Word: reform
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
It’s hard to believe that pre-law students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world would object to letting a war hero like James W. Gilchrist speak at their campus about the “Minutemen” and their position on immigration reform (“Anti-Illegal Alien Speaker Banned,” News, Oct. 19). Gilchrist is a Purple Heart veteran who nearly died protecting these insecure future lawyers’ right to speak. It is a sad day in America when those who typically advocate free speech want to silence...
...Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, one of the key men drafting a final Senate bill behind closed doors this week, on Tuesday called the doctors' legislation "very important" to ensuring final passage of health-care reform. Republicans counter that that is precisely the problem. Not only is the move a transparent ploy to get physicians onboard the reform bill, said Senator Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, "I also see it as a transparent way to take the deficit off the table." Republicans have called the move a budget trick, one of many Democrats are using, they...
...Some observers say neither side is really in the right; while it's not fiscally prudent to keep temporarily fixing doctors' Medicare reimbursements by going deeper in debt, they argue the problem is more than a decade old and is not actually related to the current health-care reform debate. And indeed, the issue reaches all the way back to 1997, when President Clinton and a Republican Congress altered the complicated formula that dictates Medicare payments. At the time, the so-called sustainability growth rate (SGR) was depegged from inflation to wage growth. That was fine with doctors until...
...fiscal discipline. Kyl, for one, doesn't object to running up the deficit to pay for a fix - he's working on an amendment to increase physicians' payments to keep up with the cost of living - he just doesn't like it in the context of a larger reform bill...
...Still, there's no guarantee the AMA or other physicians' groups will ultimately support health-care reform. "We haven't seen the Senate bill," AMA president Dr. J. James Rohack said at a press conference Tuesday urging passage of the 10-year freeze. "So once we get that out there then I'll be able to answer that question." Courting health-care interest groups one giant giveaway bill at a time is a risky tactic by Democrats, who also are hearing from hospitals demanding fixes for their payments and insurers asking that cuts to Medicare Advantage be reinstated. And, clearly...