Here's to diving below the overheated healthcare rhetoric.
It's widely assumed that tonight's vice presidential debate will be a health policy wonkfest (with zingers) that submerges deeply into the numerous conflicting approaches of the two presidential tickets. Specifically, the debate likely will focus on Medicare due to the significant changes the Obama administration has made to the program and because of the overhaul proposed by the Romney-Ryan ticket.
But there are a couple health policy questions that each campaign has rarely addressed that could give some insight and move beyond the rhetoric of which side is “ending Medicare as we know it.”
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
“Debates are what make America great,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show 28 years ago this month. “The candidates stand before their electorate and reporters ask hard-hitting questions, and it's up to the people to decide which one evaded them more skillfully.”
We'll have our first chance to do that in this election cycle tonight, as President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will match up at the University of Denver for the first of three presidential debates this month. On Tuesday, lawmakers and health policy experts prepared for healthcare to feature prominently in that discussion.
In a call with reporters, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm centered on women's health and equal pay for women. Granholm said she expects “zero details” from Romney about his plan for the future, even though American women and their families deserve more than “vague platitudes.”
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Cue the ominous legislation soundtrack.
Congressional Democrats welcomed Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan back to Capitol Hill through a day-long series of attacks on his plan to repeal the healthcare overhaul and add an insurance subsidy option to Medicare.
Like other Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took to the Senate floor to blast the Romney-Ryan campaign's healthcare plans that echo many of the provisions included in budgets Ryan authored as chairman of the Budget Committee.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Do you catch more advocacy groups with honey than vinegar?
One House Republican is trying to win over a key supporter of the federal healthcare law.
The AARP's support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was seen as a politically critical step in mollifying seniors' concerns about the legislation. Since the law's enactment, the group's support has served as a continuing bulwark against Republican charges that the law will undermine Medicare. And as Medicare has risen to prominence in the presidential campaign with the Republican vice presidential nomination of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the advocacy group for older Americans has again moved to political fore.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Fifty shades of Medicare.
The addition of Paul Ryan to the Republican presidential ticket has led President Barack Obama to expand his Medicare focus on the stump. But his Medicare comments include an unexpected twist.
Conventional wisdom in Washington was that the selection of Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee and author of two budget blueprints that would add an insurance subsidy component to Medicare, would open the Republican ticket to charges of trying to undermine Medicare. The healthcare program for seniors is traditionally a third-rail issue in Washington that politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. And now, Mitt Romney appeared to be following Ryan right onto the tracks.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Four years ago, it was Gustav. Last year, it was Irene. This year, it’s Hurricane Isaac, which the Weather Channel reports is heading for the Caribbean and then the U.S.—just in time for the Republican National Convention that starts Monday in Tampa Bay, Fla.
The tropical storm is cause for concern, but not enough for James Davis, the Republican National Convention’s director of communications, to say if the RNC would shut down the four-day event. In a brief phone conversation today, Davis stayed on message.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
A week from today, the Republican National Committee will begin its four-day pep rally in Tampa, Fla. to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as the GOP's candidates for president and vice president.
I'll be there with Gregg Blesch, Modern Healthcare's news editor, to bring you the week's healthcare-related news. Gregg will also join my colleague Rich Daly from Sept. 3-6 in Charlotte, N.C., to cover the Democratic National Convention.
This year, the GOP chose “A Better Future” as its theme, and the party is promoting a “Convention Without Walls” approach for the week, complete with mobile apps where users can receive live updates and video from the convention floor at the Tampa Bay Forum. Today the RNC released its schedule for the convention's first day, which will include remarks that night from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. And when is the last time you heard anything about the Oak Ridge Boys? They'll be singing the National Anthem next Monday afternoon.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
The ever-growing shadow of the Nov. 6 presidential election officially reached HHS yesterday. In a call with reporters announcing what amounts to a nationwide campaign to get pharmacies to distribute pamphlets outlining new ACA-created Medicare benefits, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took a little political detour.
Following a familiar litany of the various popular provisions of the 2010 healthcare overhaul, Sebelius launched into an aggressive attack on the Medicare changes included in the last two House-passed budgets and authored by newly named Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate sent a clear signal that Medicare will be a major issue in this presidential election, and President Barack Obama's remarks Sunday indicate he got the message.
Ryan, the 42-year-old chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, is the chief architect of a budget plan that made headlines in 2011 and 2012 for proposing a massive overhaul to the Medicare program. Any other choice for a vice president would not have nearly the same effect on healthcare policy issues as the Wisconsin Republican who recommends a premium support model—in which federal payments are made to health plans that consumers choose—to save the Medicare program. Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal differs from last year’s plan because it would give consumers a choice between premium support and the traditional Medicare program.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
