As Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion is being debated in the states, many myths are being perpetuated by its advocates. Here, Heritage provides the research to debunk such myths: 1. Myth: Expanding Medicaid is “free money” for the states. Reality: The expansion adds an estimated $638 billion in new government spending from …
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) has proposed a budget that balances in just four years while holding tax revenue at near its historical average. It advances more aggressive entitlement reforms than the House Budget Committee plan, including Social Security, and features deeper spending cuts. Nevertheless, the plan also suffers weaknesses, …
This week, the budget committees of both chambers of Congress released their budgets ahead of President Obama’s budget—marking the first time in 92 years that Congress kicked off the budget process instead of the President. The House budget, under the helm of Chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI), delivers a balanced budget …
At first look, the budget unveiled today by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) advances much-needed reforms and importantly accomplishes the crucial goal of balancing the budget within the decade, though this is partially on the coattails of Obama’s tax increases. Not a silver bullet, it is more …
The congressional formula that determines the annual Medicare payment update for physicians, the sustainable growth rate (SGR), was supposed to cut Medicare doctors’ pay each year starting in 2002. But that congressional formula is so flawed and unworkable that every year since 2003, Congress has stepped in to stop it …
The latest fiscal cliff proposal by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R–OH) is infuriatingly frustrating to conservatives, again. In exchange for $1 trillion in tax hikes—including the President’s immediate tax rate hike on the wealthy—Boehner asked for just $1 trillion in spending cuts. And, to sweeten the pot for …
Retiring House Ways and Mean Health Care Subcommittee chairman Wally Herger (R–CA) has introduced the most complete and detailed major Medicare reform proposal in a decade. Herger leaves a rich legacy with the Save and Strengthen Medicare Act (H.R. 6645). The bill moves Medicare to a defined-contribution model with competition …
The Kaiser Family Foundation just released a study that grossly misrepresents the premium-support model of Medicare reform and apparently misunderstands normal market dynamics and the differences between efficiency, choice, and higher premiums. The Kaiser study assumes that an entire class of Americans—senior citizens—is insensitive to price. In reality, seniors are …
Opponents to Medicare reform have been making plenty of erroneous claims about Medicare premium support lately, one of the worst being that Representative Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) premium-support model, co-authored by Senator Ron Wyden (D–OR), would cost future seniors an extra $6,400 a year. This claim is simply false. Buried beneath …
