Former Office for Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag recently wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times on the need for medical malpractice reform. Well, kind of. Orszag’s approach has more to do with creating stricter mechanisms to enforce physicians’ compliance with evidence-based guidelines than with reforming the …
In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Henry J. Aaron, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, writes that rolling back and defunding Obamacare would create “zombie legislation … [i.e.,] a program that lives on but works badly.” If Aaron is looking for a …
Obamacare alters the practice medicine by putting a stronger emphasis on adherence to government-determined measures of quality. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) already offers hospitals financial incentives to report on their compliance with certain measures of care. These are posted on Hospital Compare, a site where, according …
With a struggling economy and stagnant unemployment rate, the last thing the United States needs is any public policy that will hurt job growth. Unfortunately, Obamacare’s new federally mandated, essential benefits package will diminish new job opportunities, especially for low-income workers. This is expected to occur because the new law …
Yesterday, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) released its annual report on health insurance mandates in the states. They report that mandated benefits—i.e., medical procedures that states require insurance providers to cover—across the 50 states are on the rise, jumping from 2,133 in 2009 to 2,156 in 2010. But …
Earlier this week, Maya MacGuineas, a fiscal policy expert at the New America Foundation, ranked Congress’s options in addressing the pending expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. A little more than two months remain before an automatic tax hike on all American earners sets in, and Congress has …
The 2010 fiscal year just ended, but America’s fiscal crisis has just begun. In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) preliminary estimates show that the federal government spent $3.45 trillion, amassing a deficit of $1.3 trillion. Spending on entitlement programs, which include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, comprised 41 percent …
The outlook for seniors’ Medicare Advantage (MA) plans is grim under the new health care law. Though seniors’ premiums will drop 1 percent in the new year, this will be the exception to the rule over the next decade. Medicare Advantage is a popular alternative to traditional fee-for-service, allowing seniors …
