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 […]
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Tag Archives: health
The belt-and-suspenders of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill
11 June 2009 
70 Comments
There is much debate about whether a health care reform bill should include a government-run health insurance plan, a so-called “public option.” Advocates argue that such a plan can compete fairly with private health insurance, and that this competition would “keep insurers honest.” They also argue that more choices are a good thing. I fall […]
Read more Ten more things about the official Kennedy-Dodd health care bill
10 June 2009 43 Comments
The Senate HELP Committee staff has filed an official copy of their draft legislation with the Senate clerk. A friend and I were discussing today two possible tactical scenarios: The weekend leak forced the majority staff to release their official text as damage control. Under this scenario, filing the official copy is a damage mitigation […]
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 more Understanding the Kennedy health care bill
8 June 2009 383 Comments
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 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 moreUnderstanding the GM bankruptcy
1 June 2009 51 Comments
Many of you are new to this blog since I wrote extensively about autos six weeks ago. As background, I coordinated the auto loan process for President Bush last fall as the Director of the White House National Economic Council (the position now held by Dr. Lawrence Summers). I wrote a series of posts on […]
Read moreBasic facts on the General Motors bankruptcy
1 June 2009 29 Comments
In a few hours I will offer my thoughts and reactions to the General Motors bankruptcy filing and the President’s noon announcement. For now, here is what I have been able to figure out from the White House fact sheet and secondary source reporting through CNBC and the Wall Street Journal. I assume that both […]
Read more Understanding the President’s CAFE announcement
19 May 2009 126 Comments
(Editorial note: I was doing so well moving to shorter posts. I fail miserably in achieving that goal here. I went the comprehensive route instead. I promise to return to shorter posts in the future. Buckle up – this is a long ride. I hope you find it’s worth it.) (Update: There’s an important correction […]
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 […]
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