Pulling It Together: The Message from Massachusetts January 27, 2010 Perspective The Massachusetts special election has roiled the political world and profoundly affected the prospects for health reform just when it looked like passage was a lock. Efforts are underway to put health reform legislation back together again on Capitol Hill, but not since powerful Ways and Means Chair Wilbur Mills fell into…
Pulling It Together: Implementation Is Forever April 5, 2010 Perspective Now that historic health reform legislation is law, everyone is rightfully focused on implementation. There are two very different ways to look at implementation. One is the more legalistic worm’s eye view, which sees implementation largely as the process of putting into effect what was written in the law. In…
Pulling it Together: Seniors and Health Reform July 27, 2010 Perspective It is widely believed that seniors are antsy about the new health reform law. And there is heightened interest in how seniors feel about the law in the political world because they are more likely to vote in midterm elections. About 48% of the electorate said they voted in the…
Pulling It Together: Uninsured But Not Yet Informed August 26, 2011 Perspective If there is one thing there is general agreement on when it comes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) it’s that it will help the uninsured. The estimates are that 32 million people will gain coverage under the law through an expansion of Medicaid and tax credits, which will help…
Pulling It Together: Keeping the Health Reform Coalition Together November 7, 2008 Perspective We could be headed for a new schism in the debate about health reform. Not the familiar gulf between advocates of the market and government, or the predictable one between deficit hawks and spenders, but a new one that crosses traditional partisan and ideological lines between advocates of long-term reform of the health care delivery…
Pulling It Together: Moving Away From Employer Based Coverage: Don’t Forget Public Opinion June 25, 2008 Perspective One of the underlying big issues in the unfolding health reform debate is whether most Americans should continue to get insurance through work where they get it today, or purchase it themselves in the individual private health insurance marketplace. Senator McCain promotes moving to individual insurance and having individuals rather…
Pulling It Together: Predictions May 20, 2011 Perspective I usually don’t make predictions, unless they are backed up by the kind of statistical modeling we often produce. But here are three predictions I am confident about that form the basis of this latest column. GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS WILL CONTINUE TO RISE AT HISTORICALLY MODERATE LEVELS, AT LEAST…
Pulling It Together: Predicting the Future May 4, 2010 Perspective A fair amount of attention was given recently to projections made by the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) about the new health reform law, and how they compare to previous estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). No doubt the various projections will be…
Pulling it Together: REPOR(t) May 26, 2010 Perspective In today’s column I investigate a somewhat lighter topic than my last column on micro-simulation modeling: What was the impact of shows like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report on the health reform debate? Who among us has not wondered about the answer to this…
Pulling It Together: The “R” Word Is Back December 9, 2008 Perspective Longer ago than I care to admit, I got my start in health policy at M.I.T. when I wrote a book about health care regulation. The book was about a long forgotten attempt to rationalize the health care system through an elaborate health planning program set up in the seventies under the National…