Businesses are moving on ideas to incentize better quality and cost-efficient health care. Why is it taking so long for government to do the same?

The NYT a pretty interesting article on the politics behind SCHIP, but it has big problems. First, the article makes it pretty clear that the President decided to veto this bill regardless of what was in it. He has never tried to work with the bill's designers to come up with an acceptable compromise. The veto is entirely his decision and his fault. So why then is the headline "Missteps on Both Sides Led to Health Bill Veto?" Now, who's fault is it that the veto wasn't overridden?

The House Committe on Oversight and Government Reform had a hearing today on the Bush administration's backdoor Medicaid cuts. Extremely loyal BudgetBlog readers may recall that the Administration has been pushing for rules that would cut Medicaid ever since the same cuts were rejected by the last (Republican-controlled!) Congress. I guess they haven't given up. The Administration is claiming that the rules will cut down on bad claims on Medicaid. Not so, says Chairman Waxman.

Inclusion put out a new report on communicating a compelling anti-poverty message, and, as anyone who follows this debate might expect, the American public isn't that keen on addressing poverty when it's defined as such. But to me, the report had a few surprising findings. First, the public isn't that receptive to messages that redefine the poor as "deserving" workers. Given these findings, the authors suggest that in appeals to the public, instead of emphasizing personal stories about the poor, advocates should focus on systemic and institutional reasons for poverty that are beyond the control of individuals. As I review later, other researchers have arrived at very similar conclusions. In addition, this research suggests that the label "working poor" may itself be problematic. Given a cultural belief that if people are industrious they will succeed, this term sounds somewhat contradictory, and is likely to trigger confusion and negative connotations, especially among those Americans who have a strong "belief in a just world."