Many of the design principles for the insurance market exchanges in the Affordable Care Act were based on unproven, discredited, and frankly absurd conservative notions about the economagic of free markets.  But too many liberals refused to acknowledge this. During the height of the debate on the ACA, the inherently conservative and flawed nature of [...]

The White House has rather swiftly and strongly come out against the Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) plan to make Medicare worse. From the Huffington Post: “We are concerned that Wyden-Ryan, like Congressman Ryan’s earlier proposal, would undermine, rather than strengthen, Medicare,” said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. “The Wyden-Ryan scheme [...]

This is a deeply disappointing move by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). He has joined with Paul Ryan (R-WI) to push for a bipartisan “reform” of Medicare, but like every recent plan for Medicare the word “reform” just means “make it worse” for regular Americans. While it is almost impossible to fully judge the proposal because [...]

When health care reform was first passed, elected Democrats told progressives not to worry about how bad the bill actually was because it would serve only as a “starter home” that would be improved on later. Since then, however, several changes have been or will be signed into law by President Obama, all of which [...]

For the first time, President Obama has backed moving the new health care law’s waiver for state innovation from 2017 to 2014, when most parts of the affordable care act go into effect. From the New York Times: Senior administration officials said Mr. Obama would reveal to the National Governors Association in a speech on [...]

While co-ops were once proposed as a possible alternative to the public option, the idea failed to gain public traction outside of the offices of Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR). Yet, like some sort of legislative vestigial organ, the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) was never removed from the final [...]

Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA) have introduced a two-page bill to reform the new health care law that would given states more flexibility in trying alternatives health care systems by moving up the start date from 2017 to 2014. While their legislation would basically change only one word in the Patient Protection [...]

We can only hope that Oregon’s Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden’s recent shift away from the individual mandate is a sign that the Democratic Party is beginning to acknowledge what a massive political and policy mistake they made.

Well, that was very quick turn around. In 24 hours, Democrats went from not asking for budget reconciliation instructions to planning to include them. This is potentially very good news for progressives. Reconciliation at least gives Democrats the option of possibly achieving some progressive legislative victories this year. From The Hill: The budget resolution being [...]

I’m very disappointed that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has decided to make an extremely disingenuous argument against the pending individual mandate lawsuit based on his waiver for state innovation provision. I’ve always been a big supporter of this provision, but what Wyden is saying is just dishonest. From Huffington Post: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has [...]