An audible gasp went around Washington last week when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its first estimate of the cost of healthcare reform: $1 trillion. The cost seemed all the more eye watering given that it would only cut the numbers of uninsured Americans by 16 million or around a third of the total […]
Tag: health insurance
Vidhya Alakeson on the US stimulus bill
While Tom Daschle waits another week for his confirmation as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, health reform has got underway without him in the form of the stimulus bill. The bill that is currently working its way through Congress falls just short of $900 billion in tax cuts and spending. Principally, it is […]
Vidhya Alakeson on the credit crunch and US health insurance
Banks, insurance companies and home owners have already fallen victim to the US financial crisis. Now healthcare is under fire. Last week, the state of Hawaii announced that it was ending Keiki Care, the only universal health insurance program for children in the United States. In the face of a projected deficit of $900 million […]
Vidhya Alakeson: US presidential candidates’ health reform proposals
Yesterday, the Tax Policy Center released its initial analysis of the health reform plans of the two presidential campaigns. The center is a joint initiative of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two leading Washington think tanks. […]