Jeffrey H. Anderson

Commentary

Harkin’s Health Care Summit Non-Sequitur

One of the great things about the health summit was getting to witness certain members’ rhetorical skills and getting to hear how they think about things. One of the most revealing comments was made by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who lamented that people whose medical bills are higher have to ...
Commentary

Half-Time Report

This was evident right away, when Sen. Mitch McConnell handed the floor over to Sen. Lamar Alexander for opening Republican remarks — apparently without the president’s prior knowledge or permission — and Alexander, a former governor and presidential candidate, proceeded to look the president directly in the eye, at eye-level, ...
Commentary

It’s Summit Day in Washington

Of course, there will be no grand reopening, no joyful children, and no bands, just the same old Obamacare — which is not something Americans would get to choose whether to buy so much as it would be forced down their throats by any means possible, including via “budget reconciliation” ...
Commentary

Comprehensive Failure

In yet another interview in connection with a major sporting event—this time, the Super Bowl—President Obama proposed yet another unorthodox manner of addressing a political problem: this time, a bipartisan half-day health care summit on live TV. Why hold such a meeting nearly a year into the health care debate? ...
Business & Economics

Obama Takes Deficits To New Frontier

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions,” so the “federal government should do the same.” The following week, the president presented his new budget, which contains $1.267 trillion in new deficit spending. So ...
Commentary

Let’s Make a Deal

Another possibility, more congenial to conservatives, would be a coverage expansion that follows an explicitly free-market blueprint, but that’s funded at a rate that makes Democrats feel comfortable. Writing in The Weekly Standard, for instance, Jeffrey H. Anderson has proposed covering an extra 10 million Americans with a mixture of ...
Commentary

Republicans Must ‘Medal’ at Health Care Summit

Jeffrey Anderson, director of the Benjamin Rush Society, offers a template for a Republican health care proposal in the latest edition of The Weekly Standard. He calls his suggestion The Small Bill – and indeed it is a one-page product (admittedly in fairly small type) of seven points aimed at ...
Commentary

Orszag’s ‘pillars’ unsteady as health care foundation

Over the past several months, White House budget director Peter Orszag has emphasized that rising federal health care costs threaten to cripple our nation financially. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in May, Mr. Orszag wrote that the effects of “every other fiscal policy variable” on federal deficits would be ...
Commentary

Obamacare: Time to Start Over

Instead, Democratic leaders are talking about scaling back their current bills and trying to pick off a few isolated Republicans without ever having invited the GOP to the table in any meaningful way. This might have worked a few months ago, but things have changed. On the CBS Early Show, ...
Commentary

A Switch in Time to Save Nine

Memo to House Dems: Just say ‘no’ to Obamacare. “The Democratic Party is lashed to health reform—even in the face of polls showing tepid public support.” Thus Politico’s Carrie Brown paraphrases senior Democratic aides. As unappealing as that predicament may sound, Brown writes that those same aides say “it would ...
Commentary

Harkin’s Health Care Summit Non-Sequitur

One of the great things about the health summit was getting to witness certain members’ rhetorical skills and getting to hear how they think about things. One of the most revealing comments was made by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who lamented that people whose medical bills are higher have to ...
Commentary

Half-Time Report

This was evident right away, when Sen. Mitch McConnell handed the floor over to Sen. Lamar Alexander for opening Republican remarks — apparently without the president’s prior knowledge or permission — and Alexander, a former governor and presidential candidate, proceeded to look the president directly in the eye, at eye-level, ...
Commentary

It’s Summit Day in Washington

Of course, there will be no grand reopening, no joyful children, and no bands, just the same old Obamacare — which is not something Americans would get to choose whether to buy so much as it would be forced down their throats by any means possible, including via “budget reconciliation” ...
Commentary

Comprehensive Failure

In yet another interview in connection with a major sporting event—this time, the Super Bowl—President Obama proposed yet another unorthodox manner of addressing a political problem: this time, a bipartisan half-day health care summit on live TV. Why hold such a meeting nearly a year into the health care debate? ...
Business & Economics

Obama Takes Deficits To New Frontier

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions,” so the “federal government should do the same.” The following week, the president presented his new budget, which contains $1.267 trillion in new deficit spending. So ...
Commentary

Let’s Make a Deal

Another possibility, more congenial to conservatives, would be a coverage expansion that follows an explicitly free-market blueprint, but that’s funded at a rate that makes Democrats feel comfortable. Writing in The Weekly Standard, for instance, Jeffrey H. Anderson has proposed covering an extra 10 million Americans with a mixture of ...
Commentary

Republicans Must ‘Medal’ at Health Care Summit

Jeffrey Anderson, director of the Benjamin Rush Society, offers a template for a Republican health care proposal in the latest edition of The Weekly Standard. He calls his suggestion The Small Bill – and indeed it is a one-page product (admittedly in fairly small type) of seven points aimed at ...
Commentary

Orszag’s ‘pillars’ unsteady as health care foundation

Over the past several months, White House budget director Peter Orszag has emphasized that rising federal health care costs threaten to cripple our nation financially. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in May, Mr. Orszag wrote that the effects of “every other fiscal policy variable” on federal deficits would be ...
Commentary

Obamacare: Time to Start Over

Instead, Democratic leaders are talking about scaling back their current bills and trying to pick off a few isolated Republicans without ever having invited the GOP to the table in any meaningful way. This might have worked a few months ago, but things have changed. On the CBS Early Show, ...
Commentary

A Switch in Time to Save Nine

Memo to House Dems: Just say ‘no’ to Obamacare. “The Democratic Party is lashed to health reform—even in the face of polls showing tepid public support.” Thus Politico’s Carrie Brown paraphrases senior Democratic aides. As unappealing as that predicament may sound, Brown writes that those same aides say “it would ...
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