Gazing Into CBO’s Budget and Health Care Crystal Ball James C. Capretta Kaiser Health News, 07/29/10
CBO’s latest projections again make it clear that the nation is rushing headlong toward a fiscal crisis, and the health law does nothing to head it off. Read more...
Poll: Seniors know little about reform law UPI, 07/28/10
Only 22 percent of U.S. seniors age 65 and older say the Affordable Health Care Act would not cut their basic Medicare benefits, a survey indicates. The survey for the National Council on Aging found 42 percent of the seniors say -- incorrectly -- that healthcare reform will cut their basic Medicare benefits, while 37 percent say they did not know. Read more...
Health reform tasks could overwhelm agencies, former federal official says Doug Trapp American Medical News, 07/28/10
Federal employees responsible for drafting and enforcing health reform regulations have an enormous task ahead of them, according to Gail Wilensky, PhD, an economist and former director of the agency now known as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains a daunting list of tasks that will overhaul how health care is delivered in the U.S., Wilensky said at a July 9 Alliance for Health Reform event on implementing the act. Read more...
Harry Reid Imagines That ObamaCare is Getting More Popular Peter Suderman Reason, 07/28/10
Democrats have recently taken to arguing that the public is warming to the new health care law, but I don’t buy it. As Cato’s Michael Cannon argues, that narrative only works “if you begin looking for a trend at the high-water mark of opposition, if you look at a few select polls, if you look at not-so-straightforward poll questions, if you interpret simultaneous declines in both support and opposition as growing support, and if you devise a rationale for ignoring the views of those who most oppose ObamaCare.” Once you do that, though, it's totally plausible! Read more...
Leviathan's Drug Problem John R. Graham Pacific Research Institute, 07/27/10
This study concludes that allowing American patients to access medicines that have already been approved in Europe would increase regulatory competition, enable more patient choice, and potentially save the lives of those suffering life-threatening illnesses and who currently have no treatment options. Read more...
Ready for the Next Trillion-Dollar Bailout? Brian Riedl National Review Online: Critical Condition, 07/27/10
Obamacare has been rightly blasted as fiscally responsible, yet few have noticed what may be Obamacare’s largest ticking entitlement time-bomb: the CLASS Act. My new op-ed on the subject is here, and my new report, co-written with Jim Capretta, is here.
NFIB: Small Business Owners On Why ObamaCare is Unconstitutional
Medical Liability Bill Key to Health Reform Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Fleming Roll Call, 07/27/10
...Clearly, however, as has become more apparent every day since the bill became public law, ObamaCare will have none of these intended [positive] effects — due to both what is in the bill and what was left out. Read more...
The Growing Battle Over Berwick Hal Scherz RealClearPolitics, 07/27/10
...the Obama administration's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as Medicare czar continued stirring controversy, with Senate Republicans "spoiling for a fight" and "escalating the conflict" according to the Washington Examiner's Byron York. Read more...
New Bill Not Necessary: Public Option Already in Obamacare Marguerite Higgins Heritage Foundation: The Foundry, 07/26/10
...last week’s reintroduction from House Democrats to create a public health insurance option, which would become part of the 2014 insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, is a bureaucratic redundancy. Read more...
