Health Care
Commentary
The Fight for Health Freedom Loses a Champion: Jack Calfee, RIP
When I got into health policy in 2000, my first projects focused on government intervention in prescription drugs: Patent law, the regulatory bureaucracy, restrictions on free speech (Direct-to-Consumer advertising, detailing physicians, et cetera). Jack Calfee was the giant in this field: His thorough, accurate, and diligent research demolished any legitimate ...
Commentary
Obamacare Will Destroy Utah’s Health Exchange
None of this is surprising. What is surprising is that many people continue to believe that the Utah Health Exchange, launched in 2009 to increase small businesses’ health-insurance choices, can morph into some kind of foundation upon which a consumer-driven Obamacare can be built. Like many conservative health-policy analysts, I ...
Health Care
There Is No Real Difference Between an “Individual Mandate” to Buy Health Insurance and the Health Benefits We Have Today
Key Points Opponents of the federal government takeover of peoples access to health care have focused on the unconstitutionality of the so-called individual mandate. Two federal judges have recently determined that Obamacares mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, which rightly encourages hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate Obamacare. Economically, the ...
Commentary
Don’t start a state health exchange
Last December, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli struck a significant blow against the federal government’s attempted takeover of our access to medical care. Virginians should be pleased, but the state needs to follow through or Cuccinelli’s effort will be wasted. Federal Judge Henry Hudson accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the so-called ...
Commentary
A crummy Canadian import
A federal judge recently ruled President Obama’s health care law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court no doubt will have to settle the matter, but several of the reform package’s worst offenses have taken root already. A new “medicine cabinet tax” prevents 40 million Americans from using their Health Savings Accounts ...
Commentary
Repealing Obamacare: State Governors Respond to Judge Vinson’s Ruling
Soon after the new Congress convened last month, one of the first actions by the House of Representatives was a vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (un)popularly known as Obamacare. The repeal action passed with a significant majority in the House and came to a vote ...
Commentary
Responsible Resistance to Obamacare: Has Mitch Daniels Shown the Way?
My friend Tevi Troy cheers Daniels’s approach, noting that if the president had considered bipartisan reform he might have avoided the hostile backlash that Obamacare has created. But he didn’t. Surely it can’t be Governor Daniels’s responsibility to show the president how to find the way to real health-care reform, ...
Commentary
Enabling The Next Biomedical Revolution
In his State of the Union address President Obama singled out biomedical innovation as a key driver of America’s future prosperity. This sector has indeed generated tens of thousands of jobs, attracted billions in investment and created advanced medical treatments for Americans. A promising new area of biomedicine, called biologics, ...
Commentary
Crowdsourcing, Price Formation, and Health IT
Last year, a non-profit called Costs of Care sponsored a national essay contest, inviting people to submit anecdotes “illustrating the importance of cost awareness in medicine.” One of the winning entries concerned a billing error for inserting an IUD. Before the procedure, the patient learned (via “a few keystrokes”) that ...
Commentary
Obamacare Is Already Falling Apart
Last week, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin — 245 to 189 — to repeal the president’s landmark health reform package. It’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will bring the measure up in the upper body. But even if he doesn’t, the law is ...
The Fight for Health Freedom Loses a Champion: Jack Calfee, RIP
When I got into health policy in 2000, my first projects focused on government intervention in prescription drugs: Patent law, the regulatory bureaucracy, restrictions on free speech (Direct-to-Consumer advertising, detailing physicians, et cetera). Jack Calfee was the giant in this field: His thorough, accurate, and diligent research demolished any legitimate ...
Obamacare Will Destroy Utah’s Health Exchange
None of this is surprising. What is surprising is that many people continue to believe that the Utah Health Exchange, launched in 2009 to increase small businesses’ health-insurance choices, can morph into some kind of foundation upon which a consumer-driven Obamacare can be built. Like many conservative health-policy analysts, I ...
There Is No Real Difference Between an “Individual Mandate” to Buy Health Insurance and the Health Benefits We Have Today
Key Points Opponents of the federal government takeover of peoples access to health care have focused on the unconstitutionality of the so-called individual mandate. Two federal judges have recently determined that Obamacares mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, which rightly encourages hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate Obamacare. Economically, the ...
Don’t start a state health exchange
Last December, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli struck a significant blow against the federal government’s attempted takeover of our access to medical care. Virginians should be pleased, but the state needs to follow through or Cuccinelli’s effort will be wasted. Federal Judge Henry Hudson accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the so-called ...
A crummy Canadian import
A federal judge recently ruled President Obama’s health care law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court no doubt will have to settle the matter, but several of the reform package’s worst offenses have taken root already. A new “medicine cabinet tax” prevents 40 million Americans from using their Health Savings Accounts ...
Repealing Obamacare: State Governors Respond to Judge Vinson’s Ruling
Soon after the new Congress convened last month, one of the first actions by the House of Representatives was a vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (un)popularly known as Obamacare. The repeal action passed with a significant majority in the House and came to a vote ...
Responsible Resistance to Obamacare: Has Mitch Daniels Shown the Way?
My friend Tevi Troy cheers Daniels’s approach, noting that if the president had considered bipartisan reform he might have avoided the hostile backlash that Obamacare has created. But he didn’t. Surely it can’t be Governor Daniels’s responsibility to show the president how to find the way to real health-care reform, ...
Enabling The Next Biomedical Revolution
In his State of the Union address President Obama singled out biomedical innovation as a key driver of America’s future prosperity. This sector has indeed generated tens of thousands of jobs, attracted billions in investment and created advanced medical treatments for Americans. A promising new area of biomedicine, called biologics, ...
Crowdsourcing, Price Formation, and Health IT
Last year, a non-profit called Costs of Care sponsored a national essay contest, inviting people to submit anecdotes “illustrating the importance of cost awareness in medicine.” One of the winning entries concerned a billing error for inserting an IUD. Before the procedure, the patient learned (via “a few keystrokes”) that ...
Obamacare Is Already Falling Apart
Last week, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin — 245 to 189 — to repeal the president’s landmark health reform package. It’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will bring the measure up in the upper body. But even if he doesn’t, the law is ...
