Medicaid

Commentary

Health-care budget realities

Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
California

Free(ing) Health Insurance in California?

State senator Sam Aanestad is still rolling out good health-care legislation in the Golden State. A few months ago, he introduced a bill that would improve California’s high-risk pool for health insurance, by allowing its beneficiaries to buy low-premium, consumer-driven policies, and allow different premiums for smokers and the obese ...
Commentary

Lessons from States with “Universal” Health Care

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 ...
Commentary

Hospitals’ “Triple Whammy” Demands Reform

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 ...
Commentary

NY Times Favors State Calculation of “Usual & Customary” Charges

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, ...
Commentary

UnitedHealth Group: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

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’ ...
Commentary

Obama-Daschle “reform” will cripple American health care

Obama-Daschle “reform” will cripple American health care President-elect Barack Obama has promised sweeping changes during his first few months in office. Perhaps the most far-reaching – and troubling – of his proposals is his plan for healthcare reform. Obama has tapped former Sen. Tom Daschle to serve as both the ...
Commentary

An Emergency Review

This is an emergency book review. Before you do anything else, make a note to read “The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care” by Sally C. Pipes. It might literally save your life, by checking the political stampede toward a government-controlled medical profession– usually presented politically as “universal health ...
Commentary

Serious facts, please

. Louis Post-Dispatch (Saint Louis, MO), January 6, 2009 Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide The editorial “The 30 percent solution” (Dec. 30) claimed that “Americans spent more than $2.5 trillion on health care last year” while “46 million of us [went] without any health insurance. ...
Health Care

Obama Will Ration Your Health Care

People are policy. And now that President-elect Barack Obama has fielded his team of Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services and Melody Barnes as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, we can predict both the strategy and substance of the new administration’s health-care reform. The ...
Commentary

Health-care budget realities

Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
California

Free(ing) Health Insurance in California?

State senator Sam Aanestad is still rolling out good health-care legislation in the Golden State. A few months ago, he introduced a bill that would improve California’s high-risk pool for health insurance, by allowing its beneficiaries to buy low-premium, consumer-driven policies, and allow different premiums for smokers and the obese ...
Commentary

Lessons from States with “Universal” Health Care

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 ...
Commentary

Hospitals’ “Triple Whammy” Demands Reform

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 ...
Commentary

NY Times Favors State Calculation of “Usual & Customary” Charges

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, ...
Commentary

UnitedHealth Group: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

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’ ...
Commentary

Obama-Daschle “reform” will cripple American health care

Obama-Daschle “reform” will cripple American health care President-elect Barack Obama has promised sweeping changes during his first few months in office. Perhaps the most far-reaching – and troubling – of his proposals is his plan for healthcare reform. Obama has tapped former Sen. Tom Daschle to serve as both the ...
Commentary

An Emergency Review

This is an emergency book review. Before you do anything else, make a note to read “The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care” by Sally C. Pipes. It might literally save your life, by checking the political stampede toward a government-controlled medical profession– usually presented politically as “universal health ...
Commentary

Serious facts, please

. Louis Post-Dispatch (Saint Louis, MO), January 6, 2009 Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide The editorial “The 30 percent solution” (Dec. 30) claimed that “Americans spent more than $2.5 trillion on health care last year” while “46 million of us [went] without any health insurance. ...
Health Care

Obama Will Ration Your Health Care

People are policy. And now that President-elect Barack Obama has fielded his team of Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services and Melody Barnes as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, we can predict both the strategy and substance of the new administration’s health-care reform. The ...
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