Part Four of a Special Report from CQ HealthBeat

Nibbling Around the Edges
mostly
and Medicaid
Too Radical for Many
Nichols, who advised Wyden on his bill, says that Wyden’s plan is unpopular in large part because it is a compromise — and therefore it is seen as a bad starting point for legislation.
“It is in many ways an endgame strategy,” Nichols says. “So some people don’t get what they want on both sides of the aisle. So people on both sides didn’t want that to be first. So in a sense, it would have been interesting — obviously, we can’t know now — if he had worked it all out, kept it all secret and unveiled it this summer.”
The Price of Incrementalism