Pulling it Together: The Sleeper in Health Reform June 16, 2009 Perspective The health reform legislation currently being crafted on Capitol Hill is undeniably complex. To oversimplify slightly it can be boiled down into four parts: coverage (subsidies for private coverage and Medicaid expansions); delivery and payment reforms; insurance market reforms and regulations; and prevention, with each broad category containing a range…
Pulling It Together: A Recovery Raises Expectations Too August 5, 2008 Perspective New Orleans is a city still struggling with the aftermath of Katrina and the levee breaks. The people of New Orleans feel that the nation and the federal government have largely forgotten them. Those are the results of our 2008 survey of the people of New Orleans, the second in a…
Pulling it Together: What Conservatives Are Winning July 12, 2010 Perspective Conservatives are out of sorts these days about the direction in which health care is headed. They think the new health reform law expands the role of government too much and spends too much at a time when they believe deficit reduction should be a higher priority. The claims about…
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: A Holiday Reminder on the Economy and Health Care December 2, 2009 Perspective With so much of the focus on the political dynamics of the health reform debate and a few hot button issues, I wonder if we have lost track of what propelled health care to the top domestic issue in the first place—people’s concerns about paying for health care in the…
Pulling it Together: A Note on Presidential Leadership Strategy November 20, 2009 Perspective In inside circles of the health reform debate there has been criticism of the President for not weighing in earlier and publicly on the details of health reform legislation. Does he want the Senate’s approach to employer obligations, or the approach taken in the House? What form of public option…
Pulling it Together: Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks July 7, 2009 Perspective Way back in the eighties when I was Human Services Commissioner in New Jersey, I established something called the Garden State Health Plan (GSHP). It was the first — and I think the only — federally qualified state-run HMO for Medicaid beneficiaries. One goal of the GSHP was to reallocate…
