Newt Gingrich

I think that President Obama’s decision to appoint Don Berwick to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) without going through any Senate confirmation process, without having any hearings to find out what his views are, without taking the time to allow the American people to understand will turn out to be a sad mistake.

Don Berwick is a smart man. He deserved better than this. There are many, many questions about the person who is going to head up implementation of the largest, most expensive and most intrusive reform in American history. For this new health reform to be implemented by somebody who hasn’t had a single day of hearings, who has had no public explanation of his views, who has had no chance to explain some of his more radical statements, is a serious mistake on the President’s part and one more example of the way in which the Obama Administration simply runs over the American people and runs over their concerns.

This is a bipartisan concern. As Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana said, "

This will not stand. No one should be confused about the outcome of Sunday's vote.
This is not the end of the fight it is the beginning of the fight.

The American people spoke decisively against a big government, high tax, Washington knows best, pro-trial lawyer centralized bureaucratic health system.

In every recent poll the vast majority of Americans opposed this monstrosity. Speaker Pelosi knew the country was against the bill. That is why she kept her members trapped in Washington and forced a vote on Sunday. She knew if she let the members go home their constituents would convince them to vote no.

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine combined the radicalism of Alinsky, the corruption of Springfield and the machine power politics of Chicago.

Sunday was a pressured, bought, intimidated vote worthy of Hugo Chavez but unworthy of the United States of America.

It is hard to imagine how much pressure they brought to bear on congressman Stupak to get him to accept a cynical, phony clearly illegal and unconstitut

Senator Harry Reid’s late night announcement to open Medicare enrollment to individuals aged 55 – 64 would represent a dangerous and costly move that would send the U.S. healthcare system spiraling toward a single-payer model. Even the Washington Post editorialized last week that this was a bigger step toward a single-payer healthcare system than the public option. Prominent Senators like Joe Lieberman (I-VT) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) have already expressed concerns about the back room deal (the details of which are even being disputed among the 10 Democratic senators present for the negotiation). These concerns likely include not only the step toward single-payer, but the long-term solvency of Medicare. It is a fact that the program will be broke in seven years, and shifting millions of the highest utilizers of medical care from the private system into Medicare would likely cripple the system. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was exactly right when he said, “If

Without a doubt, the time has come to reform our healthcare system. But the direction reform proposals have taken over the past 10 months have been alarming. Today, I signed a letter, along with dozens of other national leaders, lawmakers, and former administration officials, calling on President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid to abandon current healthcare legislation and instead seek sound, bipartisan solutions that increase quality, lower costs and don’t break the bank. Read the letter. Dear President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Reid: There is no doubt that improving healthcare for all Americans is one There is no doubt that improving healthcare for all Americans is one of our country’s top priorities. From the quality of care to how much we pay, from insurance coverage to access, from treatments to technology, healthcare profoundly affects every American, every community, and every business. We can all agree that we need to work together so that every American has more choices of greater quality at l

Updated at 11:18 a.m. on Nov. 18.

These responses are a good indication of why fraud in Medicare and Medicaid has festered for decades and now reaches into the tens of billions of dollars annually. It largely goes unacknowledged and/or is dismissed in favor of discussing other issues. For example, the mention of tax evasion is completely unrelated to a health care blog (But on that topic, it is worth noting that tax evasion is highest in high-tax jurisdictions both domestically and internationally so lower, flatter taxes would go a long way toward ameliorating tax evasion).

Yes, we could talk about the jaw-dropping amounts of fraud in the TARP bill, the stimulus package, the General Motors bailout, the Long Island Rail Road pension program, or the antics of Bernie Madoff. But all of those are beyond the specific topic of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and what to do about it.

Mr. Reinhardt’s c

In last week’s health care speech to Congress, President Obama called for “demonstration projects” in individual states to “test” civil justice reform proposals.

Quite frankly, the time for “testing” or “demonstration projects” is over. Today, there are numerous success stories on the state level. States like California and Texas have enacted reform measures that have significantly improved access to health care, reduced costs, and strengthened economies.

More than 30 years ago, California passed landmark legislation that ensures injured patients receive fair compensation while preserving patients’ access to health care services. Since then, California has had the most stable professional liability insurance climate in the nation. In 2003, Texas enacted comprehensive legal reform, including appropriate limits on non-economic damages. As a result, 430,000 former uninsured Texans now have coverage, a half-million new jobs were created, and more than 10,000 doctors have either returned to the state or have dec