In today’s Wall Street Journal, “Tax Legislation Suffers Setback In Senate Clash on Overtime“:
Senate Democrats blocked legislation that would overturn a U.S. export tax break that Europeans have protested, opting to let retaliatory tariffs pile up on American goods rather than surrender to Republicans in the fight over new overtime-pay rules. . . [I]n recent weeks, Democratic leaders decided to use the tax package, widely considered one of the few must-pass bills this year, to resurrect a debate about overtime rules. At issue is a proposed amendment to the tax bill that would block pending Labor Department overtime regulations.
On the health care front, another interesting article from the Wall Street Journal today discusses a new trend in health care: “Doctor ‘Scorecards’ Are Proposed In a Health-Care Quality Drive“:
In one of the most ambitious efforts yet to provide health-care quality ratings for consumers, 28 large employers, including Sprint Corp., Lowe’s Cos., BellSouth Corp., J.C. Penney Co. and Morgan Stanley are teaming up to develop “scorecards” to help employees choose doctors based on how well they care for patients — and how cost-efficient they are. . . . Care Focused Purchasing, as the scorecard effort is called, marks the latest entry by big employers in the growing pay-for-quality movement in health care, which includes rewarding doctors and hospitals for providing higher-quality care at a reasonable price, and offering patients financial incentives to use more cost-efficient providers. And it comes as consumers are asked to dig deeper into their own pockets for health care and take on more decision-making about doctors and treatments.