably the most important bills
:
Legislative Committees
- Senate
- Some submitted testimony available for committees, such as the Health Policy Committee
- Use the Minutes and Testimony link on the left
- House
- Standing committees do not have web sites but some meetings may be televised
Other States
State Associations
- National Conference of State
Legislatures
- Federal-State Relations includes policies and testimony on
health care
- Intergovernmental Health Policy Project provides the full text of
current State Health Notes
- Organizational information, publications, and conferences
- Extensive links to state legislative web sites
- National
Governors' Association
- Extensive list and full text of policies on federal-state relations,
economic development, human and natural resources
- Issue briefs, press releases
- Background and the administration of welfare reform
- Links to governors of the states and territories, their biographies,
election status, and web sites
- Stateline (PEW Research
Center)
- Summary of news articles about state legislative issues for all 50 states
- States can be compared and ranked on population, economic, crime,
budget, and environmental factors
State Legislation
Grace York, Retired Government Documents Librarian
University of Michigan Library
Since July 26, 2009 this page has been accessed 