Recent Policy Papers
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November 30, 2010
How State Exchanges Could Restrict Access to Health Care
Active Purchaser or Active Rationer…?
Over the next year, many state legislatures will consider legislation establishing insurance exchanges to implement the health care law. These legislative debates will revolve around whether governments can or should limit the insurance plans available to consumers—and in so doing, potentially restrict access to life-saving but costly treatments. -
November 16, 2010
The Workplace Unfairness Act of 2010
There are currently two federal laws protecting employees from sex-based pay discrimination: Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964 (amended just last year by the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act); and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA). Yet Democrats hope to pass a new federal law - the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) – during the lame duck session before their majorities erode in the next Congress.
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August 10, 2010
An Alternative Reality: Administration’s Actuary Calls Official Medicare Estimates Unrealistic
Last week, the Medicare trustees issued their annual report examining the state of the program’s finances. In that report, the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provided clear indications that the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”[i] will be anything but affordable. In an unprecedented move,[ii] the non-partisan Chief Actuary used his statement of actuarial opinion on the trustees report to warn that the unrealistic cost reductions mandated in the law will threaten access to care for seniors, thus likely resulting in higher federal spending than projected. The actuary went so far as to release an alternative scenario to quantify more realistic projections for federal Medicare spending.[iii] -
August 5, 2010
Taxpayers Cannot Afford More State Bailouts
After their failure to bring a budget to the floor, Senate Democrats are attempting to shove not one but two bailouts for states before leaving for the August recess. Although many state and local governments have been hurt by the economic downturn, they - like the federal government - are facing difficult decisions because of unsustainable spending. This irresponsible spending will only get worse if the federal government continues to bail out states. -
August 2, 2010
Securing Our Nation’s Borders
Rhetoric and Political Posturing Will Not Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem
Americans have differing views on immigration, but the overwhelming majority agree that our current immigration system is broken and the government is not doing enough to solve the problem. The President is blaming Republicans for his failure to secure our borders and solve these problems. But the facts show that the responsibility for these failures lies with the President and his allies, who are more interested in scoring political points than fixing a problem of national concern. -
August 2, 2010
The Case Against the Kagan Nomination
The central question before the Senate in providing advice and consent on the nomination of Elena Kagan is the following: has the nominee demonstrated, by her background and testimony, that she is prepared to put her personal political agenda aside in order to apply the law as written? Unfortunately, the record suggests that she has not. Ms. Kagan has a long history of partisan political advocacy that subordinates an even-handed reading of the law. When the advancement of her personal political agenda conflicted with an objective reading of the law or medical science, Ms. Kagan appears to have chosen her political agenda. To make matters worse, her testimony before the Senate was less than candid about these issues.
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July 15, 2010
Donald Berwick in His Own Words
Last week President Obama bypassed the Senate and public hearings to appoint Dr. Donald Berwick as Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Even though the President previously admitted that “an ugly process” surrounding the health care legislation “legitimately raised concerns…that [the American people] just don’t know what’s going on,”[i] his recess appointment means that Dr. Berwick did not face any public scrutiny before assuming control of an agency that provides care to 100 million seniors, children, and low-income and disabled individuals with an annual budget exceeding $800 billion. -
July 14, 2010
Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation Conference Report is Deeply Flawed
Using the Senate-passed financial services regulation bill as a starting point, the conference committee’s final agreement – one opposed by every House and Senate Republican conferee – adds troubling new requirements to the legislation and fails to correct harmful provisions in the Senate-passed text. In the end, the bill fails to deliver the reforms needed to prevent the next financial crisis, adds unnecessary burdens on American financial institutions, and increases costs for American consumers. -
July 14, 2010
Will Senate Democrats Follow the House’s Lead And Sell Out Education Reform To Appease Unions?
On July 1, 2010, the House passed H.R. 4899, the Defense Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010. This important legislation is intended to provide much-needed funding for our military at a time when it is defending our nation in two wars. Unfortunately, Democrats decided to include controversial funding for their other spending priorities that are wholly unrelated to defense spending. One of the more controversial provisions is the inclusion of $10 billion for an “Education Jobs Fund” that would use federal dollars to supplement state budgets to pay salaries of teachers, administrators, janitors, and other school personnel. -
July 13, 2010
Vacuity, Farce, and the Kagan Hearings
Drawing on her experience as a Democratic Judiciary Committee staffer in the early 1990s, Elena Kagan wrote forcefully that Senators should expect judicial nominees to be more forthcoming in their confirmation hearings. She said that recent hearings have become “a vapid and hollow charade in which repetition of platitudes have replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis.” She called on the Senate to insist on “the essential rightness – the legitimacy and the desirability – of exploring a Supreme Court nominee’s set of constitutional views and commitments.”