HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Health Plans For High-Risk Patients Lag
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s administration and states are stepping up their efforts to motivate people to buy government-sponsored health plans for high-risk patients, as the new program continues to attract only a fraction of the projected customers.
Terrain Shifts in Challenges to the Health Care Law
By KEVIN SACK
The legal challenge to the Obama health care act has invigorated a dispute as old as the Constitution about the framers’ most nettlesome grant of power, which gives Congress treacherously broad authority to pass laws “necessary and proper” to carrying out its assigned responsibilities.
Death Knell For 'Death Panel' Debate?
The debate over “death panels” is hard to kill — but at least one Senate Democratic aide says the issue has now become “Kryptonite for the Right,” thanks to the way a new Medicare regulation is written.
State Medicaid Plans - WSJ.com
BY AVERY JOHNSON
Health insurers are preparing to capitalize on $40 billion of new opportunities to run privately managed Medicaid plans for the states, which would position insurers to benefit from the health overhaul's expansion of Medicaid in 2014.
Medicaid, the state and federal program for the poor, has become a growth area for big insurers such as UnitedHealth Group Inc. and more specialized plans such as Molina Healthcare Inc. Texas and Georgia will solicit new contracts for their private Medicaid plans early next year, while California, Florida and others are likely to meaningfully expand their programs, companies and states have said.
Article: New Year Predictions: The Tea Party Strategy And U.S. Economy In 2011
New Year Prediction I: Tea Party Conservative Strategy
Next week starts the new Congress, and with it the Tea Party conservatives. What's their strategy? What will they rally around?
They'll grouse endlessly about government spending but I don't think they'll use any particular spending bill to mobilize and energize their grass roots. The big bucks are in Social Security, Medicare, and defense, which are too popular. And their support for a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts will make a mockery of any argument about taming the deficit.
What You Pay For Medicare Won't Cover Your Costs
WASHINGTON – You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and want your money's worth: full benefits after you retire. Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so they deserve their full benefits — no cuts.
But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees.
ore than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense.