KeithHennessey.com

Here are ten pieces of conventional wisdom about health care reform that I think are wrong.

At some point in September, the President, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid will need to choose a legislative path for health care reform. I will provide an overview of the legislative landscape, then walk through each of five paths. Today I project a 55% chance that the President will fail to enact a comprehensive health reform bill.

So much for the pharmaceutical industry’s deal with the White House…

The House bill would take Medicare savings need for Medicare solvency and spend them on a new entitlement.

AARP opposes the bills

“Putting the government in charge of health insurance”

I sent an email to flag@whitehouse.gov this morning about seemingly fishy statements being made about health care reform.

In July the health care reform debate looked at the effects of proposed legislation on the federal budget. Congress needs to focus on the effects of their proposed policies on workers’ future wages. If health care reform accelerates health cost growth because expanded insurance coverage means more health services are consumed, a median worker would see his real wages shrink.

I was so focused on provisions that would not affect the budget and might therefore have to be removed, that I forgot to think about provisions that would affect the budget. Unless Senator Reid can find ways to make these bills not violate two other tests, he will need 60 votes even to pass a reconciliation bill. Even through reconciliation it would be very difficult for Senator Reid to implement a 51-vote strategy.

This is part two of a crash course on the reconciliation process and how it might be used this fall for health care reform.