OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Obama campaigns on Medicare

by Elise Viebeck - 07/19/12 10:30 PM ET

Shirt, shoes, job: The Obama administration is hitting back at GOP criticism that new administration waivers will loosen work requirements for people on welfare. In a letter to two prominent lawmakers, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the waivers that states can apply for will not change requirements in the 1996 welfare reform law that mandate recipients find work in order to qualify for help.

Republicans have argued the new waivers could undercut the work requirements, but Sebelius said they merely allow states to develop new approaches for meeting the work requirements.

{mosads}”The department is providing a very limited waiver opportunity for states that develop a plan to measurably increase the number of beneficiaries who find and hold down a job,” she wrote to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.). Read more on the letter at Healthwatch.

Can’t get enough: A large bloc of House Republicans urged their leaders to hold more votes to block funding for the healthcare law. Joined by roughly half of the House GOP, Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) stated that efforts to subvert “ObamaCare” must continue “until we are successful.”

“We urge you not to bring to the House floor … any legislation that provides or allows fund to implement ObamaCare,” they wrote in a letter, adding that all current implementation funds should be rescinded. The letter was addressed to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Healthwatch has more.

Truce time: Most likely voters want Congress to drop its fighting over the healthcare law, according to a new poll weighted toward battleground states. Fifty-one percent of likely voters told pollsters for NPR that it’s time for Congress to move on to other issues now that the Supreme Court has issued its ruling on the Affordable Care Act.

The court declared most of the law constitutional on June 28, prompting a second vote by the GOP-led House to repeal it. The effort came on top of more than 30 other attempts by the House GOP to undermine the law. Read more about the poll from Healthwatch.

State by state

Alaska governor says no to state-run health insurance exchange

Ark. governor, GOP legislators disagree on Medicaid expansion impact

Health care spending slows in Minn.

Problems cited in Jindal health crisis plan

Lobbying registrations

GDS Strategies / State Fund Congressional Action Group

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck / HEB Grocery Company

GDS Strategies / Workers Compensation Fund

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