health care reform
10 years into the Affordable Care Act, a pandemic exposes its limits
The ACA never attempted the kind of structural reform our health-care system needs.
Medicare (access) for all
A new plan from the Center for American Progress shows how health-care reform could go big—while also limiting the mess it makes.
A garden for others
The morning after the House passed its health care bill, my daughter and I planted some seeds.
Doubling down on contraception coverage
In case you missed it last Friday, the Obama administration quietly issued a proposed update to regulations coming out of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as "Obamacare."
The verbiage is a bit dense, but here's the upshot: the ACA requires health plans to provide contraceptive coverage to all insured members. Some religious organizations and even a few for-profit companies objected to this requirement, citing religious beliefs.
Oh, Wheaton
I've so far declined to comment on Wheaton College's decision to join the election-year culture war skirmish du jour by suing the feds for stomping all over its religious freedom requiring insurers to cover basic women's health needs while allowing faith-based employers to themselves stay out of it. I was sad but not surprised to learn of this move. Wheaton takes it as not only one legitimate view but an article of evangelical conviction that the morning after pill is unacceptable? Sure, okay. I disagree with my alma mater, but it's hardly the first time.
Green light for health care
With the Affordable Care Act upheld by the Supreme Court, Americans have yet another chance to learn about what the law actually contains.
Privilege or right?
Jonathan Chait is exactly right about the unspoken conservative position on health-care reform:
Opponents of the law have endlessly invoked “socialism.” Nothing in the Affordable Care Act or any part of President Obama’s challenges the basic dynamics of market capitalism. All sides accept that some of us should continue to enjoy vastly greater comforts and pleasures than others. If you don’t work as hard as Mitt Romney has, or were born less smart, or to worse parents, or enjoyed worse schools, or invested your skills in an industry that collapsed, or suffered any other misfortune, then you will be punished for this. Your television may be low-definition, or you might not be able to heat or cool your home as comfortably as you would like; you may clothe your children in discarded garments from the Salvation Army.
Liberty imperiled? The Catholic bishops' argument is weak
First the bishops sought an expanded exemption. Now they claim the contraception mandate itself violates religious liberty. It doesn't.
Bishops shift ground
In
a response to complaints from Catholic leaders, last week the Obama
administration revised its rule requiring some religious institutions to
include birth control in health insurance. The new stance was welcomed by some
Catholic organizations, including the
Catholic Health Association but was firmly
rejected by the Catholic bishops--who in doing so shifted the ground
of their own argument.
Catholics (and Protestants) on the contraception mandate
Are Protestants more in line with
the Catholic bishops on contraception than Catholics
are? Or is it just that there's some correlation between being
Protestant and being politically inclined to oppose most any proposal
that starts with "Employers should be required..."?
Reasonable exception
We disagree with the Catholic bishops' stance on birth control. Nevertheless, we think HHS should offer a broader religious exemption.