Tag Archives: Obamacare

Republicans Getting Deficit Reduction, But President Getting His Way

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The President and Speaker are headed for another budget confrontation. [Credit: Fox News]

The Pres­i­dent and Speak­er are head­ed for anoth­er bud­get con­fronta­tion. [Cred­it: Fox News]

Con­gress is on hol­i­day, rest­ing up for the next round of bud­get wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are famil­iar: the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is about to lose author­i­ty to do what it does best (or, at least, most nat­u­ral­ly) – bor­row and spend. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Congress’s Special Obamacare Deal To Be Extended to All Americans

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Embattled slugger Alex Rodriguez could end up benefiting from a forthcoming Obamacare announcement. [Credit: The Nation]

Embat­tled slug­ger Alex Rodriguez is among the mil­lions who could end up ben­e­fit­ing from a forth­com­ing Oba­macare announce­ment. [Cred­it: The Nation]

The Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion, which recent­ly announced that it would pro­vide Sen­a­tors and Con­gress­men with gen­er­ous gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies for their health insur­ance despite the fact that the Oba­macare law denies those sub­si­dies, is expect­ed to announce lat­er this week that it is extend­ing this spe­cial deal for Con­gress to all Amer­i­cans. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How Washington Changed Obama

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Washington has changed the President's hair color, as it has with his predecessors. But the changes run deeper. [Credit: Post Chronicle]

Wash­ing­ton has changed the Pres­i­den­t’s hair col­or, as it did his pre­de­ces­sors’. But the changes it has made in him run deep­er. [Cred­it: Post Chronicle]

“So eight years ago, I came here to deliv­er the com­mence­ment address for the class of 2005. Things were a lit­tle dif­fer­ent back then. For exam­ple, I had no gray hair. Or a motor­cade. Didn’t even have a prompter.”

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Knox Col­lege, Gales­burg (IL), July 24, 2013

Many things have changed in the eight years that elapsed between Pres­i­dent Obama’s two Gales­burg address­es. But per­haps none of those things has changed as pro­found­ly as he. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What Will The Poor Pay for Obamacare?

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Credit Huffington Post

Mil­lions of unin­sured Amer­i­cans with low incomes will find that cov­er­age under Oba­macare isn’t free. How they react to that brac­ing bit of news will help deter­mine whether the law suc­ceeds. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma promised change.  Oba­macare will bring it.  But one of its most far-reach­ing changes has noth­ing to do with health care.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Congress United … on Obamacare

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A famously fractious Congress has at last found common cause: getting out from under the Obamacare provision that would take away their health insurance subsidies. [Credit: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]
A famous­ly frac­tious Con­gress has at last found com­mon cause: get­ting out from under the Oba­macare pro­vi­sion that would take away their health insur­ance sub­si­dies. [Cred­it: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]

[NOTE: This post has been updat­ed to reflect recent devel­op­ments.]

Con­gress hasn’t been this unit­ed since the Ger­mans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Its 535 Mem­bers — com­pris­ing dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ties, ide­olo­gies, races, gen­ders and geo­graph­ic inter­ests — and its thou­sands of aides are fix­at­ed on a sin­gle thing.

Immi­gra­tion reform? Unrest in Egypt? The loom­ing debt ceil­ing expi­ra­tion with its prospect of US gov­ern­ment default? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare: We Don’t Need No Innovation

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The Ford Edsel didn't last, but the 1965 Medicare benefit remains largely unchanged nearly 50 years later. [Credit: phrenicea.com]

The Ford Edsel did­n’t last, but the anti­quat­ed Medicare ben­e­fit did, still large­ly unchanged near­ly 50 years lat­er. 
[Cred­it: phrenicea.com]

Begin­ning next Jan­u­ary, it will be ille­gal for insur­ance com­pa­nies to sell poli­cies mod­eled on the ben­e­fit that mil­lions of seniors receive through Medicare.

And that’s a good thing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

ObamaCare and the Arc of Conservative Wishful Thinking

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HHS simplified the application form, but is the health law still too complicated? [Credit: TakePart.com]

HHS sim­pli­fied the appli­ca­tion form, but is the health law still too com­pli­cat­ed? [Cred­it: TakePart.com]

“The Oba­maCare Blame Game” is the title of a piece by my friend and Hud­son Insti­tute fel­low Tevi Troy that will soon be pub­lished in the June 2013 Com­men­tary [no link avail­able]. Pars­ing the state­ments of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers, Troy observes a curi­ous turn in how they talk about their new health care law: they have begun to admit that it might not work out as well as planned. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Tortured Politics of the Health Care Law

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Boehner and Reid

Putting aside per­son­al ani­mos­i­ty for the greater good.

House con­ser­v­a­tives yes­ter­day scut­tled a bill that would have denied the White House mon­ey it urgent­ly needs to imple­ment the new health reform law. But a promi­nent Sen­ate Demo­c­rat, who helped write the law, maneu­vered to deny the Admin­is­tra­tion those des­per­ate­ly need­ed funds. Mean­while, Speak­er Boehn­er and Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid are locked in qui­et talks to exempt them­selves and their staffs from the new law.

Got all that? Con­tin­ue read­ing →