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New Jersey attempted reforms without imposing a mandate. The outcome in that state offers reasons why supporters say the individual mandate is necessary if the federal health law is to achieve its goals.
For some Democrats and for liberals, the best outcome of the super committee's negotiations could be the automatic Medicare cuts.
Earlier in July, Jonathan Cohn followed the House Budget Committee's hearings on the heatlh law's Independent Payment Advisory Board. The experience inspired him to offer this reminder of what it is;, how it will work; and why it is essential to controlling Medicare costs.
Conservative critics of Medicaid argue that the program doesn't actually help beneficiaries. A new study offers empiracle evidence to the contrary.
Could the health law be overturned on the basis of the requirement that nearly everyone obtain health insurance? Sure. But it would be one more sign that the courts are establishing new limits on federal power, rather than recognizing existing ones. That is not something conservative judges, in particular, say they like to do.
An issue for voters -- both in this week's New York special election and in the run up to 2012 -- has to do with the differences in the two parties' visions for Medicare's future. After all, Medicare cuts come in all different shapes and sizes.
Located in one of the nation's most medically underserved areas, St. John's Well Child and Family Center is bracing for GOP-backed Medicaid cuts that the facility's director says would be disastrous.
A short walk down memory lane -- to a retired auto worker's 1959 congressional testimony -- offers a stark reminder that Republican plans to change Medicare could turn back time and leave many seniors unable to pay their medical bills.
The GOP vision for health care reform, as expressed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., is to limit federal health care spending to levels far below what they are today, and then let individuals make the best of it. The federal health law not only offers a more realistic approach to controlling costs, but a more humane one.
A recent Rand study found that in families with high-deductible plans, kids were less likely to get immunizations and adults were less likely to get cancer screenings. Not only did this seem to jeopardize the beneficiares' health, it also called into question the cost savings.
The Healthy Indiana Plan is the Hoosier state's alternative to traditional Medicaid. It's boosters also consider it a viable alternative to the dreaded Affordable Care Act. But do they really have a case?
What truly undermines the arguments offered by conservative critics is their lack of workable alternative ideas that would achieve the health insurance coverage expansion goals set by the health law.
For all of those people who are furious about President Obama's budget, here's an important question: Do you have a more fiscally responsible and politically viable alternative?
In recent Capitol Hill testimony, Foster, the government's chief Medicare actuary, raised doubts about the health law's ability to hold down future health care costs. But there are reasons to question his assumptions.
Republicans have yet to embrace specific proposals they would pursue to "replace" the health law -- leaving one to ponder the implications of some of the ideas on the table.
Sometimes the noisiest voices in the health overhaul debate don't make a good faith effort to acknowledge important scientific or policy-oriented nuances in their arguments. It's happening again in the wake of a controversial regulatory ruling about a cancer drug.
Here is a question for the state officials who oppose expanding the safety net program or support getting rid of it: What do you propose to do instead? The answer appears to be very little.
The upper chamber's recent consideration of legislation to repeal a small revenue-raising provision within the health overhaul offers insights into why a more sweeping repeal effort would be a very difficult task.
The Republicans and their allies spent a lot of time - and a lot of money - attacking the new health law and promising to undo it. And they did so with such a fury that almost nobody seemed to notice they were making a pair of arguments that were fundamentally incompatible.
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