John R. Graham
Health Care
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
Commentary
Has the Autism Mandate Avalanche Hit A Roadblock?
Last August, I wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Business Journal decrying the Commonwealth’s rush to impose a mandate for autism treatment costing $36,000 per patient. (Note: this is a specific, new, treatment, not autism treatment that health plans already cover.) I figured the annual cost of the treatment would ...
California
California Health Plans’ Success
Like other bloggers here, I’m no fan of employer-sponsored health care. I wish those who benefit from it would embrace real, consumer-driven reform. Nevertheless, I am always amazed at how the mainstream media covers stories of health insurers’ “denial of care”. It’s kind of like watching Michael Moore’s grotesquely misleading ...
Commentary
New York’s Discount Prescription Drug Plan: Medicaid Hammer With A Twist?
A bill to provide discounts on prescription drugs to low-income New Yorkers recently passed the Assembly and has moved over to the Senate. A03848 seeks to give the state the power to “negotiate” discounts for prescription drugs for Empire Staters who earn up to 350% of the Federal Poverty Line, ...
Commentary
Does Families USA Know What’s Up in Its Own Backyard?
Families USA seems to be really polishing up its business of putting out publications that rank states according to dubious criteria. They’re coming fast and furious. This latest one is a real howler – but for what it ignores, not what it measures. In Your Own Backyard purports to measure ...
California
Let Go of Your Hats: A Good Health Bill Will Not Pass In California
Has it been only a few days since I advised readers to “hold on to your hats: a good health bill might actually pass in California”? Although it got through the Senate at the end of May, the Assembly Health Committee killed it unanimously. My previous post responded to a ...
California
Single-Payer Health Care in California: Legislative Analyst Weighs In
The last decisive action we saw on SB-840, a bill to impose government-monopoly health care in California, was a gubernatorial veto in September 2006. Nevertheless, its sponsor, state senator Sheila Kuehl pitched the same bill into the Legislature again in 2007. Senator Kuehl’s analytical support for SB-840 is a positively ...
Commentary
Let seniors control Medicare’s exploding expenses
This year, Medicare will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. If trends continue, the so-called trust fund will bust by 2019. This is all according to the Medicare Board of Trustees, who recently warned that the “projected long run program costs are not sustainable ...
Commentary
Massachusetts Health Reform: More Money, Please
…..but it’s a pretty good bet. One can never really be sure one’s right on public policy until the New York Times weighs in on the issue. And so it has, giving the thumbs up to Massachusetts’ two-year old health reform, which largely consisted of ordering its residents to buy ...
Commentary
Families USA’s “Failing Grades” Gets A Failing Grade
Families USA has found itself a great line of business: make up a quick and easy number to demonstrate how awful private health care is, and then replicate the made-up number for each state. We’ve already learned that 3,100 Californians supposedly die every year because of uninsurance; and that Medicaid ...
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
Has the Autism Mandate Avalanche Hit A Roadblock?
Last August, I wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Business Journal decrying the Commonwealth’s rush to impose a mandate for autism treatment costing $36,000 per patient. (Note: this is a specific, new, treatment, not autism treatment that health plans already cover.) I figured the annual cost of the treatment would ...
California Health Plans’ Success
Like other bloggers here, I’m no fan of employer-sponsored health care. I wish those who benefit from it would embrace real, consumer-driven reform. Nevertheless, I am always amazed at how the mainstream media covers stories of health insurers’ “denial of care”. It’s kind of like watching Michael Moore’s grotesquely misleading ...
New York’s Discount Prescription Drug Plan: Medicaid Hammer With A Twist?
A bill to provide discounts on prescription drugs to low-income New Yorkers recently passed the Assembly and has moved over to the Senate. A03848 seeks to give the state the power to “negotiate” discounts for prescription drugs for Empire Staters who earn up to 350% of the Federal Poverty Line, ...
Does Families USA Know What’s Up in Its Own Backyard?
Families USA seems to be really polishing up its business of putting out publications that rank states according to dubious criteria. They’re coming fast and furious. This latest one is a real howler – but for what it ignores, not what it measures. In Your Own Backyard purports to measure ...
Let Go of Your Hats: A Good Health Bill Will Not Pass In California
Has it been only a few days since I advised readers to “hold on to your hats: a good health bill might actually pass in California”? Although it got through the Senate at the end of May, the Assembly Health Committee killed it unanimously. My previous post responded to a ...
Single-Payer Health Care in California: Legislative Analyst Weighs In
The last decisive action we saw on SB-840, a bill to impose government-monopoly health care in California, was a gubernatorial veto in September 2006. Nevertheless, its sponsor, state senator Sheila Kuehl pitched the same bill into the Legislature again in 2007. Senator Kuehl’s analytical support for SB-840 is a positively ...
Let seniors control Medicare’s exploding expenses
This year, Medicare will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. If trends continue, the so-called trust fund will bust by 2019. This is all according to the Medicare Board of Trustees, who recently warned that the “projected long run program costs are not sustainable ...
Massachusetts Health Reform: More Money, Please
…..but it’s a pretty good bet. One can never really be sure one’s right on public policy until the New York Times weighs in on the issue. And so it has, giving the thumbs up to Massachusetts’ two-year old health reform, which largely consisted of ordering its residents to buy ...
Families USA’s “Failing Grades” Gets A Failing Grade
Families USA has found itself a great line of business: make up a quick and easy number to demonstrate how awful private health care is, and then replicate the made-up number for each state. We’ve already learned that 3,100 Californians supposedly die every year because of uninsurance; and that Medicaid ...
