It is often said that we measure what we value. Since 1974, we have assigned a high value to the price tag of new bills: The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation score legislation for their effects on our national budget.
These scores matter for the public debate around a proposal, but they also matter for policy. For example, after CBO’s budget scoring projected that the Affordable Care Act would cost more than predicted, the bill was rev...
Month: June 2022
Pelosi: Social spending and climate package is ‘alive’
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that negotiations on a massive social spending and climate package remain active despite the opposition from Senate centrists that stopped the legislation in its tracks last year.
The Speaker emphasized that House Democrats, who passed a roughly $2 trillion reconciliation package in November, are essentially sidelined as Senate leaders seek to continue the delicate talks with the centrist holdouts.
But a day after meeting...
Suicide rates slow in states that expanded Medicaid: study
Story at a glance
- Suicide rates have been steadily increasing in the U.S. since 1999.
- Rising prevalence of mental health disorders along with a relative shortage of providers compound this epidemic.
- But new research reveals Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was associated with hundreds of fewer suicide deaths over a period of four years.
Suicide remains one of the leading ca...
DACA turns 10 with Dreamers no closer to solid ground
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program turns 10 years old Wednesday, beset by lingering doubts about both its future and the current protections it grants to young immigrants.
The program, known widely as DACA, was instituted in a moment of crisis after then-President Obama hit a brick wall in his legislative attempts to modernize the immigration system.
For around 800,000 so-called "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors,...
New York has a chance to generate all its electricity from clean energy by 2030 | Ross Barkan
If Democrats act, New Yorkers will begin to get the government they deserve. With climate cataclysms here, the political system can’t afford more delays
It has been, for progressives in New York, a trying year.
Major pieces of legislation that were supposed to reshape the state to safeguard the working class have stalled out. A bill to create a statewide single-payer healthcare system is no closer to passage than it was several years ago. A push to guarantee new protections for...
New York has a chance to generate all its electricity from clean energy by 2030 | Ross Barkan
If Democrats act, New Yorkers will begin to get the government they deserve. With climate cataclysms here, the political system can’t afford more delays
It has been, for progressives in New York, a trying year.
Major pieces of legislation that were supposed to reshape the state to safeguard the working class have stalled out. A bill to create a statewide single-payer healthcare system is no closer to passage than it was several years ago. A push to guarantee new protections for...
Sanders wades into Nevada House primary, backing challenger to Dina Titus
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) waded into a Nevada House primary on Thursday, throwing his support behind Amy Vilela, a former Nevada state co-chair to his 2020 presidential bid who is challenging Rep. Dina Titus (D) in the state’s 1st Congressional District, ahead of next week’s primary.
“Today, I am proud to endorse @amy4thepeople for U.S. House in Nevada's 1st District. When elected, Amy will be a champion for working families, and will fight for Medicare for All, a Green New De...
Mondaire Jones says LGBTQ progress ‘at risk of being rolled back’
Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the progress LGBTQ+ people have made in equality over the decades is now at risk of being overturned by the Supreme Court.
The congressman pointed to Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion last month that would effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, in which the justice references decisions that expanded LGBTQ+ rights, such as marriage equality.
Jones told The Hill’s Julia Manchester during the “America’s Unfinished Bus...
Drug importation is dangerous and won’t lower prices
Federal and state governments continually insert themselves into the medical marketplace in an attempt to lower prescription drug costs. Some of these proposals sound good, like drug importation, but they are really a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Importation is often portrayed as a “free trade” policy that would allow countries to sell drugs in the U.S. at a lower price and offer more options for patients. But this is a false representation of drug importation.
The Fo...
Lawmakers focus on prevention, cures to curb US health insurance costs
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) discussed their differing visions for an improved health care system on Wednesday, with the Democrat focusing largely on prevention and the Republican on breakthroughs in cures.
Schweikert told The Hill’s Steve Clemons that shifting the system from the current “maintenance model” to a “curative model” would eventually reduce healthcare needs and bring costs down for the insurance industry.&nbs...