July 25, 2011
With the collapse of the Boehner-Obama talks, it looks as if something closer to “regular order” in the legislative branch will probably be needed to produce the final deal to raise the debt limit. The House is moving toward taking up a plan drafted by the speaker and his lieutenants, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is...
July 20, 2011
Confusion among congressional Republicans about their objectives in the debt-limit endgame has increased the possibility that they will stumble into a policy and political disaster over the next two weeks. Only ten days ago, Republicans appeared to regain their footing when House Speaker John Boehner torpedoed the disastrous...
July 15, 2011
On Tuesday, July 12, a Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee convened a hearing on the so-called “Medicare Trigger.” I was asked to testify on a panel that included Chuck Blahous, Public Trustee for Social Security and Medicare, Joe Antos of the American Enterprise...
July 7, 2011
I have a new article up at National Review Online on why danger lurks for Republicans, and the nation, in the debt-ceiling showdown: Democrats want a deal that doesn’t give an inch on what really matters to their voting base — which is the entitlement status quo…. To further that goal, the president and his allies are...
June 21, 2011
At the time of its enactment in 2003, the Medicare drug benefit — known as Medicare Part D — had many critics. Some said the program, which is built on consumer choice and vigorous competition among private plans, wouldn’t work, because the private plans would decline to participate without a guaranteed share of the...
June 13, 2011
In a new column for Kaiser Health News, I point out a strange turn that our debates over health care have taken: Once upon a time, President Barack Obama and many others who championed his health care plan actually professed faith in the power of a functioning health care marketplace. That now seems like a distant memory, given the...
June 2, 2011
On May 19, I participated in a public forum in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, called “How Should Washington Control Medicare Spending?” My remarks focused on why a market-based reform of Medicare would be far superior to government-imposed cost controls. The event was moderated by Bob Moffit of...
May 31, 2011
I have a new article up in The Family in America on one crucial element of the looming fiscal crisis — Social Security: The Social Security program has been the subject of a nearly continual political and policy debate for the better part of fifteen years—although no significant changes to the program...
May 19, 2011
When President Obama decided to take the political low road and demonize House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan in his budget speech last month, it wasn’t really surprising. President Obama demonstrated in the 2008 campaign that he is a world-class practitioner of shamelessly dishonest political...
May 13, 2011
The Bioethics Defense Fund has file an amicus brief in the the Eleventh Circuit Obamacare case, arguing that the imposition of the individual mandate has the effect of forcing some Americans to pay, against their wishes, premiums out of their own pockets for abortion provision for others. This requirement, the brief argues,...