Health Care
Business & Economics
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Commentary
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Commentary
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
California
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
California
Unhealthy Ballot Initiatives Feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Commentary
Health Savings Accounts in Canada – Ground Zero of Single Payer?!
Born and raised in Canada, by the time I got to adulthood I was pretty fed up with my contemporaries’ claim that Canada’s uniqueness, relative to the U.S., was so-called “universal” health care. (I was born in 1962, so my contemporaries and I had no conscious experience of Canadian health ...
Business & Economics
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
California
California Republican Legislators Find Some Health Dollars
As California continues to teeter on insolvency, Republican legislators have proposed a budget amendment that transfers some funds from two health-care programs that are in surplus! Surplus? How the heck did that happen? The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development (health and education). They are ...
Business & Economics
“I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep its taxes high”
When I was a kid, the jingle went: “I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company; I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony…” Apparently, the composers were motivated by a group of stranded travellers at the airport in Shannon Airport, Ireland, hanging ...
Commentary
Medicaid’s Poverty Trap: Learning the Right Lesson
The Annals of Internal Medicine has an original article demonstrating that patients who had interrupted access to Medicaid in California (Medi-Cal) were more likely to be hospitalized than those who were constantly enrolled during a five year period. The New York Times concludes that the culprit is California’s requirement that ...
How to Pay Doctors? A Lawyer Chimes In
I have (gratefully) never had to engage a trial lawyer, but I know that many clients are very frustrated by the common practice of charging by billable hours. Writing in Forbes, Mr. Evan R. Chesler of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP, says that his colleagues should “kill the billable hour”. ...
Canadian Health Care in Crisis: Eyewitness Account
Loathe as I am to traffic in anecdotes, I cannot resist recounting a conversation that I had around a friend’s dinner table while in Canada for the holidays last week. The crisis of government-monopoly health care in Canada is fast coming to a crescendo. My previous employer, the Fraser Institute, ...
Private Health Insurance in Canada
Returning to Canada for Christmas, I was surprised to see that the country’s life and health insurers were lobbying the government for health savings accounts and pressing ever closer for the right to compete against the failing state monopoly on health insurance (a.k.a. so-called “single-payer” health care). Today, I was ...
Unhealthy ballot measures feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Unhealthy Ballot Initiatives Feed the “Blob”
As California teeters on insolvency, Republican state legislators have proposed a budget that transfers $5 billion from two health care programs that are in surplus. The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development. They are in “silos” because they were approved via propositions. To “break the ...
Health Savings Accounts in Canada – Ground Zero of Single Payer?!
Born and raised in Canada, by the time I got to adulthood I was pretty fed up with my contemporaries’ claim that Canada’s uniqueness, relative to the U.S., was so-called “universal” health care. (I was born in 1962, so my contemporaries and I had no conscious experience of Canadian health ...
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
California Republican Legislators Find Some Health Dollars
As California continues to teeter on insolvency, Republican legislators have proposed a budget amendment that transfers some funds from two health-care programs that are in surplus! Surplus? How the heck did that happen? The funds in question are for mental health and early childhood development (health and education). They are ...
“I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep its taxes high”
When I was a kid, the jingle went: “I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company; I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony…” Apparently, the composers were motivated by a group of stranded travellers at the airport in Shannon Airport, Ireland, hanging ...
Medicaid’s Poverty Trap: Learning the Right Lesson
The Annals of Internal Medicine has an original article demonstrating that patients who had interrupted access to Medicaid in California (Medi-Cal) were more likely to be hospitalized than those who were constantly enrolled during a five year period. The New York Times concludes that the culprit is California’s requirement that ...
