AMERICAN lawmakers are acutely afraid of rewarding the loafing poor. For that reason, Congress has set strict work requirements on federal food assistance and cash welfare. The Trump administration is now steadily doing the same for Medicaid, as America’s health-insurance programme for the poor is know...
Approved
Republicans seek alternatives to Obamacare’s pricey insurance markets
Religion to the rescue
REPUBLICANS may have abolished the “individual mandate”, an unpopular part of Obamacare that fines Americans for not buying health insurance. But most of the law’s rickety architecture remains intact. Having given up, for now, on sweeping legislative reform, the Trump administration and...
America’s budget process swallows time but achieves too little
WRITING a budget should be about imposing order. In America, it frequently causes chaos. By letting funding for the federal government lapse on January 20th, Congress demonstrated, again, how hard it is for it to approve spending. The disruption might be worth it if America’s budget showdowns led to better policy. But they do not. Budget-making does not bring income and outlays into line. It does not allow lawmakers much opportunity to weigh competing claims on resources. And it fails to m...
The safety net in Republican states is about to get skimpier
KENTUCKY, a poor, rural state nostalgic for coal, has never been quite sure of its politics. For three years it was the darling of Obamacare. Governor Steve Beshear, a rare Appalachian Democrat, complied with the reform by creating a statewide health-insurance exchange and expanding Medicaid (governmen...
Chipped away
CONGRESS seldom agrees on health care, as is shown by the Republicans’ fruitless attempts to rip up the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. A longtime exception to partisan feuds was the Children’s Health Insurance Programme (CHIP), established in 1997. The scheme, which covers some 9m American children...
The president’s indecision on health care is costly for middle-earners
INSURANCE is supposed to be about the careful management of risk. Recently, for America’s health insurers, it has had a lot to do with keeping track of President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. On October 12th the White House announced that it would cut off payments to insurers that underpin parts of the ...
Republicans seek to turn health reform over to the states
AFTER Republicans failed to agree on a replacement for the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, the cause of Obamacare repeal looked dead. Yet a revival was always possible before September 30th, when a budget measure allowing a health bill to pass the Senate with only 51 votes, rather than 60, expires. The ticking clock has spurred four Republican senators, led by Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, to have one last stab at getting a bill passed.
Messrs...
States hurry to fix health-insurance markets
It’s happening, sort of
NOT long ago, America’s health-insurance markets seemed to be drying up. In June 49 counties lacked any willing providers for the “individual market”, which serves 18m Americans who are not covered by an employer or the government. The Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s health-c...
Blame Congress for high health-care costs
IN AMERICA nearly one in every five dollars spent is on health care, a larger share than in any other country. Many of the culprits are well-known. Americans have more procedures, pay more for them, and face exorbitant administrative costs. One driver of rising costs has often been overlooked, ho...
Lobbyists go underground
Nothing to see here
ON A rainy afternoon, two sharply dressed men talk business and clink $40 glasses of wine at the Trump International Hotel, a few blocks from the White House. The recently opened hotel, which offers $65 steaks and a $100 cocktail made with raw oysters and caviar, has become popular a...