Word: congresses
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...sure, we have a long way to go until the stimulus is finished. The government has spent just $100 billion of the $787 billion that Congress approved in stimulus spending in February. Much of the rest of the money is due to be spent in 2010. As of now, the stimulus spending looks to be having a positive affect on the economy. If that continues, 2011 could be strong as well. If the stimulus affect peters out - or worse, causes hyper-inflation, as some worry - 2011 could be a year when economists and analysts eat a big slice of humble...
...campaign, Obama had promised to "lower health-care costs by $2,500 for the typical family," helping him make the sale on Election Day; the question, he knew, was going to be whether he could deliver on that specific number. (Watch Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept...
...been easy. His advisers told him the number, based on unproven assumptions, was too wobbly to survive a legislative debate. The truth was, they said, nobody knows exactly how much money could be saved by reforming health-care-delivery systems, as Obama and both houses of Congress have proposed. All they knew was that such reforms, which aim to restructure payment systems, decrease costs and increase the quality of care, are the only promising path forward to save the country from fiscal Armageddon. "You have never done it before, so how are you going to quantify it?" says Peter Orszag...
...health-care system that could bring down costs for families and long-term government deficits. But his numbers are hypothetical. "If we are able to slow the growth of health-care costs by just one-tenth of 1% each year," he announced in a recent address to Congress, "it will actually reduce deficits by $4 trillion over the long term." (See pictures of the angry health-care debates...
...when it comes to counting savings, the Obama team has been forced to rely in public on little more than crossed fingers. Meanwhile, in the backrooms of Congress, the assumptions have become fierce points of contention, as health-care providers lobby to keep the bill from shrinking payments in a way that would further stress the system. "Cost is driving the politics of health care more than anything else," says former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, who has been advising both Obama and the health-insurance industry. "The problem is that obviously there is a tremendous pushback by the people...