The first time I ever wrote about health care reform was around 1980, when health maintenance organizations were becoming popular and I was a young newspaper reporter with a vested interest – I was making the move from my parents’ policy to getting health care benefits of my own. HMOs were the health care “reform” [...]
Disbelief is quickly turning into concerns about complying with the sweeping changes that come with the Affordable Care Act. Small business owner Dave Ratner and I spoke at the Main Street Retailing Forum held during Retail’s BIG Show in New York to help small retailers understand requirements that will begin as early as this June. [...]
What is health care reform, and how much should I worry about catching it like the common cold? Next Tuesday, Dave Ratner, proprietor of Dave’s Pet & Soda City, and I will host a special session at the Main Street Retailing Forum – part of Retail’s Big Show in New York – to discuss strategies [...]
Congressional hearings are not always civilized affairs. However that was not the case last Wednesday, when I appeared before the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee to discuss progress and problems with Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation. The partisanship that typically grips other congressional hearings was mercifully absent, and in its place, true, bipartisan concern [...]
Despite the massive heat wave that covered much of the country last month, NRF stayed the course on the advocacy and industry beats in July. The NRF’s own government relations team led the charge in the push for sales tax fairness, scoring a small victory for community retailers thanks to a House hearing in late [...]
One week has passed since the Supreme Court determined that a slightly curtailed Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed constitutional muster. So, how much did the Court’s decision actually settle? NRF remains determined to repeal or substantially overhaul the ACA. To paraphrase Chief Justice John Roberts, elections do matter. But, just as the judicial process failed [...]
To provide care, or not to provide care? That is one of many questions facing employers as provisions of the new federal health care law take effect. A new survey of Fortune 100 companies conducted by the House Ways and Means Committee found businesses could save more than $28 billion a year if they eliminated [...]
The third day of oral arguments at the Supreme Court focused on what happens if part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is declared unconstitutional. Unlike most complex bills enacted by Congress, the ACA lacks a specific “severability clause” or statement that the rest of the law survives if part of it doesn’t. Today the [...]
Day two of arguments focused on whether Congress has the power to compel citizens – either through its ability to regulate interstate commerce or through its taxation power – to purchase or carry health insurance, known as the individual mandate. There clearly has been a bipartisan argument to be made for an individual mandate; NRF, [...]
The Supreme Court of the United States was the setting for the first of three days of oral arguments on the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The question before the Justices today was whether the 19th Century Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) barred consideration of the case by the lower courts (hence, also the Supreme [...]