Word around town is that Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader, is going to be named HHS Secretary.That would mean that President-Elect Obama is going with a political and health care policy heavyweight.With word yesterday that Senator Kennedy has appointed Hillary Clinton (presuming she stays in the Senate) to take the lead on the health insurance reform portion of his health
Read full post »
Browse » Home » All posts
Health Care Reform a "Longer Term Goal" For the Obama Administration?
Under the headline in today's Washington Post, "Kennedy Announces Plan to Submit Bill For Universal Care" was this:"Some Democrats, including members of President-elect Barack Obama's circle, have begun to view expanded [health care] coverage as a longer-term goal."Is the new administration trying to send a message to its health care eager constituencies that given the economy and all of the
Read full post »
"The Changes We Need"
The Changes We Needby Brian KlepperThese are, as the Chinese curse reputedly called them, interesting times.If the burst of new Democratic health care reform proposals is any indication, the fresh breeze of the Obama campaign's "Yes We Can" optimism is blowing across the nation. Mr. Obama’s team is expected to make health care one of its priorities. First out, though, was Senate Finance Committee
Read full post »
Medicare Advantage Payments to Insurers--Baucus Zeroing In!
Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) released his health plan white paper last week.Buried in it was this regarding how private Medicare payments to HMOs should be changed:“Congress must act to level the playing field between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage payments and the Baucus plan would do so. Enacted in July 2008, MIPPA [the July physician fee fix that will end PFFS] took
Read full post »
Market Capitalism and Health Care--It Will Never Be the Same
Washington Post business page columnist Steven Pearlstein's Friday column, "Toward a New International Capitalism," caught my eye.Here's a snippet:"From the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s to the Internet craze at the turn of the century to today's economic conflagration, the past 20 years have provided ample evidence that uncontrolled flows of
Read full post »
To the Congressional Budget Office: Please Keep Playing it Straight!
I guess this is an open letter to CBO Director Peter Orszag and his colleagues at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).I have great respect for the CBO and that has been the case under different majorities--Democratic and Republican. Never more than now.The CBO is intended to be non-partisan and objective. They provide the information and estimates the Congress needs to complete the budget
Read full post »
The Baucus Health Plan Proposal--Evidence There Is No Consensus on the Key Health Reform Issues
Max Baucus will be a key player in the health care debate the next two years. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee he has jurisdiction on many of the key issues including Medicare and provider payment reform.He is also a leader in the true bipartisan spirit--something crucial to actually getting reform done.Yesterday, he released a 98-page white paper, "Call to Action--Health Reform 2009."
Read full post »
There is Now a Real Bipartisan Opportunity in Health Care
President-Elect Obama, and about every candidate for Congress, has said he wants to change the partisan tone in Washington. Obama, the Democratic Congressional leadership, and the Republicans have a terrific opportunity to do just that on health care when they all come to Washington early next year.As I posted earlier, I do not believe there is any chance we can see the enactment of the
Read full post »
The Morning After: Obama and the Dems Win Big--What It Means For Health Care
258 House and 57 Senate Democrats make it almost certain that major health reform will be passed. Right?Actually, that was the number of Democrats Bill Clinton started off with in 1993 and we know what happened to health care reform in that Congress.With similar Democratic majorities, I do not expect a major health care reform bill like the one President-Elect Barack Obama called for during the
Read full post »
High Costs for the Massachusetts Health Law--Sustainability is Now the Question
The Center for Studying Health System Change has just released a study examining the state of the important health reform law in Massachusetts.As one of the co-author's put it, "Improving access to heath care coverage has been a clear emphasis of the reform, but little has been done to address rapidly rising health care costs, raising questions about the longer-term viability of the reform."I can
Read full post »
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)