The Biden administration and Congress are addressing spiraling costs of health care and health insurance by extending expanded pandemic-era Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet simply transferring rising costs to taxpayers does nothing to address the underlying health care unaffordability crisis. In fact, increasing subsidies makes it easier for health insurers to further raise premiums and pad their record profits. Major insurers have already announce...
Opinion
What budget reconciliation could have been and what Congress must do next
Over the past few months, Congress has checked several important legislative boxes, including new gun safety measures, an expansion of healthcare for veterans and investments in the manufacturing sector. This has culminated with the final passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the budget reconciliation bill that will make significant investments in addressing healthcare and climate change needs.
The recent productivity is notable and...
Democrats are on a dangerous path with drug pricing
The passage of Democrats’ sweeping economic package — which is designed to combat climate change, address health care costs and reduce the deficit by raising taxes on corporations — is a major win for President Biden’s agenda.
Further, Democrats’ push to pass a $35 insulin cap for non-Medicare patients was the right move both practically and politically — even though it was ultimately unsuccessful — as they forced Republicans to either side with them or to go on reco...
Talk about corporate welfare: Federal giveaways to wind, solar sectors are about to explode
The hype around the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, also known as the Manchin-Schumer bill, has been extraordinary. On Aug. 8, New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman published a piece headlined “Did Democrats Just Save Civilization?” in which he declared that “experts on energy and the environment are giddy over what has been accomplished” and the “world is a more hopeful place than it was just a few weeks ago.”
Five former Treasury secretaries declared that the measur...
Saving the Veterans Administration means adequately staffing it
When members of the U.S. Senate announced they would block confirmation of a nine-member commission that would have closed dozens of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care facilities across the country, it was a huge win for veterans, military families and our country. Lawmakers saw through the guise that closures would help “modernize” the VA and halted a pernicious privatization effort.
Now it’s time to make the investments necessary to truly modernize the VA, sta...
Congress needs to take its role in inflation seriously
The last time inflation was this high, interest rates climbed over 19 percent. Chairman Paul Volcker and the Federal Reserve took a lot of political heat for the high rates, but the Fed’s response brought down inflation. Theory and experience have shown that active monetary policy can keep inflation in check. But to tame the current inflation without a repeat of the early 1980s, Congress will need to adjust fiscal policy to work with the Fed.
Inflation is well above the Fed’s ...
Congress can’t codify Roe: Here’s what it can do
Several days after the Supreme Court held that Roe v. Wade was no longer the law of the land on abortions, President Biden asked the Senate to create an exception to its filibuster rule to allow a vote on a bill to codify Roe.
While the sentiment is understandable, the president should instead refocus his attention on what Congress and the executive branch can do to lessen the devastation that the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling...
‘Inflation Reduction Act’ — What’s in a name?
Last week, a few days before the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced a 1 percent monthly rise in the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index — higher than expected and the highest inflation in decades — Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that they had reached a deal on a climate, tax, and health care bill after long negotiations. The bill is called the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” Inflation reduction would certainly be nice rig...
Progressives need to stop making plans around ending the filibuster
The Supreme Court’s radical shift to the right — sharply narrowing states’ ability to regulate firearms or prevent religious coercion in schools, hobbling federal efforts to fight climate change and public health threats, overruling Roe v. Wade, and much more — has brought even more insistent demands for abolishing the filibuster. Doing so now seems to be the first step in most prominent progressives’ plans for correcting what the court and the Trump administration have done or for safe...
Democrats’ drug-pricing plan warrants disinformation flag for seniors
Senate Democrats are moving forward with a falsely advertised drug pricing plan. Liberals, and even maverick Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), claim their newest plan will help lower drug costs for seniors and even drive down inflation. As always, however, the fine print says something else. In fact, the scheme would be a disaster for the development of life-extending, life-improving medicines and medical devices.
Start with the money. The details show their proposal is more about ...