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

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 […]

Are the Health Care Exchanges and Public Option Walled Off?

by Bruce Webb (Update. A tech problem currently prevents me from responding to comments, though not from updating the post. Keep those questions coming and maybe I can address them in a later post.) With the release of the Baucus Chairman’s Mark it became apparent that there are some profound misconceptions floating around the existing […]

The Myth vs Numeric Reality: HR3200 v Medicare

by Bruce Webb The current line of attack on Health Care reform from Republicans is that it proposes to Rob Gramma to Pay Pedro. I am not going to address the care for illegals canard today but do want to probe just what HR3200 does for Medicare on net. Starting from the following two charts […]

Triggers and Secs 111-116 of HR3200

by Bruce Webb DC and the blogosphere are all over the resurrection of the Public Option Trigger, the idea that with the right legislation the insurance companies would just straighten up and fly right. Most of the Left is pretty cynical about the idea and rightly so given the insurance companies several decade pattern on […]

Why are we still paying Insurance Companies for HealthCare?

by Bruce Webb The above was the title to a blog post on TPM whose body read as follows: if 77% of americans want an alternative to paying insurance companies for medical care, why is more than 77% of the televised debate time being given to industry mouthpieces that oppose it, and the screaming stooges […]

Cost Controls and the Public Option: Why Losing the PO Would be Terrible-but Not Fatal

by Bruce Webb The part of the blogosphere that caters to the Progressive Left is hardening its position around the Public Option, it has become a non-negotiable point, the line in the sand, the “are you with us? or against us?” line. And I don’t have any problems with that position as a matter of […]

Watch out! We have been tweetered on Health Care

by Bruce Webb No not ‘tweeted’, this is a whole new verb. In a post yesterday Ken directed us to a debunking by Milt Shook of a list of talking points by Alan Caruba. Milt’s piece at his blog Please… Cut the Crap is here: Deconstructing Right Wing Lies. Important stuff and I’ll get back […]

Energy & Commerce version of HR3200: a treat for the Read the Billers

by Bruce Webb How many people in the “Read the Bill” movement will in fact read the bill? Well here is their chance.HR3200: Energy and Commerce passed version I would be interested in knowing how this bill saves $100 billion over the version reported out by Education and Labor House Tri-Committee Health Care Bill. First […]

The ‘Read the Bill’ Movement

by Bruce Webb Republican obstructionists to Obama’s agenda have developed a new tactic. Seemingly forgetful of how Republican majorties jammed through huge bills without letting Dems actually read them, they now insist that every Dem has to read every bit of every bill and more specifically the Health Care Bill. Well in reality that is […]

HR3200 Sec 116: Golden Bullet? or Smoking Gun?

by Bruce Webb On Sunday the CBO released a letter addressed to Rep. Dave Camp, the Ranking Member on Ways and Means, which among other things measured the impact of HR3200 (the House Tri-Committee Health Care Affordability bill) and a public option on employer covered insurance. On net it turns out that they project more […]