Reports by Paul N. Van de Water
Results per page: 50 | 100
Results by year: 2009 | 2008
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House Health Reform Bill Expands Coverage and Lowers Health Cost Growth, While Reducing Deficits
Updated November 20, 2009
The comprehensive health reform legislation that House Democratic leaders unveiled on October 29 would make significant progress in three critical areas: expanding health coverage and ensuring that such coverage is affordable, slowing the growth in health care costs, and instituting essential reforms in the health insurance market. Moreover, the … -
Senate Health Bill Improves Employer Responsibility Provision
November 19, 2009
The “employer responsibility” provisions of the health reform bill that Senate leaders unveiled yesterday reflect notable progress in lessening the disincentives that the Senate Finance Committee health bill would have created for employers to hire workers from low- or moderate-income families. Significant disincentives to hire or retain … -
Senate Health Reform Bill Is Fiscally Responsible
November 19, 2009
The health reform bill that Senate leaders unveiled yesterday meets two rigorous fiscal tests: it reduces deficits over the next decade and beyond, and it puts long-term downward pressure on health care costs. The bill would reduce deficits by an estimated $130 billion over the 2010-2019 period and by about one-quarter of one percent of GDP in the decade … -
Increasing Medicare Tax on High-Wage Earners Could Help Pay for Health Reform and Strengthen Medicare’s Finances
November 13, 2009
Increasing the Medicare payroll tax on high-wage earners would represent a sound and well-targeted way of paying for health reform. It would also improve the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund and thereby strengthen this critical program, which provides health coverage for 46 million seniors and persons with disabilities. … -
Excise Tax on Very High-Cost Health Plans Is a Sound Element of Health Reform
Revised November 10, 2009
An excise tax on very high-cost health plans, which the Senate Finance Committee included in its health reform bill, represents a sound way to help pay for health reform. The excise tax finances nearly a quarter of the costs of the Finance Committee bill over the first ten years ($201 billion out of $829 billion) and makes a major contribution to the … -
Senate Finance Committee Health Reform Bill Is Fiscally Responsible
Revised October 13, 2009
A fundamental principle of the bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved today is that it is budget neutral — that is, its costs are fully offset. It pays for the costs of expanding health coverage to the uninsured by redirecting spending and tax subsidies from less productive uses elsewhere in the health sector. Several of the offsets are … -
CBPP’s Updated Long-Term Fiscal Deficit and Debt Projections
September 30, 2009
For a number of years, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has projected the long-term path of federal spending, revenues, deficits, and debt if current policies remain unchanged. These projections have shown that deficits and debt will grow in coming decades to unprecedented levels that will not only … -
Tax Offsets in Baucus Health Plan Are Sound But Can Be Improved
September 18, 2009
The health reform proposal by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus would place a 35-percent excise tax on the value of health plans in excess of $8,000 for singles and $21,000 for families, starting in 2013; these thresholds would be indexed for inflation in later years. The excise tax is a sound way to help pay for health reform, but it … -
Poverty Rose, Median Income Declined, and Job-Based Health Insurance Continued to Weaken in 2008
September 10, 2009
Poverty increased, median household income fell, and the percentage of Americans with employer-based health coverage continued to decline in 2008, according to Census data for 2008 issued today. The figures reflect the initial effects of the recession. Median household income declined 3.6 percent in 2008 after adjusting for … -
Private Health Coverage Declined, Became Less Secure in 2008
September 10, 2009
The Census Bureau reported today that 46.3 million U.S. residents lacked health insurance in 2008, an increase of 632,000 over the previous year. [1] Nearly 6.6 million more people were uninsured in 2008 than in 2001, when the previous recession hit bottom. The proportion of the population without health insurance climbed to … -
New OMB and CBO Reports Show Continuing Current Policies Would Produce Large Deficits
August 27, 2009
On August 25, both the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released updated budget projections. Some observers, comparing OMB’s estimate of the deficit over the next ten years under the President’s proposed policies ($9.1 trillion) to CBO’s “baseline” estimate of the deficit under … -
An Excise Tax on Insurers Offering High-Cost Plans Can Help Pay for Health Reform
August 7, 2009
The federal government provides substantial tax subsidies for health insurance, especially for high-cost insurance plans for people with high incomes. The Senate Finance Committee is considering placing an excise tax on insurance companies that offer very high-cost health insurance plans. This proposal would help achieve two important objectives: … -
Some Media Reports Mischaracterize CBO Estimate of Senate “HELP” Health Reform Bill
June 16, 2009
The news media are widely reporting that, according to a partial and preliminary Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, health reform legislation that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) is developing would cut the number of uninsured by only 16 … -
Limiting the Tax Exclusion for Employer-Sponsored Insurance Can Help Pay for Health Reform
Revised June 4, 2009
Limiting the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance could provide significant revenues for health reform without eroding employer-sponsored insurance or causing other undesirable side effects — if the cap and the rest of the health reform legislation are well designed and contain several key features that past proposals have lacked. … -
What the 2009 Trustees’ Report Shows About Social Security
May 18, 2009
On May 12, the Social Security Board of Trustees issued the 69th annual report on the program’s financial and actuarial status.[1] The trustees’ report shows some deterioration in the program’s long-run outlook, a finding that was widely expected. Nevertheless, the report does not depict a … -
2009 Trustees’ Report Underscores Urgency of Health Reform, Medicare Changes
May 18, 2009
The 2009 annual report of Medicare’s trustees underscores the need for system-wide reform of health care financing that will slow the growth of health care costs in both Medicare and the private sector and extend health coverage to the uninsured. [1] In evaluating the new report, it is … -
Social Security Does Not Face a Near-Term “Reckoning”
April 21, 2009
In recent weeks, several analysts, journalists, and legislators have sounded an alarm about the effect of the current recession on Social Security's near-term prospects, which has fostered an impression that the program may face serious problems in the next few years. Fortunately, this is not … -
House Republican Budget Would Aid Wealthy Individuals and Corporations, Cut Public Services, Slow Economic Recovery
April 2, 2009
The House Republican budget, introduced April 1 by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), calls for a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations.[1] It provides the richest households with a new round of very costly tax reductions by extending the Bush high-income tax cuts and adding another set of tax cuts that … -
Scoring Health Legislation
April 1, 2009
The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation has released a new edition of Expert Voices, Scoring Health Legislation by Paul N. Van de Water, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The fate of legislative proposals in the U.S. Congress often hinges on how much they are estimated to increase or decrease the federal budget deficit. Currently, the Congressional Budget Office … -
Obama Budget Reduces Deficit by $900 Billion Compared to Current Budget Policies
March 31, 2009
Contrary to some claims, President Obama’s 2010 budget would reduce federal deficits by about $900 billion over the next ten years compared to current budget policies. The $900 billion is the difference between deficits over the next decade under the President’s budget, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and projected deficits … -
Proposal to Cap Deductions for High-Income Households Would Reduce Charitable Contributions by Only 1.9 Percent
Revised March 31, 2009
The President’s 2010 budget proposes to limit the tax subsidy for deductible expenses of the most affluent Americans and to use the additional revenue to help finance national health reform, including universal coverage. This proposal has been attacked on the grounds that it would lead to substantial reductions in charitable contributions and hit … -
Trillion-Dollar Deficits Greet New Administration: CBO Analyzes Current Budget Policies
February 26, 2009
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has recently issued three scenarios that offer alternative views of the current budgetary situation.[1] Assuming continuation of the budget policies that were in effect in January 2009, CBO’s analysis shows that the federal budget deficit would average more than $1 trillion a year over the next ten years and climb higher in the … -
Economic Recovery Bill Would Add Little to Long-Run Fiscal Problem
January 16, 2009
The $825 billion economic recovery package offered by congressional leaders will have only a very small impact on the nation’s long-term fiscal problem, adding just 3 percent to the budget shortfall through 2050. While the package aims to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work, some question whether the nation can afford to add such a large amount …
