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Will the Congress Change the Health Care Law During the Next Two Years?

No. But I expect the Patient Protection and Affordability Act to be “relitigated” in 2013, to one degree or another.I recently posted on the controversy over the individual mandate. I suggested a number of alternatives to the mandate—including my own ideas.I was asked if I really thought the Congress would change the individual mandate in the short term.As I have posted before, it will be the

Alternatives to the Individual Mandate—Some Are A Lot Better Than Others

With Constitutional challenges to the individual mandate now threatening the very life of the new health care law, Republicans aren’t the only ones that would like to see it jettisoned and replaced with something better.And it isn’t just the Constitutional challenges that are prompting a second look. The mandate doesn't work politically and it doesn't maintain the integrity of the market because

Things Are About to Get Ugly—-Republicans Plan to Defund the Health Bill Next Week

Word is that House Republicans will attach an amendment to the latest federal spending bill that will cut-off funding for the health care bill.The last Congress never finalized a budget for the current fiscal year—the feds have been operating under a series of continuing resolutions. The most recent one will expire on March 4th. If another resolution is not agreed to, much of the government has

Has the Florida Judge Stopped the New Health Care Law in Its Tracks?

Reading page 75 of today's Florida opinion it sounds like that is his intent:(5) InjunctionThe last issue to be resolved is the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief enjoining implementation of the Act, which can be disposed of very quickly.Injunctive relief is an “extraordinary” [Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456U.S. 305, 312, 102 S. Ct. 1798, 72 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1982)], and “drastic” remedy [

Now We Have Real Uncertaintly--The Entire Health Law Ruled Unconstitutional!

We all knew the question of the constitutionality over the new health care law was going to be taken up by the Supreme Court.We knew that because the law inexplicably lacked a severability clause a judge could throw the whole thing out if the individual mandate were to be found unconstitutional and critical to the legislation.And, we expected this Florida judge would likely rule against the law

It Will Be Democratic Senators Leading The Charge To Fix Or Improve The New Health Law

I wrote this Kaiser Op-Ed before today's federal court ruling, that held the entire health care law unconstitutional because of the individual mandate. Now that two federal judges have held the individual mandate unconstitutional, this one overturning the entire law because of it, I have to wonder just how long the Democrats are going to wait before they try to amend the Affordability Act in

"Quit the RUC"

Brian Klepper and David Kibbe have a notable column at Kaiser Health News arguing that the American Medical Association's Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) is specialist dominated and steers health care resources away from primary care:Not surprisingly, the Committee’s payment recommendations have consistently favored specialists at the expense of primary care physicians. More