Health Care
Business & Economics
Ban the Man?
Next month the world’s athletes gather in Beijing, what we used to call Peking, for the XXIX Olympics, this iteration bearing the slogan “One World, One Dream.” One outstanding American athlete had a dream to compete in these Olympics, but will not be doing so. It’s not because of drugs, ...
California
Healthy San Francisco
California Catholic Daily, July 23, 2008 Two Catholic hospitals join program to give “free” medical care to city’s 73,000 uninsured Three private hospitals in San Francisco – two of them Catholic – this month agreed to participate in the city’s ambitious plan to provide health care, free of charge or ...
Health Care
Unbalanced Billing In California Hospitals: Is This A Problem the State Can Solve By Getting Out of the Way?
Imagine if you bought an airline ticket to fly from San Francisco to Chicago and after the flight you received an extra bill from the co-pilot for what he claims is a fair price for his services. He is unsatisfied with the airline’s pay, and would like you and your ...
Commentary
Wonder why Universal Health Care is Nothing but Smoke and Mirrors?
American Alliance Training Network Corp., July 27, 2008 MASSACHUSETTS’S UNIVERSAL health care law turned one in April. To survive, its guardians have had to make many changes, each of which has increased current and future government spending, increased the government’s role in regulating the healthcare market, decreased individual responsibility to ...
Commentary
Letters: Hospital Charges for Uninsured Patients
To the Editor: Readers Jerry Jung and Mary Nelson propose solutions to American hospitals’ strange practice of charging uninsured patients drastically higher prices than insured patients. Their solutions demand more government action, but government is a major cause of this madness. Nobody really understands Medicare’s payment regulations, but experts agree ...
Health Care
Private hospitals join S.F. health care plan
San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 2008 San Francisco’s ambitious universal health care program took a step forward Thursday, when private hospitals agreed to begin treating participants rather than leaving their care entirely up to the city’s strained public health system. The 25,000 people who have enrolled in Healthy San Francisco ...
Commentary
Private Hospitals Join S.F. Universal Health Access Effort
On Thursday, a number of private, not-for-profit hospitals signed on to treat uninsured people enrolled in San Francisco’s universal health care access program, expanding the effort beyond the city’s public health system, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Healthy San Francisco intends to provide care for all of the city’s 73,000 ...
California
Healthy San Francisco Plan Finally Signs Up Some Hospitals
San Francisco’s tax-hiking and opaque pay-or-play business tax to fund its public health bureaucracy claims to have finally overcome one of the major criticisms that I had made of it. Namely, that it did nothing to improve the quality or delivery of health care to (previously) uninsured San Franciscans, because ...
Commentary
The Doubt of the Benefit: Why State Benefit Mandates are a Poor Prescription for Health Insurance
A benefit mandate is a state law that commands a health plan to pay for, or at least offer, a specified treatment or type of provider, removing the benefit from negotiation between beneficiaries and health plans. For example, a mandate may require a health plan to cover treatment of alcoholism, ...
California
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
Ban the Man?
Next month the world’s athletes gather in Beijing, what we used to call Peking, for the XXIX Olympics, this iteration bearing the slogan “One World, One Dream.” One outstanding American athlete had a dream to compete in these Olympics, but will not be doing so. It’s not because of drugs, ...
Healthy San Francisco
California Catholic Daily, July 23, 2008 Two Catholic hospitals join program to give “free” medical care to city’s 73,000 uninsured Three private hospitals in San Francisco – two of them Catholic – this month agreed to participate in the city’s ambitious plan to provide health care, free of charge or ...
Unbalanced Billing In California Hospitals: Is This A Problem the State Can Solve By Getting Out of the Way?
Imagine if you bought an airline ticket to fly from San Francisco to Chicago and after the flight you received an extra bill from the co-pilot for what he claims is a fair price for his services. He is unsatisfied with the airline’s pay, and would like you and your ...
Wonder why Universal Health Care is Nothing but Smoke and Mirrors?
American Alliance Training Network Corp., July 27, 2008 MASSACHUSETTS’S UNIVERSAL health care law turned one in April. To survive, its guardians have had to make many changes, each of which has increased current and future government spending, increased the government’s role in regulating the healthcare market, decreased individual responsibility to ...
Letters: Hospital Charges for Uninsured Patients
To the Editor: Readers Jerry Jung and Mary Nelson propose solutions to American hospitals’ strange practice of charging uninsured patients drastically higher prices than insured patients. Their solutions demand more government action, but government is a major cause of this madness. Nobody really understands Medicare’s payment regulations, but experts agree ...
Private hospitals join S.F. health care plan
San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 2008 San Francisco’s ambitious universal health care program took a step forward Thursday, when private hospitals agreed to begin treating participants rather than leaving their care entirely up to the city’s strained public health system. The 25,000 people who have enrolled in Healthy San Francisco ...
Private Hospitals Join S.F. Universal Health Access Effort
On Thursday, a number of private, not-for-profit hospitals signed on to treat uninsured people enrolled in San Francisco’s universal health care access program, expanding the effort beyond the city’s public health system, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Healthy San Francisco intends to provide care for all of the city’s 73,000 ...
Healthy San Francisco Plan Finally Signs Up Some Hospitals
San Francisco’s tax-hiking and opaque pay-or-play business tax to fund its public health bureaucracy claims to have finally overcome one of the major criticisms that I had made of it. Namely, that it did nothing to improve the quality or delivery of health care to (previously) uninsured San Franciscans, because ...
The Doubt of the Benefit: Why State Benefit Mandates are a Poor Prescription for Health Insurance
A benefit mandate is a state law that commands a health plan to pay for, or at least offer, a specified treatment or type of provider, removing the benefit from negotiation between beneficiaries and health plans. For example, a mandate may require a health plan to cover treatment of alcoholism, ...
California’s Health Insurance Rescissions: Hospitals Get Their Pound of Flesh
Yesterday, I asked the quasi-rhetorical question: “Why did California’s campaign against Anthem Blue Cross collapse?”, addressing state regulators’ failure to collect a $1 million fine for Anthem Blue Cross’ allegedly illegal rescission of individuals’ policies. Well, it looks like it didn’t collapse: the hospitals have just wrangled over $11 million ...
