Word: kassebaum
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...style Republicans. Cochran is not nearly as conservative or brash as Lott." Dole's unexpected announcement has drastically altered the character of a contest that Lott would have been favored to win. "Everyone expected this contest to be played out in November when the more moderate Republicans, like Nancy Kassebaum and Mark Hatfield, who are not seeking reelection would have left." Two other Senator might be candidates for the position. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, who might forego the opportunity to be majority leader and seek the position of majority whip and Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a longtime...
WASHINGTON, D.C.: A Senate Committee approved legislation that would hasten the Federal Drug Administration's drug approval process and allow patients quicker access to European treatments. Sponsored by Senator Nancy Kassebaum, the bill would require the FDA to approve new treatments within six months or the approval process will be passed on to private companies. Drug manufacturers could sell a drug already approved in Europe -- where the approval process is easier -- if the FDA takes longer than six month to approve the drug. TIME's Christine Gorman says this could result in a greater risk to U.S. consumers. "Under these...
Unfortunately, it won't work. Or if it does work, it will produce more Big Government than its sponsors acknowledge. Forcing the currently insured to pool their costs with those now rejected as too expensive will raise premium costs. Senator Kassebaum says 3%; the insurance lobby says, in some cases, up to 30%. As the price goes up, some healthy people will drop their insurance, raising average costs in the remaining pool even further, leading more people to drop out, and so on. More people than now, not fewer, could end up uninsured...
Enforcing these rules on the insurance companies will not be easy, either. After all, you are asking them to take customers they are statistically certain to lose money on. There are myriad subtle and unsubtle ways the companies can attract the good risks and shun the bad ones. The Kassebaum-Kennedy bill contains detailed rules about, for example, when insurance companies will be permitted to go out of business. That's just one taste of the complexities ahead...
What this bill cannot do is bring us socialism's benefits without socialism's cost. So it is yet another example of America's hunger for the free lunch. And it is a free lunch of a particularly modish sort--the free lunch of moderation. Kassebaum-Kennedy is everything people claim to hunger for in public policy: bipartisan, high-minded, incremental, nonideological. Kennedy has said, "There will be those who say [this bill] goes too far in some areas--and there will be those who say it does not go far enough." This might be called the Baby Bear approach...