Peter Suderman
Remember last week’s health care deal? The one that was going to save health care reform? Well, it increasingly looks like (as predicted) it wasn’t much of one — and mostly because of Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, who’d previously taken a squishy position on the deal’s Medicare buy-in plan, has said that he [...]
By Jacob Weisberg
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate finance committee, has emerged as one of the harshest critics of what the right likes to call “Obamacare.” After spending the first half of the year working with Democrats to find a bipartisan compromise, Grassley has spent the second half trying to prevent [...]
Congress plays make-believe, but the bill to taxpayers is real.
HAVING PASSED a health reform bill that is, at least theoretically, paid for, the House of Representatives is poised this week to blow a quarter-trillion-dollar hole in the federal budget involving, you guessed it, health care. This is the so-called doc fix, to prevent scheduled cuts [...]
By Henry J. Aaron and Isabel V. Sawhill
Anyone who thinks that health-care reform alone is going to close the massive current — and even larger projected — U.S. budget deficit is deluded. President Obama has pledged that health-care reform will not make matters worse. But that isn’t good enough. There is no way to restore [...]
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
THE elderly were the first group to turn against President Obama’s health-care pro posals, alienated by the plans to cut $500 billion cut from Medicare. The young and the uninsured may be the next to jump ship — out of worry over about the huge premiums they’d have to pay.
Requiring [...]
By Charles Krauthammer
You lie? No. Barack Obama doesn’t lie. He’s too subtle for that. He . . . well, you judge.
Herewith three examples within a single speech — the now-famous Obama-Wilson “you lie” address to Congress on health care — of Obama’s relationship with truth.
(1) “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime [...]
By George S. McGovern
For many years, a handful of American political leaders — including the late senator Ted Kennedy and now President Obama — have been trying to gain passage of comprehensive health care for all Americans. As far back as President Harry S. Truman, they have urged Congress to act on this national need. [...]
By TEVI D. TROY AND JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
Decades of data confirm a simple truth: If we want to lower health costs, we need to put consumers back in charge.
Many people now feel like second-class citizens when they enter the doctor’s office. That’s because everyone in the office knows that the patient isn’t really the payer [...]
By JON R. GABEL
FOR competence and integrity, few organizations command more respect in Washington than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. As health care reform makes its way through Congress, the budget office’s assessment of how much various elements might cost may determine the details of legislation, and whether it ultimately passes. But when it comes [...]
Looking back, this must have been the White House health-care strategy:
Health care as a subject is extraordinarily sticky, messy and confusing. It’s inherently complicated, and it’s personal. There are land mines all over the place. Don’t make the mistake the Clintons made and create a plan that gets picked apart, shot down, and injures the [...]
