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Interestingly, while trying to craft legislation that would appeal to Republican moderates in the Senate, Cassidy and Graham have created a plan that is in some ways more conservative than the earlier House and Senate repeal-and-replace bills. The Cassidy-Graham bill is comparatively simple and straightforward. It lets states run their insurance markets as they see…

A crucial GOP senator says that after weeks of effort, there’s not enough agreement among lawmakers to advance a small package of bipartisan changes that would stabilize Obamacare’s health insurance markets. “We have worked hard and in good faith, but have not found the necessary consensus among Republicans and Democrats to put a bill in…

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a powerful tool for improving quality and reducing costs: the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Congress created the Innovation Center in 2010 to test new approaches or “models” to pay for and deliver health care. The complexity of many of the current models might have encouraged…

It’s worth reading the Graham-Cassidy bill. It would repeal the individual and employer mandates of the Affordable Care Act, impose per capita caps on Medicaid, increase contributions to health-savings accounts, allow states to waive regulations on private insurance providers, and provide those states with block grants so they can design their own health-care systems. If…

Lower than expected enrollment, rising premiums, and declining issuer participation have led to an increased focus by state and federal policymakers on stabilizing the individual health insurance market. Legislative proposals aimed at addressing these concerns are currently being discussed. Assuming the package of proposals were approved by Congress and issuers were permitted and willing to…

Chen and Weinberg recently conducted an analysis of international health systems and concluded that single-payer advocates are substantially overstating the prevalence and success of such systems. While many other countries have universal health systems and feature more government control over individual health care decisions, almost none are actually single-payer. And all of them are wrestling…

Sen. Patty Murray has agreed to a key demand of Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which could potentially move bipartisan health care talks forward. Murray has agreed to “significant state flexibility” in order to reach an agreement, per a senior Democratic aide.

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Senate Republicans’ last-gasp Obamacare repeal effort is gaining steam, with key senators who tanked the last push in July signaling new openness to the latest attempt and GOP leaders growing increasingly bullish. While the proposal written by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) remains short of 50 votes, it also has just one…

Unless Republicans can agree by Sept. 30, they won’t be able to pass a bill without 60 Senate votes. Here’s a wild idea: Instead of repealing ObamaCare, make it unconstitutional. Recall how the Supreme Court split when it upheld ObamaCare in 2012. What broke the tie was a novel opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, who upheld…

Kaiser’s tracking poll in July found 53 percent in favor of having all Americans get their health insurance from the government; 43 percent were against that. Opposition climbed to 60 percent when people were asked to consider that such a plan would call for higher taxes for many.

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