December 14, 2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is scrambling today to pick up the pieces from his collapsing “breakthrough deal” between moderates and liberals. It seems the Senate’s top Democrat rushed out with a compromise plan that none of the critical players had actually agreed to support. At the center of the storm is...
December 8, 2009
At the Mirror of Justice website, Robert Hockett takes exception to columnist Charles Krauthammer’s arguments against the current health-care bills being considered in Congress. First, Hockett objects to Krauthammer’s accusation that the bills are sprawling, inelegant, 2,000-plus page behemoths. Hockett...
December 4, 2009
In my latest column for Kaiser Health News, I examine competing claims about the health care legislation now in Congress: In recent days, a growing chorus of voices has expressed alarm that the health care legislation emerging in Congress does not come close to “bending the cost-curve” as President Obama has promised it...
December 4, 2009
I have a piece over at First Things on the prospects of the health care bill currently under debate in the Senate, from a possible amendment on abortion coverage to potential hold-outs such as Senator Lieberman: While Senator Reid was able to garner sixty votes to proceed to his bill before Thanksgiving, it is much less clear that he has...
November 30, 2009
As the Senate starts its debate of the health-care bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the back-and-forth has intensified over what the legislation would do to insurance premiums and rising costs in the coming years. Over the Thanksgiving break, M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber released a short paper in which he claimed...
November 19, 2009
The health-care plan unveiled yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has some in the mainstream media gushing because, on paper at least, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says it will reduce the federal budget deficit by about $130 billion over ten years, and more in the second decade. But the supposed fiscal prudence...
November 18, 2009
President Obama continues to argue that it is crucial for Congress to pass a health-care bill because it will help slow the pace of rising costs. Perhaps the president and his aides actually believe that to be the case. But, in recent days, it has become abundantly clear that virtually no one else does. Today, in a column in the Wall...
November 16, 2009
President Obama has argued all year that a primary reason to enact a version of his health-care plan is to “bend the cost-curve” that has been burdening government and household budgets for years. Of course, the president has not shown that he has a credible plan to address rising health-care costs. But that hasn’t...
November 10, 2009
Obamacare is predicated on the assumption that the federal government has the knowledge, capacity, and will to drive greater efficiency in American health care. Inadvertently, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has become an articulate spokesman for why that assumption is dead wrong. For months, the president and his team argued...
November 9, 2009
Conservatives need to hammer home four points to shift indepedent voters and moderate Democrats even more decisively against enactment of Obamacare. One, Obamacare will impose substantial new costs on the already insured middle class. The bill approved by the House establishes one-size-fits-all insurance rules which will drive up...