The Administration’s health care reform and fiscal policy strategies are based on flawed premises. When neutral and non-partisan referees like CBO point out these flaws, both strategies collapse. The damage to the President’s health care reform effort is evident. I think the damage to his fiscal policy strategy will soon become apparent as well.
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Tag Archives: budget
How to measure health care cost control
12 June 2009 
18 Comments
I want to propose a four-part test for measuring any particular bill on health care cost control. short run long run Federal deficit 1 2 Government health care spending X 3 Private health care spending X 4 In each case, I will define the test so that “yes” is a good outcome: Test 1: The […]
Read more Understanding the House Democrats' health care bill
9 June 2009 218 Comments
Yesterday I posted and described the draft Kennedy-Dodd health care bill. Today I would like to do the same for an outline produced by House Democrats. Here is a three-page outline of “Key Features of the Tri-Committee Health Reform Draft Proposal in the House of Representatives,” dated yesterday (June 8, 2009). The three committees are: […]
Read moreWill the stimulus come too late?
3 June 2009 38 Comments
I began this blog at the end of March after the stimulus bill had become law. I had been struck by how much the stimulus debate had focused on whether the bill was efficient. (It clearly was not.) There was much less discussion of whether the stimulus would be effective, and of the timing of […]
Read more Parsing the President’s health care reform letter
3 June 2009 11 Comments
The White House has released a letter from the President to the two Senate Chairmen who are working on (different) versions of health care reform: Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The letter is dated yesterday and […]
Read more Third party payment in health care (part 3): Technology drives cost growth
18 May 2009 17 Comments
Imagine that Sony plans to bring to market a new TV that is twice as good as the old $500 TV but costs $200 more to produce. If instead it is twice as good but costs $2,000 more, they will probably hold off and look for a less expensive way to improve quality. Now imagine […]
Read more Budget: Baby Terminator
7 May 2009 49 Comments
Today the Administration released more detail for the President’s budget. The President tried to emphasize his fiscal responsibility by highlighting some of the programs he proposes to terminate or reduce. Budget Director Orszag released the Terminations, Reductions, and Savings volume. This morning the President said, But one of the pillars of this foundation is fiscal […]
Read moreWill the Administration fund CSI: New Haven and Tattoo removal in L.A.?
24 April 2009 3 Comments
President Obama may not realize that the people who work for him are required to ignore hundreds (thousands?) of Congressional earmarks. The President has the ability to stop them from doing so. I hope that he will not. Thanks go to former OMB General Counsel Jeff Rosen for pointing this out. An Executive Order is […]
Read moreApparently $634 B is only the down payment for health care reform
22 April 2009 3 Comments
I had missed this from the President’s remarks to Congress on February 24th: This budget builds on these reforms. It includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. Budget Director Peter Orszag repeated the “down payment” language […]
Read moreCBO: Health IT and preventive care won't save a lot of money
22 April 2009 9 Comments
It looks like my post from yesterday agrees with CBO’s December paper. Maybe I should have read it earlier. Yesterday I wrote, Information must be combined with the incentive to purchase high-value medical care … a decision that involves both the medical benefit of the treatment and the financial cost. The Administration’s proposals on health […]
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