This post first appeared as a column at Kaiser Health NewsIs The Individual Mandate Really A Lynchpin In The New Health Law?If the Supreme Court does rule the individual mandate unconstitutional will it really bring down the whole law?I don't see it.First, the individual mandate isn't even close to...
Browse » Home » Archives for 2010
Back to the Future—Biggest Health Plans Reported to be Building Their Own Political Coalition
I had a real sense of déjà vu this morning reading Bara Vaida’s story in Kaiser Health News:Five of the nation's largest health insurance companies are taking a key step toward building their own inside-the-Beltway coalition to influence implementation of the new health law and congressional efforts...
What Would Happen If You Were To Pass a Big Health Care Bill Without Bipartisan Support?
During the recent health care debate I heard many people on both sides of the debate worry out loud about passing a heath care bill that did not enjoy broad support.I guess this question is no longer a theoretical one.December will be a big month when it comes to seeing some of the fallout accruing...
"Care and Cost"
Good friends David Kibbe and Brian Klepper have finally started their own blog--aimed at becoming a forum for many contributors to the health care debate.I suggest you add, "Care and Cost"––"Health Care Conversations About Hard Choices and Emerging Solutions" to your bookmark...
"Don't Litigate, Innovate." How To Implement A Fully Funded Alternative To The New Health Care Overhaul -- And It's Already In The Law
This post of mine first appeared at Kaiser Health News last week.What if a Republican governor and a Republican legislature had the ability to implement their version of health insurance reform and the federal government would have to pay for it? It's a great idea. And I'm thrilled to say that a bi-partisan...
Will it Be the Bond Market That Finally Forces Serious Health Care Financing Change?
When will the Congress and the White House finally make the hard decisions in order come to grips with the federal deficit problem?When will we finally deal with real health care reform and get the entitlements, and with them the private health care cost issue, under control?My focus on trying to answer...
The 300 Page MLR Rules—About as Valuable as Taking Your Shoes Off at the Airport
This whole medical loss ratio (MLR) provision in the new health care law is a fool’s errand. When it comes to controlling health care costs it is about as productive as taking your shoes off at the airport is valuable at improving air travel security.Without a doubt, the new health care law does far...
Health Care—Tell Us the Truth Before You Tell Us Why You Are Right
This is post of mine that appeared last week at Kaiser Health News.Just after the election, I saw an exchange between CNN’s Anderson Cooper and the head of the Tea Party House Republican caucus, Michele Bachmann. Cooper tried to pin Bachmann down on just exactly what “specific spending cuts” she would...
Shame on AARP For Their Response to the Deficit Commission Co-Chairs' Report
The Co-Chairs of the President’s Deficit Reduction Commission are out with their preliminary recommendations.They’ve done a great job—they’ve offended about everyone!But we have a nearly impossible but unsustainable challenge in front of us if we are ever going to crawl out of this deep hole.It is...
Health Care and the 2010 Mid-Term Elections--the Only Thing Now Certain is the Uncertainty
@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The election has given us a Republican House and a still Democratic controlled Senate. But, instead of...
Passing the Democratic Health Care Bill is Not the “Right Thing To Do”
Any big health care bill will be full of compromises—political or otherwise. But this bill doesn’t even come close to deserving to be called “health care reform.”As the Democrats make their final push to pass their health care bill many of them, and most notably the President, are arguing that it should...
The Issue Has Become Arrogance Not Health Care
Away from Washington people I talk to are just amazed at what the Democrats are in the process of doing on health care.What I think the Democratic leadership is missing is that this is no longer about passing a health care bill in the minds of lots of these voters—a majority of voters from what the...
Why Rush Vendor Certification of EHR Technologies?
Why Rush Vendor Certification of EHR Technologies?by DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPERA surprise move by ONC/HHS indicates the wheels may be falling off health IT reform at about the same rate they've fallen off Democrats' broader health reforms.David Blumenthal and his staff have unveiled two separate...
"What a Disaster Looks Like"
In case you missed Peggy Noonan's column in the WSJ yesterday, let me suggest it is worth your time.I think she hit the nail on the head:It is now exactly a year since President Obama unveiled his health care push and his decision to devote his inaugural year to it—his branding year, his first, vivid...
After the Failure of Reform
After the Failure of ReformbyBrian Klepper and David C. KibbeThe stalemate in the bi-partisan health care summit was cast the moment it was announced. Republicans demanded that the reform process start anew, and Mr. Obama insisted on the Senate bill as the framework going forward. The President may...
Post-Summit Health Reform: What a Mess
Everyone agrees our health care system is unsustainable and too often unfair. At the White House health care summit, that was the only common ground between Democrats and Republicans.Many Americans are either left-brain liberals or right-brain conservatives, with the remainder somewhere in the middle....
The White House Health Care Summit--Democrats: 0 Republicans: 0 -- The Republicans Win
There is politics and there is policy.On the policy front what we saw today was the same exchange of the old talking points we have watched for a longtime. No progress was made toward any kind of health care bill. That is no surprise--this was never going to be the place to fashion any kind of compromise.At...
Live Blogging During the Health Care Summit
I am blogging live with a number of others at the NewsHour sit...
Obama to Uneasy Democrats: Please Walk the Plank for Me But If It Doesn't Work Out Here's Plan B
The President and the Democratic leadership have been pushing hard on the idea that the Democrats should ram their unpopular health care bill through by using reconciliation--no matter how many Democrats in swing districts lose their jobs over it this November.But Laura Meckler had an important story...
The President’s Health Care Plan—Not a Game Changer
It is hard to see how the health care plan the President released this morning changes anything.There is nothing new in it save a health insurance rate regulatory board that is an awkward political proposal at best. What powers would it really have and how would it operate in conjunction with the states...
Wellpoint and Their “39%” Rate Increase
Wellpoint is getting killed in the press over a “39%” rate increase for their individual health insurance block in California.HHS Secretary Sebelius has pointed to the Wellpoint individual rate increases demanding an explanation. The President even brought it up in his interview on Sunday. At a time...
The Health Care Summit—Who’s Gonna Win the Photo-Op?
Getting Democrats and Republicans to constructively engage on health care is the best way to make progress.To date, the Democrats have blown health care reform once again by being too arrogant in thinking they could just ram their version through.The Republicans have no health care proposal. Their...
A Way Out of the Health Care Wilderness?
I just came across an interview that I will suggest we all may have missed and perhaps charts the way out of this health care reform wilderness we now seem to be in.It was on February 2nd and was between the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein and rising Republican House star Paul Ryan (WI).Ezra asked Ryan...
“Plan B” Has Begun
With word that the House is likely to take up the repeal of the health insurance industry anti-trust exemption it is now clear the Democratic leadership has begun Plan B.It is also clear that this is much more a part of a political Kabuki dance then any substantive effort at even piecemeal health care...
Friday in Baltimore--The Way to Actually Accomplish Something
Intentionally or unintentionally, my sense is that the White House came out of Baltimore thinking they are now on to something, and I hope the Republicans took the same lesson away.Constructive good faith political engagement in Washington actually works.It is just incredible that House Minority Leader...
The State of the Union--The President Came to a Fork in the Road and He Took It
As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."The President came to a fork in the road tonight on health care reform. Would he do what many liberals have demanded--push harder to pass the Democratic health care bills? Or, do as many moderate Dems and some Republicans have called...
Plan B—There Isn’t One—But There Could Be
As the State of the Union approaches Democrats are considering their health care policy options. There are lots of reports about “Plan B”—pushing through the Senate bill with a parallel corrections bill that could be passed in the Senate using reconciliation rules.That’s as dead as the original House...
A Smaller Bipartisan Health Bill? What It Could Look Like
In the wake of the Massachusetts vote, Democrats are scrambling to find a way out of the health care political mess they are in.Right now they are in a daze standing by waiting to see if any of the "trial balloons" they have launched gain any traction. So far, ideas to ram though the now toxic Senate...
Stick a Fork in It! The Democratic Effort to Pass a Health Bill is Dead
Tuesday’s Republican victory in Massachusetts means the current Democratic health care bills will not be on the President’s desk in 2010.Forget the crazy talk of ramming something through—including just having the House pass the pending Senate bill.I’ve talked to lots of people in the past few months...
The Silver Lining in the Massachusetts Vote
The Silver Liningby Brian Klepper and David C. KibbeMassachusetts voters' stunning rejection of Democrat Martha Coakley, in favor of a not-very-impressive Scott Brown, should be exactly the splash of cold water that the Democratic party - and Congress as a whole - needed. The defeat can be understood...
The Union “Cadillac” Tax Sweetheart Deal
Just when you thought you couldn’t be more cynical about the health care bill.As I have said before, there wasn’t a lot of hope the same administration that ignored the rule of law in granting unions priority over Chrysler bondholders was going to offend them on the “Cadillac” tax.We’ve seen the “Louisiana...
A Great Summary of Where We Are
Good friend Brian Klepper has an excellent round-up of recent blog reactions to the health care bill's progress in a "Special Edition of Health Wonk Review."It is posted on The Health Care Blog.It is really worth your tim...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)