THIS WEEK, THE US House of Representatives will take up reconciliation legislation, amended and approved in the US Senate last month, that would drill major, damaging holes in the Affordable Care Act. Though the bill has zero chance of becoming law because of a certain veto by President Obama, it is – by the Democrats’ count […]
John E. McDonough
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
An ACA damage assessment
ON ONE THING all Affordable Care Act watchers can agree: This autumn saw important developments and changes relating to the nation’s health reform law. How much and how serious? Any immediate assessment is incomplete and the full impact only will be evident through the lens of the 2016 presidential and Congressional election results. Until then, […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
No time to go wobbly on One Care
BACK IN 2008, when I was working in the US Senate on national health reform, a delegation of 20 business leaders from the New England Council visited Capitol Hill to offer advice. The group’s leader was Charlie Baker, then Harvard Pilgrim Health Care’s CEO. I recall his one recommendation: “You have to do something about dual […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Sounds of health-care silence in GOP debate
I HAD ONE mission last night watching the Republican debate among the party’s top 10 presidential contenders: What, if anything, could we learn about the state of play regarding the Affordable Care Act and US health policy? What I observed: The impassioned debate about the Affordable Care Act/ACA/Obamacare is over, even among Republicans. Here is […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Cake and cupcakes for Medicare and Medicaid’s 50th anniversary
FIFTY YEARS AGO this Thursday, July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law legislation creating two new national health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Fifty years later, these programs appear as recognizable and durable as any monuments in Washington, DC. But the comparison is not entirely apt. There is little difference between the Lincoln […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Financing the Affordable Care Act
NOW THAT THE the lawsuit challenging federally established health care exchanges, King v. Burwell, has been relegated to history’s dustbin, let’s return for a deeper dive into the June 2015 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “The Budgetary and Economic Effects of Repealing the Affordable Care Care Act.” The report, which I wrote about here, projected […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, Opinion
US Chamber of Commerce’s shameful tobacco work
I RECALL SITTING in my office in the US Senate’s Hart Office Building in Washington, DC, between 2008 and 2010 with my desk TV always turned onto one of the cable news channels when the Senate was not in session. Incessantly, I saw TV ads from the US Chamber of Commerce speaking as the “voice […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
The Supreme Court surprise that wasn’t
THOSE CLOSELY WATCHING the US Supreme Court process on the King v. Burwell suit that almost upended insurance subsidies for about 6.4 million Americans knew that one of three outcomes was most likely – 5-4 for the plaintiffs, or 5-4 or 6-3 for the government. That indicated to me a two-thirds probability of a pro-Affordable […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
CBO: Obamacare repeal would be costly
MY FAVORED DEFINITION of “health policy wonk” is someone who reads health reports from the Congressional Budget Office — and enjoys it. Guilty as charged. Last Friday’s new report, “Budgetary and Economic Effects of Repealing the Affordable Care Act,” was enlightening and fascinating. It will be a benchmark document during the coming two years of debates […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
A grand bargain on medical device tax
ONE PROPOSAL TO CHANGE the Affordable Care Act would repeal the law’s 2.3 percent tax on sales of medical devices. On June 2, the House Ways and Means Committee voted, once again, to rescind the tax and a vote in the full House is expected soon. Even progressive Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and […]