Sally C. Pipes
Commentary
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
Commentary
Price Caps Will Only Cap Availability of Insurance
Earlier this month, the California Assembly voted to give the state insurance commissioner the power to reject health insurance rate hikes that he deemed excessive. The state senate must now take up the measure, known as AB 52. A week later, AB 52 effectively went national. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ...
Commentary
Will Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Survive Obamacare?
Reports from consulting firms dont normally make national news. Then again, most such reports dont predict the downfall of the American health care system. Earlier this month, the consulting group McKinsey projected that tens of millions of Americans could find themselves without the health coverage they now get through their ...
Commentary
Even Obamacare’s Supporters Don’t Support the Rationing Board
The House Energy and Commerce Committee just scheduled hearings for next month on one of the most controversial components of ObamaCare the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). This 15-member, unelected Board will be charged with making recommendations for reducing Medicare spending if costs exceed a specified cap. Those recommendations ...
Commentary
Single Payer Health Care Systems, Multiple Health Care Disasters
Democrats have recently seized on a novel way of reducing health care costs threats. The Obama Administrations Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that any insurance company that wants to increase premiums more than 10% will have to get approval from the government. Congress didnt pass ...
Commentary
Candid Romney Would Own Up To Mass. Fiasco
Massachusetts health reform is in the news driven by reports of long waits for care and its architect’s presidential ambitions. Former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney delivered a widely panned speech the week before last on health care. The three-part speech attempted the impossible: It defended ...
Health Care
Are Hospitals Being Stiffed by the Uninsured?
“The whole issue is that people need to take control of their lives, people need to not think of health care as an entitlement, they need to get health insurance, and you know it is possible. When you break down that 50.7 million Americans who don’t have insurance at one ...
Commentary
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
Commentary
A Plan That Leads Health Care To Nowhere
President Obama recently offered up his plan for cutting the federal budget deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. A big chunk of those proposed savings–$480 billion, or more than 10%–is supposed to come from federal health care programs. Unfortunately, the president plans to achieve those savings through heavy-handed rationing. ...
Commentary
Piping Up: Medical Innovation Critical To Bringing Down Health Care Costs
By the end of this decade, national health care spending is projected to amount to one-fifth of the country’s GDP. That’s more than four times military expenditures–and five times the amount spent each year on education. And that’s a conservative estimate. In a recent study, consulting firm Deloitte revealed that ...
Medicaid Mess-up
Last week, government officials discovered that up to 3 million middle-class Americans with annual incomes as high as $64,000 could qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, thanks to Obamacare. Medicares chief actuary, Richard Foster, summed the situation up nicely: [T]hat just doesnt make ...
Price Caps Will Only Cap Availability of Insurance
Earlier this month, the California Assembly voted to give the state insurance commissioner the power to reject health insurance rate hikes that he deemed excessive. The state senate must now take up the measure, known as AB 52. A week later, AB 52 effectively went national. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ...
Will Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Survive Obamacare?
Reports from consulting firms dont normally make national news. Then again, most such reports dont predict the downfall of the American health care system. Earlier this month, the consulting group McKinsey projected that tens of millions of Americans could find themselves without the health coverage they now get through their ...
Even Obamacare’s Supporters Don’t Support the Rationing Board
The House Energy and Commerce Committee just scheduled hearings for next month on one of the most controversial components of ObamaCare the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). This 15-member, unelected Board will be charged with making recommendations for reducing Medicare spending if costs exceed a specified cap. Those recommendations ...
Single Payer Health Care Systems, Multiple Health Care Disasters
Democrats have recently seized on a novel way of reducing health care costs threats. The Obama Administrations Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that any insurance company that wants to increase premiums more than 10% will have to get approval from the government. Congress didnt pass ...
Candid Romney Would Own Up To Mass. Fiasco
Massachusetts health reform is in the news driven by reports of long waits for care and its architect’s presidential ambitions. Former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney delivered a widely panned speech the week before last on health care. The three-part speech attempted the impossible: It defended ...
Are Hospitals Being Stiffed by the Uninsured?
“The whole issue is that people need to take control of their lives, people need to not think of health care as an entitlement, they need to get health insurance, and you know it is possible. When you break down that 50.7 million Americans who don’t have insurance at one ...
New Health Care Law Cripples State Budgets
America’s fiscal crisis is about to explode. In 2010 state budget deficits reached an all-time high of $191 billion. Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch has predicted that state deficits could reach a staggering $500 billion this year when the stimulus funds propping up state budgets run out in ...
A Plan That Leads Health Care To Nowhere
President Obama recently offered up his plan for cutting the federal budget deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. A big chunk of those proposed savings–$480 billion, or more than 10%–is supposed to come from federal health care programs. Unfortunately, the president plans to achieve those savings through heavy-handed rationing. ...
Piping Up: Medical Innovation Critical To Bringing Down Health Care Costs
By the end of this decade, national health care spending is projected to amount to one-fifth of the country’s GDP. That’s more than four times military expenditures–and five times the amount spent each year on education. And that’s a conservative estimate. In a recent study, consulting firm Deloitte revealed that ...
