Opening Positions On The Cliff Deal: Deja Vu All Over Again

By Robert Reich – So the bidding has begun. According to the Wall Street Journal (which got the information from GOP leaders), the President’s opening bid to Republicans is: — $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenues over the next decade, from limiting tax deductions on the wealthy and raising tax rates on incomes over $250,000…

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The Wrong Way to Save Money on Health Care

By Robert Reich – Employer outlays for workers’ health insurance slowed from a 9 percent jump last year to less than half that — 4 percent — this year, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Foundation. Good news? Our political class believes it is. The Obama administration attributes the drop to the new…

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Healthcare Jujitsu

By Robert Reich for RobertReich.com – Not surprisingly, today’s debut Supreme Court argument over the so-called “individual mandate” requiring everyone to buy health insurance revolved around epistemological niceties such as the meaning of a “tax,” and the question of whether the issue is ripe for review. Behind this judicial foreplay is the brute political fact…

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Why Medicare is the Solution–Not the Problem

By Robert Reich for RobertReich.org – Not only is Social Security on the chopping block in order to respond to Republican extortion. So is Medicare. But Medicare isn’t the nation’s budgetary problems. It’s the solution. The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They’re costs all of us are…

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Why Medicare Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution

By Robert Reich for RobertReich.com – I hope when he tells America how he aims to tame future budget deficits the president doesn’t accept conventional Washington wisdom that the biggest problem in the federal budget is Medicare (and its poor cousin Medicaid). Medicare isn’t the problem. It’s the solution. The real problem is the soaring…

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