Health Care Spending

After a year of unproductive brinksmanship, Congress and the President enter 2012 facing the same intractable budget problems as before: a fourth consecutive deficit expected to be $1 trillion or higher, spending that consumes nearly one-fourth of the economy’s total output, and an entitlement-driven fiscal disaster that has drawn… Read more

The federal government’s finances were dismal even before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was enacted. That is why lawmakers who pushed for its passage felt compelled to try to calm worried Americans by claiming that the law would cut projected federal budget deficits in addition to covering… Read more

Americans want health care reform—but not the reforms put in place under the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA). The new law moves America’s health care system in the wrong direction, transferring vast powers to Washington bureaucrats who will control the dollars and decisions that should be in… Read more

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),[1] Congress has enacted record-breaking Medicare payment reductions. Most of these are reductions in Medicare payment updates to non-physician providers. To a lesser degree, these reductions are attributable to certain health care delivery reforms.[2] The Office of the… Read more

After a year of unproductive brinksmanship, Congress and the President enter 2012 facing the same intractable budget problems as before: a fourth consecutive deficit expected to be $1 trillion or higher, spending that consumes nearly one-fourth of the economy’s total output, and an entitlement-driven fiscal disaster that has drawn… Read more

House appropriators deserve two cheers for their recently released bill funding the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies for fiscal year (FY) 2012.[1] Disappointingly, the legislation only slightly reduces federal spending. Nevertheless, its policy riders take important steps in the right direction.… Read more

Runaway spending and deficits continue to grow unabated in part because any attempts to rein them in are relentlessly demagogued by defenders of big government. The latest example is the budget recently authored by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI) and passed by the House of Representatives. … Read more

On April 15, the House of Representatives passed a budget that addresses the Medicaid crisis. Introduced by Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI), it repeals Obamacare and its costly Medicaid expansion and puts Medicaid on a more fiscally sustainable path. Ryan’s Medicaid reform ends the open-ended federal reimbursement of state… Read more

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 would transform the Medicare program into a “premium support” system. Under the Ryan approach, the federal government would make a direct financial contribution to Medicare enrollees’ health care coverage, just as it does today for federal workers… Read more

It is time for Congress to rein in spending and fix our nation’s budget crisis. The excesses from the recession drove spending up to $3.5 trillion last year—borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar spent. The public debt is closing in on 70 percent of the economy and within the… Read more