The Republican presidential debate in South Carolina last night didn’t exactly feature an all-star lineup, but it’s the best preview we’ve gotten so far of how the conversation will shape up in primary season.
Via Kaiser Health News, here’s a nice compilation of what three of the candidates said about health care:
Count me among those skeptical that a new deficit summit/commission/gang will produce bipartisan consensus – and not just political theater. It’s no big secret what needs to be done to reduce the nation’s debt – raise taxes, cut spending or do both. While the details of what gets cut and who gets taxed are open to negotiation, …
Last night, Mark Knoller of CBS Radio News caught President Obama on a hot mike. The President was chatting with donors at a fundraiser in Chicago, recounting negotiations that preceded the 2011 budget deal. Here’s what Obama …
In his Wednesday speech on deficit reduction – and even in fact sheets distributed ahead of time – the President wasn’t big on specifics. On health care spending, a primary driver of long-term deficits, he was downright vague. In a briefing with reporters, two “senior administration officials” armed with talking points repeatedly …
Progressives are sounding the alarm ahead of President Obama’s upcoming speech on deficit reduction and entitlement reform. No one knows exactly what argument Obama will make in response to Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal unveiled last week, but Jonathan Cohn foresees an opening negotiating stance too close to the center for his …
(An earlier version of this post said that Paul Ryan’s plan for post-2022 Medicare spending would be indexed to GDP. In fact, it would be indexed to inflation. The earlier post also implied that Ryan’s plan would spend about $400 less on Medicare over the next ten years due to his premiums support/voucher plan for the program. This is …
It’s still not clear if House Republicans and President Obama will take their showdown all the way to a shutdown, but in case you can’t wait to watch it play out…
(h/t Jessica Taylor)
Some time in the next few weeks, Paul Ryan, chairman of the House budget committee, is expected to unveil a plan to significantly cut the federal budget for the fiscal year 2012. It will be the centerpiece of a political fight that could eclipse most everything else in Washington.
A linchpin of Ryan’s plan will be a proposal to make …
In case you happened to have avoided seeing the hundreds of articles and press releases announcing the one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare: FYI, it’s today.
Both sides of this issue have been working hard over the past week to guide the news narrative around this momentous occasion. See here, here, here, here, …
Reps. Steve King and Michele Bachmann are among those who are really, really, really hoping health reform will be defunded by Congress this year. They’re hoping against hope. The real threat to Democratic health care reform – aside from the court challenges mounted against it – isn’t wholesale defunding. (Democrats in the Senate and …
The New York Times reports today that some members of Congress have offered an early seal of approval to a health care administrator who could succeed Medicare/Medicaid chief Don Berwick. According to the Times, Berwick’s deputy Marliyn Tavenner has emerged as a leading candidate to fill the post before or once Berwick recess appointment …
1. Yes, a bunch of states have banded together to sue the federal government over the individual mandate in Florida, but in addition, there are more than 20 other Affordable Care Act lawsuits winding their way through the federal court system.
2. The Obama Department of Justice has assigned a team of about a dozen lawyers and …
Roger Vinson, the federal judge in Florida who said in January that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, today issued a “clarification” of his earlier ruling. (The Obama Administration had asked the judge to specify what he meant in his original decision – that the law could continue while the issue makes its way through …
