Health Care

I envy the good people of Massachusetts at least one thing: (in my humble opinion) the Boston Globe has the best coverage of local health policy. (Pity me, I’m stuck with the Los Angeles Times, and its kin.) Prompted by the BoGlo’s coverage of out-of-control health-care spending in the wake ...

Last January, governor Schwarzenegger’s expensive and unwieldy proposal for so-called “universal” health care finally gasped its last breath, after a long year of lobbying and coalition-building by the governor’s team. A year later, in 2009, legislators should attempt to learn from two states that have legislated “universal” care. Hawaii imposed ...

The Los Angeles Times reports that California hospitals are suffering a fiscal “triple whammy”: their investments are in the tank; they cannot borrow money in today’s frozen credit markets; and operating revenues have collapsed. Like I wrote in my analysis of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s failed health reform, hospitals’ finances are not ...

My confidence always rises when the New York Times editorializes from the opposite side of an issue than I occupy. How pleased I was, then, when the editorial board cheered NY attorney-general Andrew Cuomo’s “settlement” (of course, I prefer “shakedown”) of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary that compiles proprietary databases, ...

It looks like UnitedHealth Group’s trials have just begun. Shortly after NY attorney-general, Andrew Cuomo, announced that UHG’s subsidiary, Ingenix, a database-vendor, was happy to pay him $50 million to get off their case, the American Medical Association announced a class-action settlement of $350 million over the same issue: Ingenix’ ...

After almost a year of investigation, NY attorney-general Andrew Cuomo has finally finished his investigation of how the state’s health plans deal with claims for out-of-network care. The result: UnitedHealth Group willl pay $50 million to fund an independent, non-profit business to replicate its subsidiary’s calculations of “usual and customary” ...

For the second time, a health-care provider is suing a patient for posting a negative review on Yelp, a website that invites people to submit reviews of restaurants, bars, clothing boutiques, and pretty much whatever else strikes their fancy. Here in San Francisco we take all things Internet-related very seriously, ...

Tom Daschle’s new book, Critical: What Can We Do About the Health-Care Crisis, confirms that advocates for a complete government takeover of American health care have learned an important lesson: Don’t try it in one big bite. Here Daschle and co-author Jeanne Lambrew have direct experience. Mr. Daschle was a ...

In a recent radio interview with Lars Larson on health care, I note that we came very close during the Bush administration (or, for those who prefer, the “Bush regime”) to returning health care dollars to American families to spend on health care of their choice, instead of health care ...