In just a few years, the 2010 health reform law will begin providing subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people buy health insurance. And that assistance is supposed to be delivered through tax credits—with payments going directly from the IRS to insurance companies.  But will those credits actually work? Maybe, but it won’t be easy. [...]

The House Republican plan to replace Medicare with vouchers could lower national health spending in only one of two ways: Either seniors would respond to higher out-of-pocket costs by using less—or more efficient–health care, or private insurance companies would ration their care for them. In effect, insurance company bureaucrats would replace those government bureaucrats so [...]

Today, at the request of the Peterson Foundation, an ideologically diverse group of six think tanks proposed their long-term solutions to the federal deficit problem. Not surprisingly, they disagreed on most details. But the project reflected surprising consensus (though hardly unanimity) on a some big issues. Most important, four of the six aimed to hold federal spending two [...]

Last spring, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new health legislation would reduce the deficit by $143 billion over ten years. Yesterday, CBO estimated that repealing that legislation would increase the deficit by $230 billion over ten years. What gives? Why would it cost $87 billion more to repeal the law than was saved by enacting [...]