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Ben Smith's Blog: Remainders: Confirmation
The Atlantic Politics Channel: Welcome To The Scrum
Swampland: Health Care: The Industry Steps Up. Maybe.
TPM Election Central: Health Care Kumbaya--How Big A Deal Was Today's White House Event
Wonk Room: What To Make Of The CBO’s New Cost Estimate Of The HELP Bill
Remainders: Confirmation
Ben Smith's Blog —
Federal employees, get used to this portrait, the official one.
Obama plans a fiscal responsibility summit for February.
The pres-elect's grandmother is bringing him Kenyan care packages stuffed with Oval Office decor, but no spear.
Spencer Ackerman also wonders whether the phrase "war on terror" has gone out of style.
Cohn's new TNR blog says health care reform is still a first-year priority for Obama.
Ambinder gives a rundown of the PR and admin people hired to push the health care issue. ...
Welcome To The Scrum
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... One of our best health care analysts, the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn, now has his own blog, The Treatment. Other TNR writers will contribute, too. Please check it out. ...
Allies Nervous About White House On Health Care
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... have their way, add to it well-funded government components and alternatives that, over time, will drive down costs and provide a source of pressure and competition. A market for insurance policies would be the end-result. (Jonathan Cohn explains the different between a real public plan and a quasi public plan here.) Politically, Obama wants all stakeholders to agree on a solution. So he's been very coy about what he thinks Congress should do first -- the private insurance subsidy part or of the public plan. ...
Health Care: The Industry Steps Up. Maybe.
Swampland —
... this is "some of the best policy news I've heard in a long time." Jonathan Cohn declares : "This is a big deal, if only for the clear political signal it sends." But the industry offers almost no details of how it intends to do this, and it would be virtually impossible to track how well the individual players--insurance companies, drug firms, hospitals, unions--are doing at meeting that mark. The fact is, this idea--first floated, as best I can recall, by Karen Ignani, the top insurance industry lobbyist, at the White House health care summit in March--is designed to make ...
Health Care Kumbaya--How Big A Deal Was Today's White House Event
TPM Election Central —
... the American Hospital Association--and, on the other side of things, representatives of the Service Employees International Union.
The groups are pledging to support cost-reducing measures that, at least in theory, dovetail with an Obama-backed health care plan and which would incur saving that could potentially be construed as part of the up-front investment comprehensive reform will require.
Paul Krugman is pleased by this development. So is health wonk Jonathan Cohn, and The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder. Ezra Klein is somewhat less ...
What To Make Of The CBO’s New Cost Estimate Of The HELP Bill
Wonk Room —
... The HELP committee does not have jursidiction over Medicaid expansion or financing of reform. Thus, its bill only covers an additional 20 million Americans and costs approximately $600 billion. However, if we assume Medicaid expansion to about 150% FPL we expand coverage, but we also add to cost, bringing the final bill to somewhere around $1 trillion over 10 years. Cohn runs the numbers for what the final results may look like: ...
House Bill Comes In At $1 Trillion, Undermines GOP Talking Points
Wonk Room —
... As Jonathan Cohn reports, “between savings and a new surtax on the wealthy, the bill pays for itself. In other words, it won’t inflate the deficit.” Five hundred billion comes from savings in Medicare and Medicaid and ...
Preliminary Look at the House Healthcare Reform Bill
Daily Kos —
... As Jonathan Cohn reports, "between savings and a new surtax on the wealthy, the bill pays for itself. In other words, it won’t inflate the deficit." Five hundred billion comes from savings in Medicare and Medicaid and "the rest comes from a surtax on the richest 1.5 percent." ...
Senate HELP Committee passed health care reform bill today (with, of course, NO GOP Votes)
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth —
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed a significant health care reform bill today. The Ted Kennedy/Chris Dodd-led HELP Committee is a much better place to start get a real reform bill than the Senator Max Baucus-led Finance Committee. Jonathan Cohn at TNR's "The Treatment" picks up on a key point from Senator Dodd: Dodd went on to note that a weak bill, even one with bipartisan support, might be difficult to sustain, both during the congressional debate and afterwards. In other words, a weak bill would do less for ...
Healthcare Reform: The Week that Was
Daily Kos —
... As Jonathan Cohn reports, "between savings and a new surtax on the wealthy, the bill pays for itself. In other words, it won’t inflate the deficit." Five hundred billion comes from savings in Medicare and Medicaid and "the rest comes from a surtax on the richest 1.5 percent." ...
Palin-LaRouche 2012! Or would that be LaRouche-Palin?
Lawyers, Guns and Money —
Suzy Khimm offers some thoughts on the presence of LaRouchites along the midways of various health care town halls. The LaRouchies' logic seems virtually indistinguishable from the current right-wing fear-mongering. "Citizens are receiving Hitler-era ‘reasons' for why they must accept drastic medical cutbacks, sickness, and death," LaRouche writes on his site. "For example, you must forego what is called ‘wasteful, excessive treatment,' during your end-of-life months." The only difference between their agitations and the far right's histrionics? Larouchies maintain ...
