After caving in to a rebellion from the tea-party wing of the House Republican caucus, Speaker Boehner has pulled the plug on a bipartisan agreement to do a two month extension on a number of expiring federal policies -- including a patch on the Medicare

In most respects, children have not been exempt from the impacts of the current economic downturn. The number of children living in poverty in the United States rose to 15.7 million in 2010—a 19 percent increase from 2008. Despite this bleak picture, a ne

Late Monday, the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Super Committee”) announced their failure to agree to a debt-reduction package. How should consumer health advocates react to the news? A Plague on Only One of Your

The awaited day is here. The Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case against the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual responsibility requirement (and other related requests). For those immersed in football season, this is the Super Bowl of le

Last week, Community Catalyst submitted comments to HHS about the Basic Health Program (BHP) option in the Affordable Care Act (ACA.) While there are many reasons to be enthusiastic about BHP, its potential to dramatically lower health care costs for some

Kaiser Family Foundation released a report last week, detailing results from a 50-state survey of Medicaid budgets. Kaiser’s results tell a classic story known as The Life and Times of a Countercyclical Program. Those of us who work in Medicaid policy hav

File Under: “…and don’t let the door hit you on the way out” Recently, two Florida insurers announced their intention to quit the non-group health insurance market in that state. The state of Florida is trying to use the exit to bolster its case for a wai

Yesterday, President Obama released a plan to reduce the deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next decade. It’s certainly not perfect, but his plan achieves these savings while largely protecting health security for the low-income families that rely

A Team Approach to Care As policymakers across the country look to balance their budgets, some are turning to Medicaid, recycling the same harmful policies they’ve used year-after-year: eliminating coverage for vulnerable Americans, restricting critical