The so called “Cadillac” tax is, in reality, a teacher tax. It taxes plans based on their cost, but not their generosity. As anyone who has bought health insurance will tell you, the biggest factor in determining the cost of insurance is not how generous the coverage is, but the sex, age, and health status [...]

Today, HCAN had a conference call to push for a federal regulator structure in health care reform with a national exchange. The idea is that only the federal government has the power, resources, and desire to enforce the new insurance regulations. The Senate bill leaves enforcement up to state insurance commissioners, which, for the most [...]

The Democrats completely messed up the politics and policy of the stimulus bill. They let a group of “60th-vote ‘centrists’” ruin it on a policy level. A failure to pass good policy, combined with a failure to properly explain and defend the stimulus bill, made it bad politics. Now, for political and policy reasons, Democrats [...]

To show how far the debate is from the perfect, let’s outline what the perfect would look like and contrast and compare against the rest of the spectrum from very good to bad.

The Senate bill suffers from the 101 exchanges problem. It would technically produce two exchanges per state (one for the individual market, and one for the small business market) and one ill-defined national OPM exchange within all the other exchanges. The bill would also allow states to set up multiple regional subsidiary exchanges within a [...]

This document, prepared by the House Tri-Committee staff, outlines the topline differences between the House and Senate bills that need to be resolved. (It is very much worth a read if you are interested.) In almost every case where the two bills differ, it is because the Senate bill is dramatically worse. Some of the [...]

If I magically had the power to build the best bill possible in conference out of only components from the House and Senate bills, this is what I would do. (Of course there might not even be a conference committee and any bill can still be filibustered by Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, etc., [...]

The Social Security Act of 1965 created two public insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid. One proved to be a big success, and the other, not so much. The question everyone should be asking is will this health care package follow the route of Medicare or Medicaid? Of the two programs, it would be fair to [...]

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, [...]

It is time to acknowledge that the Senate process is broken and undemocratic, and is working against the interests of the American people. It is too easily gamed by lobbyist money and has become unresponsive to the needs of small businesses struggling to pay for the health care costs of their employees at a time when unemployment is skyrocketing. The Senate filibuster — and the ability of any one Senator to hold the entire body hostage on behalf of lobbying interests — must come to an end.

If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need.