The Super Committee Failure—What’s Next?

The stock market today was shocked, simply shocked, that the Super Committee didn’t come up with a debt deal.I don’t know why. Republicans can’t vote for more taxes unless they're willing to get “primaried” from the right and risk losing their seat. Ditto for Democrats who would face the same punishment from their base if they voted to change the sacred defined benefit entitlements without at

The Health Leadership Council Medicare Proposal: Too Much Responsibility on Beneficiaries and Not Enough on Providers

The Health Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of CEOs from many of the leading health care companies, has created a list of Medicare reform recommendations for the Super Committee tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings.As we begin the national debate over what to do about Medicare's unsustainable costs, I will suggest that the HLC proposal gives us one, of what will have

The Debt Super Committee—Will We Get a Deal?

It’s back to work in Washington, DC and all the attention is now on the Super Committee and their goal of cutting spending by at least $1.2 trillion over ten years.If the committee fails to come up with a plan that passes the Congress, there would be $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts. The health care special interests have reason to hope they will fail—the fallback cuts would only impact Medicare

Shame on AARP For Their Response to the Deficit Commission Co-Chairs' Report

The Co-Chairs of the President’s Deficit Reduction Commission are out with their preliminary recommendations.They’ve done a great job—they’ve offended about everyone!But we have a nearly impossible but unsustainable challenge in front of us if we are ever going to crawl out of this deep hole.It is not so much what is on their list as what this list tells us about just how fundamental the changes