Monday, November 21, 2011

The Super Committee Failure—What’s Next?

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The stock market today was shocked, simply shocked, that the Super Committee didn’t come up with a debt deal. I don’t know why. Republicans ...
Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Romney Jumps on the Waiver Bandwagon--And Creates Even More Uncertainty Over the New Health Care Law

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Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has pledged to end “Obamacare.” Upon taking office, he would immediately begin the process b...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Ryan Health Care Proposals—Not Your Congressman’s Health Plan

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Update: The New Wyden-Ryan Plan - Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden Blow the Medicare Reform Debate Wide Open! In a speech at the Hoover Institution ...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Health Leadership Council Medicare Proposal: Too Much Responsibility on Beneficiaries and Not Enough on Providers

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The Health Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of CEOs from many of the leading health care companies, has created a list of Medicare refo...
Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The Debt Super Committee—Will We Get a Deal?

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It’s back to work in Washington, DC and all the attention is now on the Super Committee and their goal of cutting spending by at least $1.2 ...
Thursday, August 4, 2011

Rethinking the Value of Medical Services

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by Brian Klepper and David Kibbe One of American politics’ most disingenuous conceits is that health care must cost what we currently pay. A...
Monday, August 1, 2011

The Debt Deal: There Will Be Blood on the Floor on November 23rd

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The debt deal is finally done. But it really isn’t an agreement on what cuts will be made, just the process that will be used to make them. ...
Wednesday, July 27, 2011

We Are Reaping What We Have Sown—The Debt Standoff

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On this blog a month ago , I said the politicians were starting to scare me with the apparent eagerness of some to actually take the governm...
Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Awful Dichotomy Between Health Care Politics and Policy

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Amy Goldstein has an important article in today’s Washington Post detailing the place Don Berwick, the Medicare and Medicaid administrator,...
Monday, June 27, 2011

The Debt Ceiling Debate—Some of These People Are Nuts

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I don’t know about you but the politicians are starting to scare me with their inability to make progress in the federal debt limit discussi...
Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Inconvenient Facts for Both Republicans and Democrats—Neither Side’s Health Care Proposals Are Supported By Past Performance

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I call your attention to Ezra Klein’s column in the Washington Post this morning. In it he cites data that has been out there for a long ti...
Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Earth to Republicans: You Are In Big Political Trouble Over the Ryan Medicare Plan

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Update: The Wyden-Ryan Medicare Plan - Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden Blow the Medicare Reform Debate Wide Open! It should now be clear to Republi...
Thursday, May 12, 2011

The Lightweight Romney Health Plan

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Mitt Romney has outlined his new health plan. He outlined five key steps in an op-ed in USAToday . Here is a summary: Step 1: Give states t...
Monday, May 9, 2011

Neither the Republicans Nor the Democrats Want to Face the Provider Cost Problem But Both Want to Dump the Problem on the Consumer

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A key piece of Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan is to change Medicare as we know it. It appears his bold Medicare premium support proposal...
Sunday, April 24, 2011

There Aren't Enough Rich People To Pay For Medicare And Medicaid!

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I hear more and more of my progressive friends arguing, in the context of deficit reduction, that we should be raising taxes before getting ...
Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Budget Fight: It Will Be A Long Hot Summer, and Fall, and Winter…

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The good news is that Democrats and Republicans are finally seriously engaged over the country’s fiscal crisis. And, each side is presenting...
Sunday, April 10, 2011

What It Will Take to Bring America’s Health Care Costs Under Control––We Have to Change the Game

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Last week, I posted that I was disappointed in Paul Ryan’s health care budget proposal because it lacked cost containment ideas other than t...
Thursday, April 7, 2011

Why ACOs Won’t Work

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First, I think Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are a great idea. Just like I thought HMOs were a good idea in 1988 and I thought IPAs ...
Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The “Path to Prosperity”—Where’s the Health Care Cost Containment?

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Paul Ryan’s overview of his proposed 2012 Budget Resolution contains an honest and compelling description of America’s debt and deficit spen...
Thursday, March 10, 2011

So How Are Democrats and Republicans Different?

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Just how is the way Wisconsin Republicans have handled the political confrontation over worker rights different than the way Washington, DC ...