This week, the Murphy Institute at the University of St. Thomas will present two Catholic scholars in a dialogue on national health policy, especially the new Affordable Care Law. And how Catholic principles might explain the role of government in improving the quality, access and affordability of health care, and how Catholic voters might approach the role that Democrats and Republicans are likely to play in supporting implementation or repeal.
Presenters are John Carr, the Executive Director … Continue reading »
The Background
For more than the 33 years, since I was elected to the U.S. Senate, members of Congress have been working to bend the national health care cost curve. Mainly by changing how the Medicare program pays health care providers. In 1993, President Clinton focused not just on Medicare, but sought to change other policies to reduce the impact of other cost drivers in health care. Part of his effort to expand insurance coverage to … Continue reading »
Somewhere in the polarized policy making process that passes for Congress today is a long-term problem that won’t go away while Congress pretends it doesn’t exist. Back in 1997, the Republican House passed a Balanced Budget Act designed to change the way physicians are paid for services provided Medicare beneficiaries. The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) limited per service pay increases to the annual percentage increase in Medicare Part B. Along with other Medicare payment provisions in BBA 97, … Continue reading »
Posted December 16, 2011 in: A.C.A, Medicare, Opinion Page |
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The ACA’s Individual Health Insurance Mandate . . . The national government has constitutional authority over national security and, over 220 years of expanding from 1 million to 306 million Americans, authority to provide for the economic security of citizens. You may not like the Social Security program, or Unemployment Comp, or Workers Comp, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or tax-free employer-paid health insurance policy.
But the U.S. Supreme Court (and Mitt Romney) says it’s constitutional economic security … Continue reading »
The Healthcare Leadership Council is one of those “umbrella” organizations used by the power structure in the medical industrial complex to occasionally find common cause on health policy. Its CEO is an experienced DC hand and former lobbyist, Mary Grealy. But it’s run by the CEOs of the biggest industries like health insurance, drugs and devices, hospitals, big systems like Mayo/Cleveland, and the newer for-profit chains. These are organizations that President Obama enlisted to help pass his health reform … Continue reading »
What to Make of the “Week From Hell”
We were enjoying life at the foothills of the Teton Mountains of Wyoming while the stock market reacted to S&P’s reaction to our national political leader’s reaction to the Tea Party demands we lower federal spending in exchange for increasing our borrowing. Or maybe it reacted to the decision to delegate the future of federal spending/taxing policy to 12 members of the Congress.
In any event, no one in … Continue reading »
When Mitt Romney was the Republican governor of Massachusetts, he took on a Democratic legislature in an effort to reduce health care costs by expanding access, improving quality, reducing excess utilization and reforming health insurance and health care payment policy. The conservative administrators of President Bush’s Medicaid program encouraged him to make the deal with a big commitment of federal dollars. Conservative Washington think tankers helped seal the deal and applauded Romney’s resolve.
Today many of Governor … Continue reading »
During the first 46 days of the new session of Congress, the House held 45 hearings involving Secretary Sebelius or other HHS officials criticizing the Affordable Care Act. Not much going on in the Democratic Senate. Especially the once-powerful Senate Finance Committee whose chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) was busy writing to Medtronic demanding the company prove that by cancelling five contracts with “group purchasing” company Novation, LLC, it was not raising the costs of the … Continue reading »
Twenty-six states have filed briefs in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta asking the appellate court to uphold the decision of Federal Judge Roger Vinson of Florida declaring the ACA unconstitutional. Four more states have passed measures to prevent the laws implementation and New Hampshire voted to send back any federal money intended to implement the new law. Georgia’s M.D. Congressman Tom Price has introduced legislation in the House that will allow “balance billing” … Continue reading »
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