#Health Care

Who says that Democrats and Republicans can't reach a grand bargain? Harry Reid and Paul Ryan seem to have it figured out. If Democrats and Republicans don’t demand compromises from each other, everyone can get along. It’s the perfect political grand…

As Washington wrestled with its immediate budget problems last week, an Iowa gathering of national, state and local experts considered the opportunities and challenges ahead with one of the key drivers of federal spending: health care.Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report examining the viability of two “premium support” alternatives to the fee-for-service structure in Medicare.Both alternatives would have the federal government pay subsidies to insurance companies offering plans providing the same benefit…

Doctors who have financial interests in radiation therapy centers are much more likely to prescribe radiation treatments for prostate cancer, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) study.This is the latest in a series of GAO studies that show…

The prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a long-awaited report last week on geographical variation in health care spending. The study, commissioned through the Affordable Care Act (health care reform law), was the government’s most thorough attempt to date to…

As health care costs claim more and more of the nation’s defense budget, policymakers must make tough decisions about how to rein in those costs.The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last year projected that spending on the military health system could…

Any credible health care reform plan that Congress passes must include a meaningful target for restraining long-term cost growth that can be enforced.A number of recent bipartisan health plans, as well as budgets proposed by elected officials in Washington, are…

Projections from the Congressional Budget Office last week confirm that the most powerful factors in the current budget dynamic are aging, health care costs and interest on the growing federal debt – all things that Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert…