The Republican victory in the midterm election was decisive. Now the victors must chart a sensible course for the next two years—one that demonstrates they can be trusted as America’s governing party and sets the table for 2016.
Obamacare—or at least the version of it that the president and his advisers currently think they can get away with putting into place—has been upending arrangements and reshuffling the deck in the health system since the beginning of the year. That’s when the new insurance rules, subsidies, and…
Obamacare’s defenders are busy declaring victory again. Ezra Klein is touting a new survey of Obamacare benchmark premiums in some regions of the country as evidence that the law is defying the predictions of critics and working to cut costs rather than increase them.
Over at Forbes, Peter Ferrara has written an interesting assessment of the state of the debate among conservatives on how to advance an alternative to Obamacare that will lead to its repeal. His analysis gets many things right. Most especially, he is right that it will not be possible to move…
Obamacare’s defenders are doing their best to sustain a triumphant mood these days. In the wake of the late-March surge in exchange enrollment, many proponents of the law have insisted it can no longer be rolled back. As the president put it in his April 1 Mission Accomplished speech announcing the…
As Bill Kristol and Jeff Anderson noted earlier today, the introduction by Republican Senators Burr, Coburn, and Hatch of an Obamacare replacement plan is an important milestone in the health care debate. This is a serious and practical replacement proposal, offered by three prominent legislators.…
Obamacare is no longer a theoretical proposition. It is now being implemented, if with some notable exceptions for the portions of the law the Obama administration finds particularly inconvenient. Millions of Americans are experiencing its consequences directly, and millions more are forming their…
The wrecking ball swung again toward the crumbling Obamacare edifice yesterday. Ironically, it continues to be the Obama administration that is operating the heavy machinery.
The past two months have laid bare the emptiness of the president’s most prominent Obamacare promises. Millions are losing the plans they have and like against their wishes, contrary to the president’s oft-repeated pledge. And those being forced into Obamacare could lose access to the doctors and…
The full reality of what Obamacare will mean for average Americans is only now becoming clear as the crisis over cancelled insurance plans in the individual market has steadily unfolded in recent days. Some 3 to 4 million people have already received notices from their insurers that their policies…
As metaphors go, “train wreck” turned out to be pretty apt. That’s how retiring Democratic senator Max Baucus described his expectations for the implementation of Obamacare at a hearing last April. If anything, he could be accused of soft pedaling the fiasco that has been on full display since the…
The congressional GOP has finally taken a position in its budget struggle with the Obama administration that maximizes its chances for a decent outcome. Unfortunately, it only got there after going through several other steps first, a process that may have jeopardized the advantage they should be…
Between now and the end of the calendar year, congressional Republicans and the Obama White House will engage in a protracted struggle over fiscal matters. The pile-up of must-do budgetary items now on the agenda makes that certain, starting with the need for stop-gap funding before October 1 to…
For opponents of Obamacare, it almost seems like the law offers too many targets to choose from. Its effects on premiums and costs look to be highly unpopular, its perverse incentives are already harming employment, its state exchanges will hand out costly subsidies without the necessary checks…
After getting over the shock of the Obama administration’s unilateral decision to delay the employer mandate for a year, supporters of the law have taken to downplaying the significance of the step. Jonathan Chait and Ezra Klein, among others, have said it is just not that big of a deal to delay a…
On Friday, the Obama administration dropped another health care implementation bombshell.
The Obama administration must have been hearing some awfully threatening noises from the business community lately, because its unilateral delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate, from 2014 to 2015, is otherwise very difficult to explain. The delay is an embarrassing move for the White House and will…
The oddly convenient academic study has long been a weapon in the Democratic party’s arsenal of election-season demagoguery. Do you need to say that conservative policies would sink the republic? Here’s a paper by scholars from a respected university, published in a respected journal, and released…
The 2012 Medicare and Social Security trustees’ reports have been released (see here and here). The headline is that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund will have insufficient reserves to pay full benefits beginning in 2024 (the same year that was projected in last year’s report).…
As the debate on Obamacare reached a crescendo in late 2009 and 2010, no question was more hotly contested than whether the plan would narrow or widen future federal budget deficits. This issue was particularly sensitive among the handful of wavering Democrats from conservative-leaning districts…
Obamacare’s individual mandate—requiring that all Americans purchase government-approved health insurance beginning in 2014—has always been the law’s most vulnerable provision. It is incredibly unpopular, and not just among conservatives. Polls consistently show that a large majority of the…
Even as they engage in heated battles over the budget and try to define a new agenda from their perch in the House of Representatives, conservatives clearly understand that the key to turning things around—to averting a debt crisis and defending the ideal of limited government—is winning the…
For the past week, liberals have been trying to persuade themselves that Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race need not mean the end of Obamacare. But that is exactly what it means. The Democrats’ health care agenda, in anything like the form it has taken for the past…
In the Democrats' rush to pass some kind of health care legislation before public opposition overwhelms them, tactics have long since overtaken substance. Their only remaining goal is to pass a bill, any bill. As the endgame has unfolded, all eyes have been fixed on the unseemly process taking…
In a radio interview on Thursday, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson boasted that, compared to some of his colleagues, he was a "cheap date," holding out as he was as a matter of principle and not for some outlandish dropping of federal largesse in Nebraska.
President Obama's strategy to pass sweeping health care legislation rested on stealth and speed. The idea was to fill the conversation for months on end with vague talk about expanding coverage, "bending the cost-curve," improving quality, and rooting out waste, without showing the public how the…
President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress have made it clear that health care reform is their top legislative priority this year. The administration laid down some general markers in its budget, and the president has enunciated principles in several speeches. Key committees in both…
Social Security reform plans are a dime a dozen, but credible Medicare reform proposals are scarce. Why? Because Medicare's financial problems are so immense as to seem beyond resolution, and the policy environment is complex. Would-be entitlement reformers decry the lack of courageous leadership…
The protracted political struggle over the future of American health care stems in large part from a fundamental disagreement over what should be done to address the seemingly inexorable rise in costs.
Where to turn next on Social Security reform? The presumptive Republican nom-inee for president, John McCain, like President Bush, supports introducing fully funded personal accounts within the program. Still, the odds are against a push for such accounts anytime soon. Too many Republican…
Barring a political earthquake, President Bush will leave office without achieving his goal of transforming Social Security. That's too bad. A successful Social Security effort would be a significant down payment on much needed entitlement reform. But sooner or later, Social Security will find its…
Amidst the clang and symbolism of the new Democratic Congress's first month, between the hundred-hour marathon and the posturing about Iraq, a peculiar thing has happened. In a matter of a few weeks, with only minor controversy and little fanfare, a 2007 federal budget has taken shape that includes…
In early 2006, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney gained national attention by negotiating a plan with the Democratic state legislature to pursue universal health insurance coverage in his state.