Medicaid
Agriculture
Preventionitis: American Health Care’s Chronic Utopian Delusion
Chronic illness is often identified as a culprit responsible for high health costs. By chronic illness, we usually mean diabetes, heart disease, etc. It’s time to add another chronic ailment to the list: “preventionitis”. This is the utopian delusion that investment in “prevention” – eating better, exercising more, quitting smoking, ...
Commentary
Five Myths About Health Care
Forbes.com, November 1, 2008 RealClearPolitics.com, November 1, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama has drawn many voters to his side, thanks in no small part to his health care plan. Unfortunately, his proposals rest upon several falsehoods that are all too common in the health care debate. Using his own words, let’s ...
Commentary
Measure establishes rights
On November 4, Arizonans have the opportunity to make a key decision about their rights. Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, secures your right to spend your money on the health care of your choice. It comes as no surprise that some people, notably government types, ...
Commentary
Newsflash! Women Have Different Health Costs Than Men!
Surely, Robert Pear’s article in today’s New York Times, “Women buying health policies pay a penalty”, falls under the category of “old news”. (So old, indeed, that my former colleague Diana Ernst addressed it last year.) Calling it a “penalty”, rather than an actuarially fair premium, is also an old ...
Business & Economics
To dig out of the hole, N.Y. must expand economic freedom
The economic misery caused by the nation’s financial meltdown has hit New York especially hard. Since September 2007, the city’s financial sector has lost 13,400 jobs, according to the state Labor Department. An additional 65,000 financial jobs will be gone in New York and its suburbs by mid-2010, says BusinessWeek. ...
Commentary
SCHIP: Big Pharma Falls Into Line with Big Government
The Wall Street Journal confirms the depressing news that the brand-name pharmaceutical industry has been “collaborating” with advocates of a government take-over of health care. Apparently, it has given $13.2 million to an “astroturf” outfit, “America’s Agenda: Health Care for Kids”, to produce and run advertisements stroking 28 Congressmen (of ...
California
California Health Reform: The Myths Abide
The (usually more reliable) Riverside Press-Enterprise reported the proceedings of a conference, held over the last two days, which issued a dreary post-mortem on the Schwarzenegger-Nuñez California Health Care Deforminator ABX1-1. ABX1-1 was Governor Schwarzenegger’s and former Assembly Speaker Nuñez’s attempt to ram so-called “universal” health care down our throats ...
Commentary
Sec. Leavitt to Greedy Governors: Medicaid Is Not A Bottomless Well
One of the “benefits” of the way we finance Medicare (and Social Security), at least, is that the law requires offically appointed actuaries to report annually on the fiscal status of the program, via the Medicare Trustees Report. Each year, the horror of Medicare’s unfunded liability grows starker and closer. ...
Commentary
Stanford’s Student Family Health Plan: A Case Study in Fragmentation
For those of us who advocate eliminating the tax-prejudice that gives our employers, instead of ourselves, a subsidy for buying our health care, the collapse of family health coverage for students at Stanford and other California universities presents quite a challenging case study. Stanford demands that its students have health ...
Commentary
Winning diagnosis
There is good and bad with Alabama’s health, health care and health delivery systems. We do have a number of health disparities and challenges. Alabama has the nation’s highest rate of stroke, second-highest rate of obesity and the third-highest rate of infant mortality. However, a recent study concludes that Alabama ...
Preventionitis: American Health Care’s Chronic Utopian Delusion
Chronic illness is often identified as a culprit responsible for high health costs. By chronic illness, we usually mean diabetes, heart disease, etc. It’s time to add another chronic ailment to the list: “preventionitis”. This is the utopian delusion that investment in “prevention” – eating better, exercising more, quitting smoking, ...
Five Myths About Health Care
Forbes.com, November 1, 2008 RealClearPolitics.com, November 1, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama has drawn many voters to his side, thanks in no small part to his health care plan. Unfortunately, his proposals rest upon several falsehoods that are all too common in the health care debate. Using his own words, let’s ...
Measure establishes rights
On November 4, Arizonans have the opportunity to make a key decision about their rights. Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, secures your right to spend your money on the health care of your choice. It comes as no surprise that some people, notably government types, ...
Newsflash! Women Have Different Health Costs Than Men!
Surely, Robert Pear’s article in today’s New York Times, “Women buying health policies pay a penalty”, falls under the category of “old news”. (So old, indeed, that my former colleague Diana Ernst addressed it last year.) Calling it a “penalty”, rather than an actuarially fair premium, is also an old ...
To dig out of the hole, N.Y. must expand economic freedom
The economic misery caused by the nation’s financial meltdown has hit New York especially hard. Since September 2007, the city’s financial sector has lost 13,400 jobs, according to the state Labor Department. An additional 65,000 financial jobs will be gone in New York and its suburbs by mid-2010, says BusinessWeek. ...
SCHIP: Big Pharma Falls Into Line with Big Government
The Wall Street Journal confirms the depressing news that the brand-name pharmaceutical industry has been “collaborating” with advocates of a government take-over of health care. Apparently, it has given $13.2 million to an “astroturf” outfit, “America’s Agenda: Health Care for Kids”, to produce and run advertisements stroking 28 Congressmen (of ...
California Health Reform: The Myths Abide
The (usually more reliable) Riverside Press-Enterprise reported the proceedings of a conference, held over the last two days, which issued a dreary post-mortem on the Schwarzenegger-Nuñez California Health Care Deforminator ABX1-1. ABX1-1 was Governor Schwarzenegger’s and former Assembly Speaker Nuñez’s attempt to ram so-called “universal” health care down our throats ...
Sec. Leavitt to Greedy Governors: Medicaid Is Not A Bottomless Well
One of the “benefits” of the way we finance Medicare (and Social Security), at least, is that the law requires offically appointed actuaries to report annually on the fiscal status of the program, via the Medicare Trustees Report. Each year, the horror of Medicare’s unfunded liability grows starker and closer. ...
Stanford’s Student Family Health Plan: A Case Study in Fragmentation
For those of us who advocate eliminating the tax-prejudice that gives our employers, instead of ourselves, a subsidy for buying our health care, the collapse of family health coverage for students at Stanford and other California universities presents quite a challenging case study. Stanford demands that its students have health ...
Winning diagnosis
There is good and bad with Alabama’s health, health care and health delivery systems. We do have a number of health disparities and challenges. Alabama has the nation’s highest rate of stroke, second-highest rate of obesity and the third-highest rate of infant mortality. However, a recent study concludes that Alabama ...
