Republicans Are Given a Price Tag for Health Law Repeal, but Reject It
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The nonpartisan budget scorekeepers in Congress said on Thursday that the Republican plan to repeal President Obama’s health care law would add $230 billion to federal budget deficits over the next decade, intensifying the first legislative fight of the new session and highlighting the challenge Republicans face in pursuing their agenda.
The new House speaker, John A. Boehner, flatly rejected the report, saying it was based largely on chicanery by Democrats.
Buckle Up for Round 2
By DAVID BROOKS
The health care reform law was signed 10 months ago, and what’s striking now is how vulnerable it looks. Several threats have emerged — some of them scarcely discussed before passage — that together or alone could seriously endanger the new system. These include:
The courts. So far, one judge has struck down the individual mandate, the plan’s centerpiece. Future decisions are likely to break down on partisan lines. Given the makeup of the Supreme Court, this should concern the law’s defenders.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Speaker Boehner discounts CBO on cost of health-care repeal
By Ann Telnaes
Obamacare Goes Under The Knife
Photograph by Jamie Chung for TIME
In the nearly 10 months since the Democrats' health care bill became law, bureaucrats have been feverishly writing new regulations, and the first wave of reform has arrived. There are tax credits for small businesses to cover employees; kids can stay on their parents' policies until they are 26; co-pays for preventive care went away. But to most Americans, the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has felt less like the dawn of a new era and more like the start of a long partisan war over whether reform should proceed at all.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2040967,00.html#ixzz1AO1XDeeQ
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/anntelnaes/?hpid=opinionsbox1
When it comes to health care, Republicans should be careful what they wish for.
Their upcoming vote to repeal the healthcare law will be largely symbolic - they don't have the votes to override President Obama's certain veto. The real thing happens later, when they try to strip the Department of Health and Human Services of money needed to implement the law's requirement that all Americans buy health insurance. This could easily precipitate a showdown with the White House - and a government shutdown later this year.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/265-34/4523-undermining-healthcare-could-backfire-on-gop
In Battle Over Health Law, Math Cuts Both Ways
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — With the health care fight roaring back to life on Capitol Hill, questions that seemed settled last March, when President Obama signed his top domestic priority into law, are once again front and center.
So, will the health care law cost money or save money? Will it create jobs or eliminate jobs? Will it improve outcomes for patients or make medical care more difficult to get?
A Talk With the Doctor May Help Patients Afford Care
By WALECIA KONRAD
READERS of this column have been advised more than once to negotiate prices with health care providers for things like an M.R.I. scan, surgery and office visits. With patients paying more out of pocket for their health care than ever before — in the form of higher co-payments and co-insurance, high deductibles and uncovered and out-of-network treatments — negotiating with doctors and other providers has become commonplace.
But how exactly should you approach these nerve-racking discussions? Do you bring it up when you book the appointment? In the examining room? And just what do you say?
The Mainstream Media Is Telling The Story Of Waste Part 1
Nearly half of the back surgeries done by Twin Cities are fusions—surgeries that “weld” painful vertebrae with the help of metal plates, rods and screws implanted in the patient's back. In recent years the operation has become wildly popular, even though, according to Waldman and Armstrong, “studies have found the procedure to be no better for common back pain than physical therapy--and a lot more dangerous.” Nevertheless, “fusion surgery has helped spine surgeons become the best paid doctors in the U.S.,” they observe, “with average annual salary of $806,000, more than three times the earnings of a pediatrician, according to the American Medical Group Association, a trade organization for doctor practices.”
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