Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Democrats would like people to believe that supporting the Ryan Plan’s Medicare changes is so unpopular with the public that it will hurt the GOP at the polls, but that’s not necessarily the case: A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asks Americans whether they would be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who [...]
It was a good day in Court for opponents of the Affordable Care Act.
Another appellate panel heard arguments on the Constitutionality of the health care reform law this week.
We need to stop talking as if the Medicare debate is a question of the Ryan Plan v. the Status Quo.
Arguments for the Ryan Plan that characterize it as being “against bureaucracy” are apparently oblivious to the fact that private health insurance is full of bureaucracy.
As Congress left town for the long weekend, the Senate Minority Leader threw a grenade into the budget negotiations.
The Care Quality Commission has found widespread neglect of elderly patients in the British National Health Service.
There were two show votes in the Senate today on competing budget plans, and they turned out just about as everyone expected: With five Republicans joining Democrats in opposition, the Senate easily rejected a House-passed budget plan Wednesday calling for deep cuts in domestic appropriations and major restructuring of Medicare, the government-backed healthcare program for [...]
Former President Clinton doesn’t necessarily think his fellow Democrats are pursuing the right policy in their response to the Ryan Plan: WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — Bill Clinton had a word of warning on Wednesday for fellow Democrats: Don’t get too cocky about voters’ rejection of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. In a special election for a vacant [...]
The 4th Circuit has asked for supplemental briefs on an issue that could put a quick end to the lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act.
Voters in New York State may help move the budget debate on Capitol Hill.
Even before the individual mandate kicks in, the ACA has added hundreds of thousands of people to health insurance rolls.
The latest example of the extent to which Senate Republicans do not wish to associate themselves with the Ryan Plan comes in the news the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not try to persuade his caucus members to support the plan when it comes up for a vote: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) [...]
As I noted yesterday, former Speaker Newt Gingrich pretty much threw the Ryan Plan’s Medicare reforms under the bus in a Meet The Press interview. Interestingly, Gingrich was singing a very different tune two weeks ago: A couple of weeks ago, I spent a day following Newt Gingrich around New Hampshire. After a radio interview [...]
Newt Gingrich’s appearance on Meet The Press today is likely to get a lot of attention mostly for the fact that clearly, and rather emphatically, distanced himself from the Medicare reforms proposed by Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and adopted by the House GOP: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy [...]
The latest Medicare Trustee’s report is fairly sobering: The new Medicare trustees report says the trust fund is now likely to run out of money in 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year. The reason, according to CMS, is that the economic recovery has been slower than expected — making tax revenues come in [...]
Earlier this week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who I normally have a pretty decent amount of respect for considering he’s a Senator, took a little trip into rhetorical fantasy land when he tried to analogize universal health care to slavery: Rand Paul, the freshman senator from Kentucky, was speaking recently about healthcare, specifically the new [...]
Romney wants to make a federalism based argument for why his MA health care bill is good, while the PPACA is tyrannical. However, just saying that is not an argument.
Mitt Romney began his effort to confront what is likely to be his biggest political liability in the 2012 campaign.
How much of public opinion is about tribal political identification and how much is about the actual policies themselves?
Mitt Romney isn’t the only Republican candidate for President with a health care policy problem: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is set to defend his state’s health care law from conservative critics in a high-profile speech on Thursday. But Romney is far from being the potential 2012 Republican presidential contender with the most politically [...]
It probably isn’t good for Mitt Romney that something like this would come out while he’s preparing a run for the Republican nomination: Romney may well be one of the few Republicans in a position to beat Barack Obama in November 2012, but in order to get there he has to win the Republican nomination [...]
The first round of appellate arguments over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act took place today in Richmond, Virginia.
Senate Republicans appear to be sending a message to their House brethren that they aren’t going to back the Ryan Plan’s proposed changes to Medicare: A deep rift is opening wider and wider in the Republican Party over controversial proposals to cut Medicare. Senate Republicans have decided to avoid jeopardizing their chances of capturing [...]
Via The Hill‘s Healthwatch: Republican rift widens on Medicare Senate Republicans have decided to avoid jeopardizing their chances of capturing the upper chamber in next year’s elections and will not echo the House GOP’s call for a major overhaul of the popular health entitlement for seniors. [...] While sticking by the policies in the Ryan [...]
Not everyone in the Tea Party Caucus is agreeing with the House GOP’s strategy of trying to attack the Affordable Care Act piece by piece: A Tea Party favorite in the House is turning against the Republican leadership’s strategy on healthcare. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), who has emerged as an outspoken conservative voice among GOP [...]
In the comment section of my post yesterday on health care policy, a discussion started about the question of whether health care can be construed as a public good (i.e., the ever-popular notion of something that is “non-rivalrous and non-excludable”). While I no doubt need to further explore the concept in writing, I will point [...]
In addition to the developments I wrote about earlier today, we now have comments from the Chairman of the Ways And Means Committee that seem to clearly indicate that the House GOP is laying the groundwork for taking the Ryan Plan’s Medicare reforms off the table: After House Republican leaders pushed through a budget that [...]
Congressman David Camp, Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee states the blindingly obvious: Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged Thursday that Republican plans to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law were “dead.” Instead, Camp predicted, the GOP would turn its focus to overturning [...]
An attempt at explaining where I am coming from on in the health care discussion.
The bottom line is that the problem with the Ryan Plan is the Ryan Plan.
Given the feelings about the President’s health care reform plan among Republicans, this strikes me as a very odd comment: Another top Republican has admitted what few members of his own party will admit. In fact, it’s the toppest-Republican. According to Speaker John Boehner, the House Republican budget, which passed on April 15, “transforms Medicare [...]
Yesterday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee came out with a web ad that claimed that the House budget plan drafted by Paul Ryan would end Medicare and force seniors to pay as much as $12,000 a year for health insurance. Politifact took a look at the claim, and utterly destroyed it: Yes, the Republican plan [...]
Given the schedule they’re on in the Courts of Appeals, it is likely that the Supreme Court will rule on one or more of the lawsuits challenging the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act just before the start of the 2012 campaign.
The Federal Government has filed its response to Virginia’s request for an expedited review of Virginia v. Sebelius, and they’ve got an compelling argument against rushing things.
PP’s intensive effort to recast itself as a preventer of abortions doesn’t bear scrutiny.
Judge Roger Vinson stayed his own ruling in the Florida ObamaCare lawsuit today and acted to speed up the appellate process, but not by much.
Yet again: to the Commerce Clause!
It’s no wonder that we can’t have an intelligent discussion about health care in this country. when a significant number of Americans don’t even know what the facts are: Nearly half of all Americans believe the health care reform law has already been repealed or aren’t sure one way or the other, a new Kaiser [...]
Judge Gladys Kessler upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, but she did so by essentially ruling that the Interstate Commerce Clause means whatever Congress wants it to mean.
The Affordable Care Act has been ruled Constitutional in Holder v. Mead.
Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz suggested last week that the term “ObamaCare” was disparaging and shouldn’t be allowed on the House floor: House Republicans and Democrats started Friday morning’s debate over whether to defund last year’s healthcare law, and as part of this debate sparred over whether members should be allowed to call that law “ObamaCare.” [...]
You don’t have to be Admiral Akbar to suspect that the President’s refusal to deal with entitlements in his budget proposal is a trap for the GOP.
As expected, Virginia has filed it’s petition with the Supreme Court seeking expedited review of its lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act: Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has filed his petition seeking an expedited ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the federal health-care overhaul. Cuccinelli argues that the case is of “imperative national importance,” requiring [...]
House Democrats are calling on Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any litigation regarding the Affordable Care Act. It’s a phony argument, but that’s because it has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with legal ethics.
Four Senators who just happen to be up for re-election next year are silently looking for alternatives to the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.
Predicting (after a fashion) what the SCOTUS will do with the PPACA and a return to the Commerce Clause and the activity/inactivity disucssion.
