Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to five hospital trade organizations warning against the abuse of electronic medical record systems to seek inflated Medicare reimbursements. The Obama administration's concern is well-founded. Earlier this month, both the Washington Post and New York Times documented the use of techniques […]

To secure the Republican nomination for President, Governor Mitt Romney ran away from his signature Massachusetts health care law he once touted as a model for the nation. Ran away, that is, until his general election prospects started to dim. Facing a persistently large gender gap in the polls, in August Romney boasted of his […]

Appearing on Meet the Press two weeks ago, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced, "We're going to replace Obamacare. And I'm replacing it with my own plan." Now we know what the Romney health care plan is. As Mitt explained on CBS 60 Minutes Sunday, the federal government will meet its responsibility to the 50 […]

Bill Clinton's address to the Democratic National Convention accomplished a good many things for his party. Among them was shining a spotlight on one of the least reported but potentially most far-reaching proposals Mitt Romney and his Republican Party have promised to pursue. While all eyes have been on the Romney-Ryan plan to voucherize Medicare, […]

Back in June, Mitt Romney's right-hand man Eric Fehrnstrom declared, "This is not a social issue election." Romney, he pledged, will "govern as a pro-life president, but you're going to see the Democrats use all sorts of shiny objects to distract people's attention from the Obama performance on the economy." But as the Republicans themselves […]

As with virtually every issue, Mitt Romney has a love-hate relationship with his own 2006 Massachusetts health care law. Just days after his aide Andrea Saul provoked right-wing fury by claiming "if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney's health care plan, they would have had health care," Mitt on Sunday similarly boasted of […]

Four years ago, Barack Obama beat John McCain among women voters by a healthy 13 point margin. That gap was doubtless made larger by McCain's shameful performance in the final presidential debate, when during an exchange about reproductive rights he used air quotes to mock the very idea of the "health of the mother." Now, […]

In the week since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, both Democrats and Republicans have claimed theirs is the party which will save and protect Medicare, the federal health insurance program for nearly 50 million seniors. But Americans have good reason to believe one side is lying to them. After all, the […]

Last November, the New York Times ran a piece titled, "Building a Better Mitt Romney-Bot." Assessing the aloof and socially awkward Romney's stumbles during his first White House run, author Robert Draper explained, "His camp doesn't need to turn their guy into someone you'd have a beer with. They just need to eliminate the bugs […]

Ever since Mitt Romney tapped Paul Ryan as his running mate, all eyes in Washington have been on Medicare. At the center of the debate has been what Romney called his "close to identical" proposal to Paul Ryan's to dramatically shift the costs of health care to future American seniors by transforming the popular insurance […]