As Scarecrow revealed over the weekend, the Obama Administration basically punted on the essential benefits package for the insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act, allowing states to tailor their own benefits themselves. This will almost certainly lead to a wide variety between states on essential benefits packages – needless to say, I don’t think [...]

The news that Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Paul Ryan have joined forces on a premium support/Medicare hybrid has gone over like a lead balloon in the Democratic caucus, as well as the White House. First off, Democrats in the House showed little interest in the plan, which would allow private companies on a regulated [...]

In a surprise move, Paul Ryan found a Democratic partner to propose a new Medicare plan that does not fully privatize it, but instead keeps fee-for-service Medicare as an option alongside a premium support plan. This is the same proposal that the front-running Republican Presidential candidates have made. Here’s the plan in a nutshell, from [...]

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but we now have additional proof that raising the Medicare eligibility age would be a ridiculous program on all levels. It would not only cause needless anxiety and suffering to 65 and 66 year-olds, it would not achieve its alleged goal of saving money. In fact, it would increase [...]

The Health and Human Services Department always had a trump card for resistance in the states to the Affordable Care Act. If the states didn’t want to set up an exchange, authority would revert back to the federal government, and HHS would run the exchange, setting the benefit standards and other regulations for the state. [...]

One of the major problems with the Affordable Care Act will come with the determination of what set of plans recipients can become eligible for. Under the law, Americans who make up to 133% of the federal poverty line can sign up for Medicaid. From 133%-400%, they are eligible to collect subsidies on a sliding [...]

We now have one court of appeals ruling that the Affordable Care Act, along with the individual mandate, is a constitutional statute, and one court of appeals disagreeing. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, generally seen as a conservative-leaning group, ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, by a 2-1 margin on the 3-judge panel. [...]

The White House definitely wants the Catfood Commission II to negotiate their grand bargain that they can tout along the lines of “getting things done” with a “bipartisan compromise.” And they believe that the automatic cuts that would be triggered if the Catfood Commission II recommendations don’t come about are so distasteful to both sides, [...]

So just what is Tommy Thompson, who’s contemplating an open-seat run for US Senate in Wisconsin and must cater to the Republican base if he wants to win a primary, doing with an op-ed in the Huffington Post urging states to create insurance exchanges, the signature feature of the Obama health care plan? Some governors [...]

Republicans are not focused on replacing the health care law, and it’s likely they never will be. They will either get the law repealed, by either a court order or a legislative action once they have enough votes in hand, or… nothing. This presents a difficulty for states who have to decide whether or not [...]

I don’t disagree with a thing in either this Jon Walker post or this Jon Walker post. And I’m not about to defend the exchange scheme in the Affordable Care Act. But there are a couple key differences between that and the Ryan plan. First, health care for senior citizens is exponentially more expensive than [...]