President Obama used very forceful language to strongly oppose Paul Ryan’s Republican plan to privatize Medicare. The President described Ryan’s proposal as leaving people to the mercy of the insurance industry: I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit [...]

Rep. Paul Ryan has released his 2012 budget proposal (PDF), and in it, he has endorsed the truly terrible idea of eliminating Medicare and replacing it with a voucher to buy more costly private insurance on an exchange. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they [...]

On “Meet the Press,” Chris Van Hollen, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, inadvertently admitted how mediocre the new health care law is when he attacked Republican Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposal for Medicare. The new health care law creates a system of expanding coverage by forcing people to buy poorly regulated private health [...]

Our health care system is unbelievably more expensive than any other first world nation. On a per capita basis, we spend over 50% more on health care than the second most expensive nation, Norway. As a nation, we spend more than twice as much per capita on health care than first world countries like Germany, [...]

Almost all evidence points to the simple conclusion that the new health insurance market places in the Senate bill called “exchanges” will not slow the out-of-control increase in health care costs. Similar exchanges have been tried in this country and have failed to slow the growth rate in health care. The two best examples are [...]

I’ve spent all year immersed in health care policy. It is unfortunate to see some of my arguments criticized based on a complete lack of understanding of the subject matter. Nate Silver attacked my suggestion of removing the individual mandate because he claimed it would increase the CBO score: Why? Because such a bill, with [...]

The House bill will eliminate the SCHIP program once the majority of reforms start in 2013. The children in the SCHIP program will either be covered by the expansion of Medicaid or with wraparound coverage if their parents are getting insurance through the new exchange. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Sen. Jay [...]

Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill creates not one but two exchanges. In each state there will be an exchange for individuals and a “Small Business Health Options Program” (SHOP) exchange. What is important is that these are not just two different portals or websites where people can buy health insurance–the two different exchanges [...]