House Speaker Kevin McCarthy recently announced plans to convene a bipartisan commission to tackle federal spending in the aftermath of the debt ceiling negotiations. He likened it to the commission used to identify unneeded military bases as part of the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process. Dorothy Robyn argues that McCarthy’s proposal makes sense,but not for the reason he suggests.

A commonly proposed strategy to reduce U.S. health care prices is limiting how much health care providers can collect for out-of-network care. In a new paper, Matthew Fiedler and Bich Ly evaluate this approach and offer key takeaways for policymakers.