The just released 2011 Medicare trustees report does not contain any big surprises. Much of what the trustees say in this report they have said before: Medicare poses enormous challenges for patients and taxpayers alike, and its financial condition continues a downward slide. Some key findings: Medicare’s unfunded obligations increased …
Any time Congress creates a health care entitlement, it “crowds out” (i.e., displaces) private coverage, replacing private sector spending with increased taxpayer spending. The end result: Private spending and coverage contract while government entitlements, dependency, and spending grow. Since the enactment of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, many conservatives …
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the United States Senate is going to enact a one-month reprieve for Medicare physicians, saving them once again from a draconian reduction in Medicare payment. This entire system is a mess. Under the existing Medicare payment formula (the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR) for doctors …
State officials around the country are getting a lesson from the California legislature in how not to respond to Obamacare. While the new federally supervised, state-based health insurance exchanges are to be up and running by January 1, 2014, the California legislature is poised to create the California Health Benefit …
The Census Bureau’s annual snapshot out today shows there were 50.7 million, or 16.7 percent of the population, without health coverage in 2009. These numbers come as the nation experiences a growing shift from private health coverage to more expansive public health programs. Given today’s high rates of unemployment and …
In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act. Officials in Washington were firmly united in creating the single-largest expansion of Medicare since 1965. Fast-forward 22 years, and we’ve just witnessed a monumental government takeover of the private health care sector. But this …
President Obama, joined by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is holding a televised Town Hall Meeting today on the benefits of his big health care law with senior citizens in Wheaton, Maryland. The President’s public relations offensive will be coordinated with unions and a bevy of liberal interest groups, ranging from …
In the mad dash to meet their strictly political deadline for passing Obamacare, lawmakers wound up victimizing many people. Including themselves. Members of Congress and Congressional staff currently enjoy a wide variety of excellent health insurance options, courtesy of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). One of the more …
That was what Speaker Pelosi said on March 10, 2010. One day after the Senate’s mammoth, 2,700-page health bill became law, the Associated Press has discovered the legislation doesn’t deliver on a key promise. Despite repeated assurances that the measure would provide immediate health coverage for children with pre-existing medical conditions, it doesn’t. …
Members of the House of Representatives tonight approved President Obama’s health care agenda, the biggest expansion of government power since the Great Society. The Obama health care legislation is universal in scope and will profoundly impact the personal lives of more than 300 million Americans. It will restrict our personal …
