Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future, we looked at the major impact of health care spending on the federal budget with Anna Bonelli, Director of Health Policy at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The discussion included expiring enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare insolvency and Medicare Advantage overpayments.

This week on Facing the Future, we focused on tax policy with Howard Gleckman, non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. He explained his recent column, "What The Ugly History of Tax Policy Over The Past Four Decades Means For The Future."

This week on Facing the Future we talked with Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) and Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) about two bills they have co-sponsored. One would create a bipartisan fiscal commission and the other would dock the pay of members of Congress for not doing their budget and appropriations bills on time.

This week on Facing the Future, former CBO director Doug Elmendorf of Harvard's Kennedy School discussed the state of the economy, the government shutdown and why policymakers should not rely on economic growth alone to rein in the unsustainable growth of debt.

This week on Facing the Future, we discussed expiring premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans with Matt McGough of KFF and a new fee proposed by President Trump for high-skilled worker visas (H-1B) with Theresa Cardinal Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

This week on Facing the Future, former U. S. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) discussed why the nation's debt is on an unsustainable path and what needs to be done about it.