Q&A: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tackles healthcare overhaul questions

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, is trying to rally her caucus behind complex legislation to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, President Obama’s top domestic priority.

It has not been easy. Since senior House Democrats introduced their healthcare bill this week, moderates, freshmen lawmakers and others in the party have expressed concerns about provisions to tax the wealthy, and have demanded more savings and complained about the speed with which the bill is moving.

The legislation would help insure more than 30 million people now without coverage, in part by creating a government insurance plan, or public option. And it would impose a new surtax on individuals making more than $280,000 a year and couples making more than $350,000. But critics contend that the bill would not do enough to control skyrocketing healthcare costs.

With the Senate still working on its bill and House leaders trying to get a vote on their....

Sunday Shows: Hatch, Kagame, Schumer, Sessions, Gregg, Sebelius

ABC's "This Week": Preempted for the Tiger Woods-less British Open.

Bloomberg's "Political Capital With Al Hunt": Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

CBS' "Face the Nation With Bob Schieffer": Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS": Rwandan President Paul Kagame (see photo), "The Accidental Guerrilla" author David Kilcullen and "The Limits of Power" author Andrew Bacevich.

CNN's "State of the Union With John King": White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.),  Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace": Orszag, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.); Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin; and a panel with the Weekly Standard's William Kristol, NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

NBC's "Meet the Press With David Gregory": Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a panel with the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot, CNBC's John Harwood, NPR's Michele Norris and author Richard Wolffe.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Office of the Rwanda presidency

Weekly remarks -- Kyl and Obama: Differing healthcare diagnoses

Judging by this week's Republican and Democratic party remarks, you'd think there's some kind of healthcare debate going on in Washington.

The parties say they agree on the need for healthcare reform. But clearly, they sharply disagree not only on what constitutes proper reform in a free-market system but on the costs and how to pay them.

The president is in a big rush to get some reform through Congress by Aug. 7, when Congress takes another of its lengthy vacations from four-day workweeks. Republicans say that the urgency reminds them of the rushed economic stimulus plan last winter that isn't stimulating much yet, and they add that the longer the debate is, the more dubious many Americans get.

Obama says the issue is simply so urgent, it must be accomplished ASAP. He even broke into a Friday afternoon to make an unannounced plea for the reforms and scheduled his next prime-time news conference for Wednesday to make the same argument — a decision The Ticket strategically analyzed here last night.

Interestingly, the president's developing problem is not with the Republicans; it's with a mounting number of members of his own party, who face election next year, who sense growing grumbling over immense spending and deficits, and who saw a nonpartisan budget analysis this week that found that instead of reducing healthcare costs, the proposed reforms would actually increase them.

There are also those two scary words starting with N.T.: New Taxes.

Unless you're going on vacation this weekend, chances are you're gonna get an overdose of healthcare talk here for the next few weeks.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Weekly Republican Remarks by Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona (unedited)

Hello. I’m Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona. Republicans believe all Americans should have access to quality health care and that we must find ways to reduce health care costs.

The debate in Washington is about how we can achieve these goals.

Republicans have put forward common-sense ideas, including rooting out Medicare and Medicaid fraud, reforming medical liability laws to discourage frivolous lawsuits, strengthening wellness and....