CAF In The News

medpagetoday.com — In debates about reforming the nation's healthcare system, policymakers have recently looked to Massachusetts for lessons on how -- or how not -- to insure everyone.

The state's revolutionary mandatory-coverage plan was enacted in 2006 and more than 97% of all Massachusetts residents are now covered -- whereas nationally some 40% of Americans have no health insurance.

rollcall.com — There probably isn’t a more complex or contentious issue before Congress these days than health care reform. There are so many players, and so many moving parts, that it’s tough to break the full debate into neatly compartmentalized pieces.

courier-journal.com — Landmark legislation giving the federal Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products is expected to be considered by the full House within the next two weeks.

There is broad bipartisan support for the bill, whose chief sponsor is Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

blogs.tnr.com — Jonathan Cohn's post "Massachusetts Miracle--Or Catastrophe?" argues that the information in my recent report on Massachusetts reform is correct but its framing is too negative, adding that he is "a glass-half-full kind of guy."

Well, I'm a glass half full kind of gal, who has never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But, I'm not interested in throwing good money after bad. As I see it, the Massachusetts plan is not only not a glass half full, it is a glass with enormous cracks that enables all we pour into it to seep out.

bostonherald.com — Massachusetts’ much-hailed health-care reform initiative shouldn’t be replicated nationally, researchers at a progressive Washington, D.C, think tank said yesterday, because the Bay state’s model has no built-in cost controls.

“It has had some successes, but the Massachusetts model fails to control costs, because it relies only on private insurers,” said Diane Archer, a researcher at the Institute for America’s Future.

spectator.org — The Obama administration and their allies in the progressive community have a problem when it comes to selling their brand of health care reform. While they argue that we'll be able to reduce health-care spending and improve quality by having the government intervene and provide subsidies for everybody to get insured, they cannot name a single example at the state level where this has worked. In fact, the opposite has been the case. The most prominent example is Massachusetts, which implemented a plan similar to the one proposed by Obama during the campaign, but has seen costs explode. As the New York Times reported yesterday, "government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending."

huffingtonpost.com — Like most participants in President Obama's Health Care Summit last Thursday, I was thrilled to be invited to the White House for the big public meeting on health care. At the Summit, the President did what the leaders and activists of the 800 organizations in our Health Care for America Now coalition have been urging: he announced his determination to reform the country's health care system -- to cover everyone and to control health costs -- in this first year of his presidency.

washingtontimes.com — Democrats on Thursday laid out an ambitious schedule for extending health care coverage to all Americans that would have the House and Senate pass separate bills by the end of summer, and deliver a final version to President Obama in time to meet his end-of-year deadline.

boston.com — WASHINGTON - President Obama yesterday presented his goal of fixing the healthcare system as a political imperative, as well as a moral and economic one: Americans, he said, will no longer stand for soaring costs that have bankrupted millions of families, hobbled businesses, and crowded out other public needs.

latimes.com — Under the banner of consensus and cooperation, President Obama on Thursday brought industry leaders, lawmakers, doctors and consumer groups to the White House for a healthcare forum to build momentum for his effort to reduce costs and expand insurance coverage.