October 6, 2009
President Obama said Monday that the debate on health care has gone on long enough, and now is the time to pass something. But does Congress, let alone the public, really understand what these bills would mean for the health sector and the wider U.S. economy? In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a lengthy assessment...
October 1, 2009
Perhaps the most fundamental question in the health care debate is this: what process has the best chance of producing continuous improvement in the efficiency and value of patient care? President Obama and many Democrats believe new and improved versions of governmental control can do the job. Yet we have nearly half a century of...
September 29, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated on numerous occasions that the health-care bill she plans to bring to the House floor will include the so-called “public option” because a bill couldn’t pass in the House if the public option were left out of it. Of course, she said that in June, and in July, and in early September...
September 23, 2009
The greatest threat to the nation’s long-term prosperity is rapidly escalating entitlement costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that between 2010 and 2030, federal spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will increase from 9.8 percent to 14.4 percent of GDP. It will only get worse from there. Now,...
September 22, 2009
In July, House Democratic leaders were insistent that they had the votes to pass a bill with a new, aggressively managed government-run insurance option for the under-65 population, total federal costs approaching $1.5 trillion over a decade, and a new surtax on upper income taxpayers to pay for about one-third of it. Where is that bill...
September 16, 2009
The health-care debate is finally turning to the core issue: who is really paying for Obamacare? Here’s a hint: it’s not the rich. The House bill and the proposal unveiled this week by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus are built on three key provisions: a requirement that individuals secure...
September 15, 2009
Let’s start with some good news: the House health care bill is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and the president is the one who killed it. In a key passage in his health care speech last week, President Obama committed himself to opposing any bill that would add “one dime” to the federal budget deficit over the...
September 14, 2009
Last Friday, I participated in a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) entitled, “Health Reform Then and Now: What Do We Need to Know?” The session focused on the differences in analytical information available in 1994, when President Bill Clinton proposed a health-care reform plan, compared to this...
September 13, 2009
During his speech on Wednesday, the president made three crucial but unsubstantiated assertions. He said the plan he will sign won’t add “one dime” to the federal budget deficit, now or at any time in the future. He said this plan would lower costs for families, businesses, and government. And he said he would pay for...
September 9, 2009
During August, in scores of meetings which were held in all parts of the country and attended by thousands, concerned citizens sent unmistakable signals to their elected political leaders that if Congress is going to produce anything on health care this year — and many openly stated they hope nothing at all will pass — they...