Commentary
Commentary
Annual Medicare Fraud: $60 Billion; Annual Profits of Top Ten Insurance Companies: $8 billion
Well, let’s see…. Last year, the profits of the ten largest insurance companies in America were just over $8 billion — combined. No single insurance company made even five percent of what Medicare reportedly loses in fraud. While we’re making comparisons, in its real first ten years (2014-23), the Senate ...
Business & Economics
More of a Web world for print journalists
Think-tank Pacific Research Institute has announced it will launch a Sacramento-based investigative reporting Web site in January. The San Francisco-based institute has retained veteran journalist Steven Greenhut, who most recently served as deputy editor and columnist for The Orange County Register, to establish and lead the site, called “CalWatchdog.” Greenhut ...
Commentary
ObamaCare Has Already Driven Up Private Health Insurance Premiums
The Obama Administration has been attacking perfectly credible studies commissioned by AHIP, BCBSA, and WellPoint explaining why the proposed “reform” will drive up premiums for privately insured Americans. Yet, let’s not lose track of the fact that the Administration and the Congress have already taken steps to drive up the ...
Commentary
The American People Don’t Want Obamacare (and They Want It Less All the Time)
Back in June, four national polls — Rasmussen, NBC/WSJ, Democracy Corps, and CNN — showed what Americans thought of Obamacare then. By a margin of 4.3 percent (44.3 percent to 40 percent), they supported it. So the drop in support for Obamacare has been 12.8 percent in five months. And ...
Commentary
An Incredibly Out of Control Health Bill
H.R. 3200, the bill that drove us crazy all summer, clocked in at 2,454 pages as reported out of committee. However, it was introduced at 1,017 pages. The ratio, 2.41, suggests that the bill to be voted on by Veterans’ Day will be at least 4,801 pages. And remember: H.R. ...
Business & Economics
California and Canada Provide Guidance on Card-Check Legislation
Epoch Times (New York, New York), October 29, 2009 The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is still being fought out in Congress but according to the Wall Street Journal, several Democrats say they could pass a version of the EFCA this year. On this issue, federal legislators can find guidance ...
Commentary
$1T reform for 5%
THE health-care-reform debate is plagued by different numbers on how many Americans lack health insurance, but we actually have excellent data on the question: Ninety percent of Americans are insured, according to the Census — and even the president more or less concurs. The Census is the source for the ...
Commentary
Do We All Need to Be Like Massachusetts?
2. If it is instead a miserable failure, then why would we want to impose that failure from coast to coast? 3. If people can’t at all agree as to whether it’s a success or failure, which seems to be the case, then why not let the states that like ...
Commentary
NY Settlement on Out-of-Network Charges & Government Price Fixing
Folks who follow that previous thread will note that I am not a fan of the way insurers calculated UCRs, but that’s not because I think there’s a conflict of interest in their doing so. Rather, it’s because I think the whole network model is absurd, and an artefact of ...
Business & Economics
Net Neutrality Fears: Big Telecom or the FCC?
Net netutrality is a case of who you fear most: Evil telecom companies or the evil FCC? Companies are unlikely to behave without the threat of FCC action, but if the FCC acts we may wish that it hadn’t. It is a tough issue for the technology and venture capital ...
Annual Medicare Fraud: $60 Billion; Annual Profits of Top Ten Insurance Companies: $8 billion
Well, let’s see…. Last year, the profits of the ten largest insurance companies in America were just over $8 billion — combined. No single insurance company made even five percent of what Medicare reportedly loses in fraud. While we’re making comparisons, in its real first ten years (2014-23), the Senate ...
More of a Web world for print journalists
Think-tank Pacific Research Institute has announced it will launch a Sacramento-based investigative reporting Web site in January. The San Francisco-based institute has retained veteran journalist Steven Greenhut, who most recently served as deputy editor and columnist for The Orange County Register, to establish and lead the site, called “CalWatchdog.” Greenhut ...
ObamaCare Has Already Driven Up Private Health Insurance Premiums
The Obama Administration has been attacking perfectly credible studies commissioned by AHIP, BCBSA, and WellPoint explaining why the proposed “reform” will drive up premiums for privately insured Americans. Yet, let’s not lose track of the fact that the Administration and the Congress have already taken steps to drive up the ...
The American People Don’t Want Obamacare (and They Want It Less All the Time)
Back in June, four national polls — Rasmussen, NBC/WSJ, Democracy Corps, and CNN — showed what Americans thought of Obamacare then. By a margin of 4.3 percent (44.3 percent to 40 percent), they supported it. So the drop in support for Obamacare has been 12.8 percent in five months. And ...
An Incredibly Out of Control Health Bill
H.R. 3200, the bill that drove us crazy all summer, clocked in at 2,454 pages as reported out of committee. However, it was introduced at 1,017 pages. The ratio, 2.41, suggests that the bill to be voted on by Veterans’ Day will be at least 4,801 pages. And remember: H.R. ...
California and Canada Provide Guidance on Card-Check Legislation
Epoch Times (New York, New York), October 29, 2009 The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is still being fought out in Congress but according to the Wall Street Journal, several Democrats say they could pass a version of the EFCA this year. On this issue, federal legislators can find guidance ...
$1T reform for 5%
THE health-care-reform debate is plagued by different numbers on how many Americans lack health insurance, but we actually have excellent data on the question: Ninety percent of Americans are insured, according to the Census — and even the president more or less concurs. The Census is the source for the ...
Do We All Need to Be Like Massachusetts?
2. If it is instead a miserable failure, then why would we want to impose that failure from coast to coast? 3. If people can’t at all agree as to whether it’s a success or failure, which seems to be the case, then why not let the states that like ...
NY Settlement on Out-of-Network Charges & Government Price Fixing
Folks who follow that previous thread will note that I am not a fan of the way insurers calculated UCRs, but that’s not because I think there’s a conflict of interest in their doing so. Rather, it’s because I think the whole network model is absurd, and an artefact of ...
Net Neutrality Fears: Big Telecom or the FCC?
Net netutrality is a case of who you fear most: Evil telecom companies or the evil FCC? Companies are unlikely to behave without the threat of FCC action, but if the FCC acts we may wish that it hadn’t. It is a tough issue for the technology and venture capital ...
