Peter Levine
- students as part of the accountability puzzle September 3, 2010
- the value-added debate in education policy September 1, 2010
- Jonathan Lethem, A Fortress of Solitude September 1, 2010
- what happened to the new Obama voters? August 31, 2010
CAT | On Politics
If you missed the Fiscal Future Forum last evening, you can catch a recap here:
It was a pleasure to plan this event, and thanks to Ustream, many more people can benefit from this discussion and take part in the conversation on-demand. On a Tax Day marked with angry protests, events like these show how people from different generations and different political views can get together and have a rational and civil discussion.
A few months ago, Michael Gerson wrote, “Amazingly — out of idealism, ignorance or both — people in their 20s remain the strongest supporters of health care reform. They are also the most likely group to wake up the day after passage of Obamacare with a health reform hangover — forced to buy coverage at higher premiums to reduce the cost of someone else’s health insurance.”
Well, the hangover is upon us. An Associated Press analysis recently found that young people’s health premiums could rise at much as 17 percent under the new law. Although the analysis did not factor in potential benefits to young people such as being allowed to stay on parents’ insurance to age 26 and tax credits that vary for those making under $42,320 a year, it’s safe to say that a 27-35 year-old making more than $42K a year will see a pretty steep increase in the cost of health insurance.
The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC) released a report on Friday that identifies critical challenges our country faces and to develop “a roadmap for regaining our strategic and financial freedom of action, unity at home and standing abroad.” The report looks at these challenges and potential solutions with an imperative contextualized by a dysfunctional and polarized Congress, and a commitment to finding common ground between the two parties. At some 119 pages, it is a detailed yet relatively easy read. The project co-chairs were David Abshire, Norman Augustine, Roy Romer and David Walker – who themselves demonstrate the type of cooperation and leadership our elected officials should adopt.
“We believe the findings in this report reflect the broad concerns of the American people and express their valid demands for effective and informed governance. Yet we also emphasize the personal and civic responsibilities each American must assume for the well-being of our communities and country. It is the people’s rightful role and their responsibility to engage in civil debate of policy issues and to force change in the way Washington does business change away from petty partisanship and self-interest and toward ethical, knowledgeable, and civil governance on behalf of the American people.”
In the aftermath of health care reform, it is apparent that we would surely benefit from these words of advice.
Health care reform is necessary if we hope to have a sound fiscal future – there is no doubt about that. Right now, government spending on health care is about 5% of GDP. Within 40 years, if nothing changes, costs will exceed all federal revenue. Health care spending is simply unsustainable (made even worse by the fact that, as a country, we do not seem to be getting much bang for our buck). The health care bill passed on Christmas Eve by the Senate, and now before the House this week, does little to address the matter. In fact, under many scenarios it makes it worse.
It is true that the Congressional Budget Office has said that the health care bill will result in savings – some $1 trillion over the first two decades (which is an amazingly small percentage of total government health care spending over the same amount of time). But $1 trillion in savings is still $1 trillion in savings…unless it isn’t. As the Wall Street Journal opined, “if you feed the [CBO] phony premises, you are going to get phony results at the other end.”
A new report out today by the Pew Research Center reveals that young people, who strongly embraced candidate Obama in the 2008 elections, are not convinced he has been effective, and are turning away from the Democratic Party.
While the President still remains personally popular (which seems to always be the case with Obama), a plurality of Millennials believe that President Obama has not changed the way Washington works–one of the primary reasons young voters gave him their support.
