Latest Articles and Blog Posts

Slow down on health IT

August 20, 2010  •  The Washington Times

With federal checks for electronic health records only months away, our nation's health care system is on the brink of an unprecedented digital makeover. The stage was set for this technological revolution when $20 billion in government money for health information technology found its way into the $787 billion stimulus bill. The stimulus package contains bonus payments to doctors and hospitals designed to encourage adoption of electronic health records starting in 2011. These payments are to be phased out gradually and replaced by penalties beginning in 2015. The stimulus legislation also created the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and directed it to establish standards to attain interoperability and define key terms.

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Too many czars in Obama's kitchen

July 22, 2010  •  Politico

As the world hopes that good news about the BP oil spill cap continues, there already are worrisome signs about the oversight and management in the next phase of this oil spill fiasco.

No fewer than nine formal investigations into the Gulf oil spill are now under way, according to The Washington Post, which warns ominously, "more could be coming." The executive branch initiated four, Congress called for three, BP has one and an outside organization set up another.

Unfortunately, this crazy-quilt approach to investigating the disaster is all too similar to the administration's approach to managing the crisis — which is one reason it has been handled so badly.

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Five Takeaways from the Obama HIV/AIDS Plan

July 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm

Here are five things you should know about the Obama administration's new HIV/AIDS policy and its just-released strategy and implementation plan on the subject:

1. The plan is more open about the issue of racial and gender disparities among HIV-positive people than a report from a Republican administration likely would have been. According to the report:

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Process for confirming senior administration officials is broken

July 12, 2010  •  The Daily Caller

The Obama administration's premature recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to head CMS is further evidence that the process for selecting and confirming senior administration appointees is broken. In trying to defend the move, White House adviser David Axelrod said on ABC's "This Week" that the CMS job is "too important" to wait for Dr. Berwick to have his hearing.

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Baucus on Berwick

July 8, 2010 at 11:48 am

The White House's plan to lay all of the blame for the Obama administration's recess appointment of Dr. Don Berwick on recalcitrant Republicans appears to have been upended by Democratic senator and Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who has criticized the Berwick recess appointment: "Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects . . . all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee — and answered."

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Tevi Troy's Book

Intellectuals and the American Presidency Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians? by Tevi Troy Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. 280 pp. $27.95 May 25, 2002 Details and Reviews...