Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

HR3962: the new House Bill and its Scoring

by Bruce Webb Well I have been venturing around the blogosphere and it is grievously clear that most people did not take my advice and Read the Bill!. Well it is not too late: http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (3.3 MB) Moreover CBO followed up with their preliminary analysis:http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10688/hr3962Rangel.pdf The above image is Table 2 and it shows the […]

Economic time/space phenomenon: Health care/Unemployment

by divorced one like Bush While your reading this, think about the physics concept of two things occupying the same time and space. Think about the similar idea that light is both a wave and a particle. Think about the message we have been told that many very bright people (like physicist) went to Wall […]

Read the Bill!

http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (3.3 MB) The House Bill is out. It’s different, at a minimum in its numbering, ‘Sec 113’ and ‘Sec 116’ don’t mean what they did yesterday. I’m going to take some time to read through the naughty bits, maybe some of you could too. Discussion/updates later. Update one. (Sec 102) Medical Loss Ratios set […]

A Real Public Option

One of the most notable things about ski trips to the States from Canada was that they offered “U.S. medical insurance”—a buy-in that cost around the same as a lift ticket if you wanted to ski Stowe instead of Tremblant. One of the scariest moments in Sicko is when the Canadian relatives note that they […]

Talking Point vs Reality: Health Care Reform’s Effect on Medicare

by Bruce Webb The latest Republican talking point, promoted among others by Chuck Grassley this morning, is that proposed cuts to Medicare make its financial situation more precarious. Why cut $500 billion if Medicare is already in trouble? This is totally backwards and shows a total unawareness of how Medicare is financed. So lets review: […]

Ignani and the Ignavi

Robert Waldmann AHIP The health insurance lobby just declared war on the Baucus plan. This is new, since they previously supported health care reform. It is not, however, surprising. AHIP made its condition clear, they would support health care reform provided that all were insured. Basically the individual mandate was the price for their support. […]

Baucus Mark: CBO Preliminary Score

by Bruce Webb CBO letter to Baucus Estimated Budgetary Impact of the Amended Chairman’s Mark According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of […]

Brad DeLong is Correct

All right, I give up. I’ve reviewed for the Washington Post Book World, I consider some of their work interesting, and can almost forgive them for publishing Ruth Marcus, Charles Krauthammer, Anne Applebaum, and Richard Cohen as if they were sane. But when your Ombudsman claims that your readers “typically demand coverage that is unfailingly […]

If You’re Marking a Curve, you need to identify an equilibrium point

Via the must-read Susan of Texas, Ezra Klein finally comes to some of his senses: couldn’t get an answer to a very simple question: What level of spending on health care was optimal for innovation? Should we double spending? Triple it? Cut it by 10 percent? Simply give a larger portion of it to drug […]

Quote of the Day

Health Affairs tells the truth and shames…well… Unlike for-profit firms, a public plan has no incentive to cut corners and prevent providers from giving their patients quality evidence-based care, because its ultimate goal is public health, not private profit. Nor does it have any interest in sideswiping regulations and shortchanging consumers. Free market proponents argue […]