Word: congressed
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...nation already deeply in debt afford health-care reform too? This question has not gotten nearly the amount of discussion that the public option has, but it's likely to be far more difficult to resolve. That's because under the budget rules, any plan that Congress passes will have to pay for itself within 11 years without adding to the deficit. Passing muster with government bean counters is not the same thing as writing sound health-care policy. While many health-care-reform moves promise big savings in the future for the larger economy, they will require huge...
...Obama, having studied the mistakes that Bill and Hillary Clinton made, has set broad goals but left it up to Congress to figure out how to reach them. "One measure of success is, Do we make the health-care system function better, more rationally, in a way that produces better outcomes and is less expensive?" says his chief political adviser, David Axelrod. "The point is the results...
...where will Congress find the money, especially for the government subsidies it would take to expand coverage to the 47 million or so Americans who now lack it? Lawmakers are reluctant to squeeze Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals and doctors much more than they already have. And while there's talk of new taxes on cigarettes and alcohol - even junk food and soda - they are not likely to bring in anything close to the $1.5 trillion that outside experts say it could cost over the next decade to bring about universal coverage...
...kinds of decisions that will determine how expensive health-care reform will be for consumers, business and government. And what goes into the basic benefits package is a political minefield - which is why many health-care experts say they don't want it left in the hands of Congress and lobbyists. "If you start fighting over whether chiropractors should be in the benefits package, this bill is dead," says MIT's Gruber...
...might make sense for Congress to turn over that power to an independent agency, something along the lines of the Federal Health Board proposed by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who had been Obama's choice for Health and Human Services Secretary until he withdrew his nomination amid a controversy over unpaid taxes. Conservatives charge that this would put Washington in the middle of decisions that are best left to doctors and patients. But would Americans really find a faraway government bureaucrat any more objectionable in that role than a faceless private insurance company that makes those decisions...