John R. Graham
California
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
California
Why Did California’s Campaign Against Anthem Blue Cross Collapse?
I have written a series of blog entries about California’s health care regulators attacking health plans for “rescission,” which the regulators have equated with “post-claims underwriting.” The former consists of revoking a policy because the beneficiary made a material misrepresentation about his health status on his application. The latter consists ...
Commentary
You’ve Done A Great Job – Don’t Bother Coming Back Tomorrow
OK, let me get this straight: We’ve been critically following the passage of the autism mandate in Pennsylvania for almost a year now. It stalled in the state Senate despite advocates’ citing a study from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) that showed relatively low costs of the ...
Commentary
Unbalanced Medical Billing in California: The (Wrong?) Regulator Attacks
If the media want to mock an enterprise that cannot manage the pace of change, they describe its alleged similarities to buggy-whip manufacturers after the dawn of the automobile age. But what happens to the government agency that regulates the buggy-whip manufacturers? Obviously, the forces of innovation and competition cannot ...
Health Care
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance
A benefit mandate is simply a state law that requires a health plan to pay for (or at least offer) a specified treatment, but there is nothing simple about quantifying the costs of such mandates. This paper reviews 28 original actuarial and econometric articles that attempt to estimate the cost ...
Health Care
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates
PRI released a new paper today, which examines one critical area where states interfere in residents’ ability to buy health insurance of their choosing. According to From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance, benefit mandates increase health insurance premiums, reduce wages, increase ...
Commentary
Bankruptcy of Government-Monopoly Health Care is Fiscal & Moral
California politicians like Senator Sheila Kuehl believe that they can run health care better than Californians themselves can. Here’s a question for anyone tempted to believe this: Will the government-monopoly health care “system” work better or worse than Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program? The news on Medi-Cal gets grimmer by ...
Commentary
California’s Health Care Elites Rally for Government Handouts
California’s budget crisis has caused Gov. Schwarzenegger to propose putting the brakes on Medi-Cal’s out-of-control, autopilot, growth. Of course, the governor is only doing it because California law requires him to close the deficit. Once he’s patched it for this year, he’ll be back on the bandwagon, selling his intrusive ...
Health Care
Organized Medicine’s Unhealthy Focus on “Medical Loss Ratio”
The California Medical Association has released its annual ranking of the state’s health plans. No, the ranking does not measure health plans by the degree to which their reimbursement policies hew to medically recognized standards of care, which I believe most laymen would consider a public service. Instead, they’ve measured ...
Commentary
Government-Monopoly Health Care in California: Legislative Analyst Concludes That Taxes Must Be Hiked One-Third More Than Anticipated
California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst has weighed in on the costs of government-monopoly health care. Backers of such systems are rushing to the barricades, but the revelations serve as welcome enlightenment for all Californians. Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and an unlikely alliance of business and union ...
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
Why Did California’s Campaign Against Anthem Blue Cross Collapse?
I have written a series of blog entries about California’s health care regulators attacking health plans for “rescission,” which the regulators have equated with “post-claims underwriting.” The former consists of revoking a policy because the beneficiary made a material misrepresentation about his health status on his application. The latter consists ...
You’ve Done A Great Job – Don’t Bother Coming Back Tomorrow
OK, let me get this straight: We’ve been critically following the passage of the autism mandate in Pennsylvania for almost a year now. It stalled in the state Senate despite advocates’ citing a study from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) that showed relatively low costs of the ...
Unbalanced Medical Billing in California: The (Wrong?) Regulator Attacks
If the media want to mock an enterprise that cannot manage the pace of change, they describe its alleged similarities to buggy-whip manufacturers after the dawn of the automobile age. But what happens to the government agency that regulates the buggy-whip manufacturers? Obviously, the forces of innovation and competition cannot ...
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance
A benefit mandate is simply a state law that requires a health plan to pay for (or at least offer) a specified treatment, but there is nothing simple about quantifying the costs of such mandates. This paper reviews 28 original actuarial and econometric articles that attempt to estimate the cost ...
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates
PRI released a new paper today, which examines one critical area where states interfere in residents’ ability to buy health insurance of their choosing. According to From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance, benefit mandates increase health insurance premiums, reduce wages, increase ...
Bankruptcy of Government-Monopoly Health Care is Fiscal & Moral
California politicians like Senator Sheila Kuehl believe that they can run health care better than Californians themselves can. Here’s a question for anyone tempted to believe this: Will the government-monopoly health care “system” work better or worse than Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program? The news on Medi-Cal gets grimmer by ...
California’s Health Care Elites Rally for Government Handouts
California’s budget crisis has caused Gov. Schwarzenegger to propose putting the brakes on Medi-Cal’s out-of-control, autopilot, growth. Of course, the governor is only doing it because California law requires him to close the deficit. Once he’s patched it for this year, he’ll be back on the bandwagon, selling his intrusive ...
Organized Medicine’s Unhealthy Focus on “Medical Loss Ratio”
The California Medical Association has released its annual ranking of the state’s health plans. No, the ranking does not measure health plans by the degree to which their reimbursement policies hew to medically recognized standards of care, which I believe most laymen would consider a public service. Instead, they’ve measured ...
Government-Monopoly Health Care in California: Legislative Analyst Concludes That Taxes Must Be Hiked One-Third More Than Anticipated
California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst has weighed in on the costs of government-monopoly health care. Backers of such systems are rushing to the barricades, but the revelations serve as welcome enlightenment for all Californians. Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and an unlikely alliance of business and union ...
