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This page contains the most recent version of my list of “things you should know about the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill,” interspersed with parallel observations about the leaked outline of the House Democrats’ health care bill.
I will post each time I update this page, so you can track it incrementally.  If you bookmark this page, [...]

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).

Over the weekend a draft of Senator Kennedy’s (D-MA) health care bill leaked.  After playing with Adobe Acrobat, here is the text of the draft Kennedy bill as a text file (173 K), and as a single Acrobat file (3.4 MB).  Update:  I fixed the broken link to the PDF. Unlike the leaked version, both [...]

The President emphasized the importance of health care reform in Tuesday evening’s press conference.  One of his arguments was that reforming health care would help address federal and state government fiscal problems:
What we have to do is bend the curve on these deficit projections.  And the best way for us to do that is to [...]

About Keith Hennessey
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About Keith Hennessey

I served as the senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush.  My job was to coordinate economic policy for the President, including macroeconomic issues, financial markets and institutions, tax [...]

President Bush spoke at the Manhattan Institute today on financial markets and the world economy.
This speech is a prelude to the financial summit the President will host this weekend.  I’ll write separately about the Summit, and about the elements of today’s speech that talk about principles for reform.
I want to draw your attention to two [...]

President Bush gave a major policy address on the State Floor of the White House this evening.
THE WHITE HOUSE
State Floor
9:01 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:  Good evening.  This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy.  Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future.  I understand their worry and their [...]

The President spoke this afternoon about high food prices and food aid.  If you’d like more detail, here’s our “fact sheet”.  And if you really want to dive down deep, here is a transcript of a press briefing done by three senior administration officials after the announcement:  OMB Deputy Director Steve McMillin, CEA Chairman Ed [...]

About three hours ago, the President signed into law H.R. 5140, The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 , less than four weeks after he first proposed Congressional action.
We are enormously pleased with this rapid and bipartisan legislative success.  The final bill passed the House 380-34, and the Senate 81-16.  Here is a one-page summary of [...]

Last Friday the President spoke about the need for additional Congressional action on the economy.  Outsiders are referring to this as “fiscal stimulus”.  We’ve been calling it a “growth package”.
There’s a lot to say, so I’m going to break this up into three big parts.

what the President proposed;
why the President proposed it; and
today’s [...]