This is Jim Capretta writing at National Review Online’s Critical Condition:

A family with an income at twice the poverty line, or $48,000 in 2016, would get $9,072 in federal assistance for coverage – still a substantial sum. But its $7,400 less than the family would get if they earned half as much. The Baucus plan thus imposes an implicit marginal tax rate of about 30 percent ($7,400/$24,000) on wages earned by families in this income range.

And that would come on top of the high implicit taxes already built into current law. Low-wage families with children also get the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC boosts incomes for those with the very lowest wages, but it is also phased-out as incomes rise. Past a certain threshold (about $21,400 in 2016), the EITC is reduced by $0.21 for every additional $1 earned. Throw in the individual income tax rate (15 percent) and payroll taxes (7.65 percent), and the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent – not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers.

This is from the New York Times:

• Patient discovers he needs a new heart
• Hospital insists on $150,000 cash deposit; family should expect to pay $1 million
• Patient applies for Medicare disability
• Medicare refuses
• Patient enrolls in Medicaid
• Medicaid won't pay for heart transplants
• Patient and sister raise $1 million on Twitter
• Hospital says it wants a secondary insurance policy on top of the $1 million
• Patient dies
• Lesson sister draws from the experience: private insurance is at fault.

But why private insurance? Why not the Gates Foundation? Or Warren Buffett? Or Fort Knox?

As reported by CNSNews:

Section 1304 of the Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) would raise government Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for certified nurse midwives to the same level as the reimbursement for doctors who perform the same services. Under current law, midwives only receive 65 percent of what a doctor receives for equal services.

Naturopathic doctors, herbal healers, mind-body specialists, and acupuncturists are all trying to get included in the health reform bill. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) is trying to help them. "It's time to end the discrimination against alternative healthcare practices," he says.

This is Steve Pearlstein writing in a Washington Post column:

By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

And he's referring to? Republicans! Greg Scandlen responds.

Cost effectiveness means asking how much you have to spend, say, to save a year of life. Without the ability to compare procedures by this measure, clinical research will provide little more than a roadmap for spending the entire GDP on health care. This is from America's Health Insurance Plans:

Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) have introduced S. 1213, the "Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Act." This bill would establish a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to generate scientific evidence on which treatments and therapies achieve the best clinical outcomes for patients. Cost effectiveness is not included.

It's Econ 101 (which most Finance Committee members apparently never took): A tax on health insurance is a tax on health insurance benefits:

Four Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee announce a plan to set new fees on health insurers to generate as much as $100 billion over 10 years to help fund health care reform legislation. One of the group's members, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), says that the proposal is one type of financing mechanism the committee is considering, but that the structure of the fees is unclear.

A New York Times editorial complains that insurance companies cancelled 20,000 insurance policies over a five-year period – usually because of withholding information about pre-existing conditions. But at least patients got the care.

The Times' solution: Prevent insurers from dropping anybody for any reason, but leave them with even stronger incentives to underprovide care.

Wal-Mart reverses course; it backs employer health insurance mandate.

AMA reverses course; it's now open to government-funded health insurance option.

Why Wal-Mart caved.

Why the AMA caved.