Single-Payer
Commentary
Medical bankruptcy: Fact or fiction?
This year, a whopping 1.25 million Americans are expected to file for bankruptcy. That’s about equal to the entire population of New Hampshire. Ask the president and his allies whom to blame, and they’ll point to health care. President Obama has claimed that the cost of health care causes a ...
California
Repeal or not, California’s stuck with Obamacare
Even if Mitt Romney is elected president and gets rid of Obamacare, we might be stuck with some variation of it here in California. That’s what’s behind Gov. Jerry Brown this week calling a special session of the California Legislature to deal with health care in December or January. The ...
Commentary
Single-Payer Health Care Won’t Die, Despite Failures
The dream of single-payer health care in America just won’t die. Vermont is trying to implement a single-payer system by itself. This month, Green Mountain State officials will actually dictate how much hospitals can raise spending in the coming year. At the national level, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has introduced ...
Commentary
Congenital American Impatience Points to Obamacare’s Failure
Healthcare spending grew at the second-lowest rate on record in 2010, according to recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS). Still, the $2.6 trillion the United States spent represented a 3.9-percent increase over the previous year. All told, health care consumed 17.9 percent of the U.S. Gross ...
Commentary
Failure to Discuss Healthcare Reform Was Purposeful Lapse
President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address included many important topics, but as far as physicians were concerned, he missed a key one: healthcare reform. To Sally C. Pipes, a longtime activist for free-market healthcare reform, that was no accidental oversight. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, a ...
Medicaid
If Health Spending is Increasing Slower, Why Are Premiums Rising Faster?
Key Points: The rate of increase in private health spending has dropped significantly since the financial crisis hit in 2008, although government programs like Medicare and Medicaid have continued along their unsustainable path. However, administrative costs and private premiums began to increase immediately upon President Obama’s enacting the Patient Protection ...
Commentary
Rejecting health-care exchanges
The Internal Revenue Service recently held a hearing that could have major ramifications for Obamacare’s much-ballyhooed insurance exchanges. The agency is trying to change the way the federal government hands out subsidies through the exchanges. There’s one problem, though — the IRS doesn’t have the power to rewrite the law. ...
Health Care
Over Regulation Reduces Choice in Health Insurance: An Update Health Policy Prescription
Key Points: Obamacare, signed in March 2010, has not reduced the rate of growth of health-insurance premiums, which increased by 20 percent in the small group market between 2008 and 2010. Obamacare subsidizes states to increase political control of health-insurance premiums, although there continues to be no evidence that such ...
Commentary
The Ugly Realities Of Socialized Medicine Are Not Going Away
The worldwide recession has forced countries around the world to curb public spending or risk defaulting on their debt. The United Kingdom is the latest to tighten its belt. The National Health Service (NHS) the centralized public agency that runs Britains government healthcare system is being forced ...
Commentary
Shopping for Health Coverage Versus Shopping for Health Care
As I read the spirited debate over whether Obamacare will drive health insurers out of business (here and here), I wonder if we need to bring the discussion back to fundamentals: The key problem with U.S health insurance is that there is too much of it whether provided by ...
Medical bankruptcy: Fact or fiction?
This year, a whopping 1.25 million Americans are expected to file for bankruptcy. That’s about equal to the entire population of New Hampshire. Ask the president and his allies whom to blame, and they’ll point to health care. President Obama has claimed that the cost of health care causes a ...
Repeal or not, California’s stuck with Obamacare
Even if Mitt Romney is elected president and gets rid of Obamacare, we might be stuck with some variation of it here in California. That’s what’s behind Gov. Jerry Brown this week calling a special session of the California Legislature to deal with health care in December or January. The ...
Single-Payer Health Care Won’t Die, Despite Failures
The dream of single-payer health care in America just won’t die. Vermont is trying to implement a single-payer system by itself. This month, Green Mountain State officials will actually dictate how much hospitals can raise spending in the coming year. At the national level, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has introduced ...
Congenital American Impatience Points to Obamacare’s Failure
Healthcare spending grew at the second-lowest rate on record in 2010, according to recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS). Still, the $2.6 trillion the United States spent represented a 3.9-percent increase over the previous year. All told, health care consumed 17.9 percent of the U.S. Gross ...
Failure to Discuss Healthcare Reform Was Purposeful Lapse
President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address included many important topics, but as far as physicians were concerned, he missed a key one: healthcare reform. To Sally C. Pipes, a longtime activist for free-market healthcare reform, that was no accidental oversight. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, a ...
If Health Spending is Increasing Slower, Why Are Premiums Rising Faster?
Key Points: The rate of increase in private health spending has dropped significantly since the financial crisis hit in 2008, although government programs like Medicare and Medicaid have continued along their unsustainable path. However, administrative costs and private premiums began to increase immediately upon President Obama’s enacting the Patient Protection ...
Rejecting health-care exchanges
The Internal Revenue Service recently held a hearing that could have major ramifications for Obamacare’s much-ballyhooed insurance exchanges. The agency is trying to change the way the federal government hands out subsidies through the exchanges. There’s one problem, though — the IRS doesn’t have the power to rewrite the law. ...
Over Regulation Reduces Choice in Health Insurance: An Update Health Policy Prescription
Key Points: Obamacare, signed in March 2010, has not reduced the rate of growth of health-insurance premiums, which increased by 20 percent in the small group market between 2008 and 2010. Obamacare subsidizes states to increase political control of health-insurance premiums, although there continues to be no evidence that such ...
The Ugly Realities Of Socialized Medicine Are Not Going Away
The worldwide recession has forced countries around the world to curb public spending or risk defaulting on their debt. The United Kingdom is the latest to tighten its belt. The National Health Service (NHS) the centralized public agency that runs Britains government healthcare system is being forced ...
Shopping for Health Coverage Versus Shopping for Health Care
As I read the spirited debate over whether Obamacare will drive health insurers out of business (here and here), I wonder if we need to bring the discussion back to fundamentals: The key problem with U.S health insurance is that there is too much of it whether provided by ...
