A few House Republicans are leaving the door open to backing health care reform bill when it comes to a final vote.

Even though they oppose the current House version of the bill, Republican Reps. Mike Castle, Jo Ann Emerson and Shelley Moore Capito all told POLITICO in the last week that they are leaving the door open to voting for a more moderate House-Senate compromise bill.

“I am withholding judgment on what could come out of the Senate,” said Castle, who is running for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden. “There are just a lot of unanswered questions that give me pause”...

A former candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee believes Democrats have already overreached in trying to advance President Obama's agenda in a number of areas -- and many of them, as a result, will be voted out of office next year.

As previously reported on OneNewsNow, a grassroots organization called the Dump Reid Political Action Committee is making a concerted effort to unseat the Senate majority leader next year. But Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is just one of several Democrats who will face a tough re-election fight in 2010 because many Americans are fed up with the Obama agenda...

PHOENIX – Republicans in more than a dozen states opposed to President Barack Obama's push for health care overhaul have mounted state-driven efforts to block federal intervention in health care, with some early success.

The push-back centers in some areas on fact — Obama's stated determination that all Americans should be required to get health care coverage, for example. Other resistance, though, is based on unfounded notions of what has been proposed — fears, for example, that the nation would adopt a single-payer system in which the government would take over health care, something Obama specifically disavowed on Wednesday.

Even if state lawmakers succeed, doubts remain over whether their proposals would take effect if a federal overhaul were passed. Experts say federal law likely would trump such state changes...

Despite the geographical differences of the nearly 1,500 women who came from across the country to gather at the annual convention of the National Federation of Republican Women, there was only one issue on their mind: the battle over health care.

"It needs to go in the trash," Velbeth Jones of Durango, Colorado, said of the Democratic-sponsored health care plan that is currently being fought over in Washington.

"Democrats say that it is not going to regulate, or stop private sector, but it will," she said...

Republicans have an offer -- or 35 -- for President Obama if he is serious about wanting to listen to alternative proposals.

"You've got the House working group -- solutions working group on health care; you've got a proposal there. You've got H.R. 3400. Or you could go to healthcare.gop.gov and you can see all of the proposals -- all of them. They're right there," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters on Thursday.

H.R. 3400 is the Small Business Health Fairness Act. It calls for small businesses to offer employees health insurance through group health plans.

It's one of several options Republicans are hoping to use to gain some traction in the debate...

(CNSNews.com) – In the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s prime-time address on health care, Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana offered what he called a faster, more affordable way to bring about the health care reform.

“It’s clear the American people want health care reform, but they want their elected leaders to get it right,” said Boustany, a heart surgeon who said he’s witnessed first-hand the need for lowering health care costs.

Boustany said Congress should scrap the Democrat-authored bills currently under consideration – particularly the call for a public option -- and start over with “a common-sense, bipartisan plan focused on lowering the cost of health care while improving quality”...

Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama's Republican adversaries remain ready to rumble in the aftermath of his impassioned push to reform America's health care system.

There were the requisite calls for bipartisanship -- public opinion polls show that voters by overwhelming margins want Republicans and Democrats to work in tandem.

"House Republicans ... are ready, willing, and able to work with the Democrat majority to solve our health care challenges in a bipartisan manner," Rep. Mike Pence said in a news release. But above the remark blared the headline: "One More Speech about the Same Bad Plan"...

WASHINGTON – A leading Senate negotiator acknowledged Wednesday that a bipartisan deal on health care is unlikely, vowing to move ahead on a bill fulfilling President Barack Obama's top domestic priority whether it has Republican support or not.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he will formally introduce his own proposal next week, and convene his panel to begin drafting a bill the week of Sept. 21. He said he believes Congress can finish a bill by the end of the year.

"We have to move forward," Baucus said. Finance is the last remaining committee before the bill can go to the floor...

Democrats may be moving toward a “trigger” proposal that could implement the public health insurance option several years from now, but don’t expect Republicans to latch on to this idea as some form of compromise.

“I think a lot of Republicans would be very leery of a trigger, because a bad idea today would be a bad idea tomorrow,” House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence told reporters today.

Democrats have floated the idea of a trigger that would impose benchmarks on insurance complanies to put in place certain reforms over a period of time – with the idea that that a public option would go into effect if private industry doesn’t cover enough of the uninsured...

An Arizona congressman says liberals on the "Franking Commission" have deliberately tried to censor mail that conservative Republican House members are attempting to send out to their constituents.

Democrats on the bipartisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards have been blocking Republicans from sending out franked mailings to constituents that refer to the cap-and-trade bill as "cap and tax," the stimulus bill as the "so-called stimulus," and the healthcare reform bill as "socialized medicine."

Representative Trent Franks (R-Arizona) says the Franking Commission even told him to stop using the phrase "Democratic majority" in his newsletters, and to use "majority" instead...