Health Care Reform Articles - July 25, 2011

Problems of U.S. Health Care Are Rooted in the Private Sector, Despite Right-Wing Claims

Mark Weisbrot The Sacramento Bee (CA), July 21, 2011 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, July 20, 2011 Bellingham Herald (WA), July 21, 2011 Centre Daily Times (PA), July 21, 2011 Belleville News-Democrat (IL), July 21, 2011 Juneau Empire (AK), July 22, 2011 A recent report by McKinsey and Company was seized upon by opponents of health care reform to create a new myth: that President Obama’s health insurance reform (the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- PPACA) will cause huge numbers of employers to drop health insurance coverage that they currently provide for employees. The McKinsey study was soon shown to be worthless, and McKinsey itself acknowledged that it “was not intended as predictive economic analysis.” But the myth seems to not be completely dead yet. For a more reasonable estimate of the impact of the health insurance reform, we can look to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. They estimated that the number of people (including family members) covered by employment-based insurance would be about 1.8 percent fewer in 2019, as a result of the PPACA legislation. Of course, this is more than counter-balanced by the fact that the percentage of the (non-elderly) population with insurance would increase from 82 to 92 percent – the main purpose of the reform. http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/problems-of-us-health-care-are-rooted-in-the-private-sector-despite-right-wing-claims/print Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party The president's attacks on America's social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party's platform Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 14.30 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/21/barack-obama-social-security-cuts/print July 24, 2011 Messing With Medicare By PAUL KRUGMAN At the time of writing, President Obama’s hoped-for “Grand Bargain” with Republicans is apparently dead. And I say good riddance. I’m no more eager than other rational people (a category that fails to include many Congressional Republicans) to see what happens if the debt limit isn’t raised. But what the president was offering to the G.O.P., especially on Medicare, was a very bad deal for America. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print