Health Care
Commentary
From Health ‘Reform’ to Government-Retiree Bailout
The tax is now going to hit plans that cost $8,900 for an individual and $24,000 for a family, which is way higher than the current cost of employer-based health benefits. Until recently, state and local government employers did not have to report retiree health obligations on their balance sheets ...
Commentary
Coakley Offers Seniors No Advantage
The Massachusetts race has major ramifications for all seniors. The Massachusetts Senate special election is shaping up as a referendum on the health-care debate in Washington. And its outcome may well determine whether Massachusetts seniors get to keep the Medicare benefits they currently enjoy. Alone among the American people, Massachusetts ...
Commentary
Bye Bye ‘Cadillac’ Tax?
As congressional negotiators wrangle this morning over whether to soften the potential blow of the so-called “Cadillac” tax or kill it altogether, health care insiders on National Journal’s Health Care Expert Blog are discussing the plan’s effect on controlling skyrocketing costs. When congressional Democrats meet with President Obama today, the ...
Commentary
More Medicare Patients Dropped
The first two we’ve known about for some time. However, “unfunded liabilities” are not an issue folks discuss at the kitchen-table. The cost shift, which is actually a hidden tax that the government levies on the privately insured, is opaque enough that ordinary citizens are unable to discover it. The ...
Commentary
A Choice Between the President and the Future
Despite the truly historic events listed above, U.S. deficits from President Washington through the election of President Obama averaged only 1 percent of GDP. Since President Obamas election, they have averaged 10 percent of GDP and they are on the rise. President Obama and the Democratic Congress racked up ...
Commentary
No cost control here
National Journal – Health Care, January 11, 2010 The idea that the massive new taxes raised in either House or Senate health care bills are in service of overall cost control is just one of the great many collective fictions proponents of doing something on health care have perpetuated. The ...
Commentary
Time For Some To Slip Noose Of ObamaCare
It’s painfully obvious the American people don’t want ObamaCare and equally obvious that the Democrats, especially President Obama, don’t particularly care. The Democrats feel inoculated against voter dissatisfaction because they’ve bought into their own wishful narrative: that voters punished them in 1994 because they failed to pass HillaryCare, not because ...
Commentary
The March of the Senate Democrats
As one early morning report put it, the Senate was marching to passage on Christmas Eve of its version of health overhaul. What does this Democrats-only bill do? What are the consequences? As it stands today, the health overhaul bill is a hoax. We all may know some part of ...
Commentary
Whatever Happened to Informed Consent?
After months of shamelessly pledging to “broadcast health-care negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are,” the president has decided to forgo a formal conference committee for reconciling the House and Senate bills thereby shutting out congressional opposition and the American people alike. ...
Commentary
Seizing the Initiative
Constituents of those who voted for Stupak and constituents of alleged “Blue Dogs” should flood their offices with helpful reminders of the right way to go (remembering that the key is the quantity of letters, not the quality since the member only hears the tallies and won’t ...
From Health ‘Reform’ to Government-Retiree Bailout
The tax is now going to hit plans that cost $8,900 for an individual and $24,000 for a family, which is way higher than the current cost of employer-based health benefits. Until recently, state and local government employers did not have to report retiree health obligations on their balance sheets ...
Coakley Offers Seniors No Advantage
The Massachusetts race has major ramifications for all seniors. The Massachusetts Senate special election is shaping up as a referendum on the health-care debate in Washington. And its outcome may well determine whether Massachusetts seniors get to keep the Medicare benefits they currently enjoy. Alone among the American people, Massachusetts ...
Bye Bye ‘Cadillac’ Tax?
As congressional negotiators wrangle this morning over whether to soften the potential blow of the so-called “Cadillac” tax or kill it altogether, health care insiders on National Journal’s Health Care Expert Blog are discussing the plan’s effect on controlling skyrocketing costs. When congressional Democrats meet with President Obama today, the ...
More Medicare Patients Dropped
The first two we’ve known about for some time. However, “unfunded liabilities” are not an issue folks discuss at the kitchen-table. The cost shift, which is actually a hidden tax that the government levies on the privately insured, is opaque enough that ordinary citizens are unable to discover it. The ...
A Choice Between the President and the Future
Despite the truly historic events listed above, U.S. deficits from President Washington through the election of President Obama averaged only 1 percent of GDP. Since President Obamas election, they have averaged 10 percent of GDP and they are on the rise. President Obama and the Democratic Congress racked up ...
No cost control here
National Journal – Health Care, January 11, 2010 The idea that the massive new taxes raised in either House or Senate health care bills are in service of overall cost control is just one of the great many collective fictions proponents of doing something on health care have perpetuated. The ...
Time For Some To Slip Noose Of ObamaCare
It’s painfully obvious the American people don’t want ObamaCare and equally obvious that the Democrats, especially President Obama, don’t particularly care. The Democrats feel inoculated against voter dissatisfaction because they’ve bought into their own wishful narrative: that voters punished them in 1994 because they failed to pass HillaryCare, not because ...
The March of the Senate Democrats
As one early morning report put it, the Senate was marching to passage on Christmas Eve of its version of health overhaul. What does this Democrats-only bill do? What are the consequences? As it stands today, the health overhaul bill is a hoax. We all may know some part of ...
Whatever Happened to Informed Consent?
After months of shamelessly pledging to “broadcast health-care negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are,” the president has decided to forgo a formal conference committee for reconciling the House and Senate bills thereby shutting out congressional opposition and the American people alike. ...
Seizing the Initiative
Constituents of those who voted for Stupak and constituents of alleged “Blue Dogs” should flood their offices with helpful reminders of the right way to go (remembering that the key is the quantity of letters, not the quality since the member only hears the tallies and won’t ...
