Medicaid
Health Care
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates
PRI released a new paper today, which examines one critical area where states interfere in residents’ ability to buy health insurance of their choosing. According to From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance, benefit mandates increase health insurance premiums, reduce wages, increase ...
Commentary
Bankruptcy of Government-Monopoly Health Care is Fiscal & Moral
California politicians like Senator Sheila Kuehl believe that they can run health care better than Californians themselves can. Here’s a question for anyone tempted to believe this: Will the government-monopoly health care “system” work better or worse than Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program? The news on Medi-Cal gets grimmer by ...
Health Care Reform
Instead of Universal Coverage, Reforms that Will Work
Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance. Extending coverage to them has been a core goal of health reform proposals since the 1960s. President Richard Nixon offered a universal health plan in his first administration, but since then Republicans have hesitated to commit the nation to so costly an ...
Health Care
Organized Medicine’s Unhealthy Focus on “Medical Loss Ratio”
The California Medical Association has released its annual ranking of the state’s health plans. No, the ranking does not measure health plans by the degree to which their reimbursement policies hew to medically recognized standards of care, which I believe most laymen would consider a public service. Instead, they’ve measured ...
Health Care
U.S. should avoid Britain’s example
A British court just ruled that the U.K. government unfairly denied anti-dementia drugs to Alzheimer’s patients. The government’s reason for refusing to cover the drugs? Money. Government scrooges didn’t want to foot the bill. This kind of penny-pinching happens all too often in Britain, thanks to the National Institute for ...
Health Care
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
Commentary
New York’s Discount Prescription Drug Plan: Medicaid Hammer With A Twist?
A bill to provide discounts on prescription drugs to low-income New Yorkers recently passed the Assembly and has moved over to the Senate. A03848 seeks to give the state the power to “negotiate” discounts for prescription drugs for Empire Staters who earn up to 350% of the Federal Poverty Line, ...
Commentary
Families USA’s “Failing Grades” Gets A Failing Grade
Families USA has found itself a great line of business: make up a quick and easy number to demonstrate how awful private health care is, and then replicate the made-up number for each state. We’ve already learned that 3,100 Californians supposedly die every year because of uninsurance; and that Medicaid ...
Commentary
Will the University of California take over “Killer King”?
Finally, California’s mainstream media has run a story that allows me to address two of my favorite bugbears: Los Angeles’ Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital, and San Francisco’s Health Access Plan! Apparently, Gov. Schwarzenegger and other politicians are quarterbacking an effort for the University of California medical system to take ...
Commentary
In a Time of Economic Trouble, Which Presidential Health Reform is Good Medicine?
With the specter of a serious recession looming, many Americans fear unemployment and loss of health coverage. Economists anticipate that the unemployment rate will jump from 6 percent up to 8 or 9 percent. Because most working people are entirely dependent upon their employer for health benefits, thousands will likely ...
From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates
PRI released a new paper today, which examines one critical area where states interfere in residents’ ability to buy health insurance of their choosing. According to From Heart Transplants to Hairpieces: The Questionable Benefits of State Benefit Mandates for Health Insurance, benefit mandates increase health insurance premiums, reduce wages, increase ...
Bankruptcy of Government-Monopoly Health Care is Fiscal & Moral
California politicians like Senator Sheila Kuehl believe that they can run health care better than Californians themselves can. Here’s a question for anyone tempted to believe this: Will the government-monopoly health care “system” work better or worse than Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program? The news on Medi-Cal gets grimmer by ...
Instead of Universal Coverage, Reforms that Will Work
Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance. Extending coverage to them has been a core goal of health reform proposals since the 1960s. President Richard Nixon offered a universal health plan in his first administration, but since then Republicans have hesitated to commit the nation to so costly an ...
Organized Medicine’s Unhealthy Focus on “Medical Loss Ratio”
The California Medical Association has released its annual ranking of the state’s health plans. No, the ranking does not measure health plans by the degree to which their reimbursement policies hew to medically recognized standards of care, which I believe most laymen would consider a public service. Instead, they’ve measured ...
U.S. should avoid Britain’s example
A British court just ruled that the U.K. government unfairly denied anti-dementia drugs to Alzheimer’s patients. The government’s reason for refusing to cover the drugs? Money. Government scrooges didn’t want to foot the bill. This kind of penny-pinching happens all too often in Britain, thanks to the National Institute for ...
Medicare Means Testing: Test the Deductible, Not the Premium
The looming insolvency of Medicare is disappointingly absent from the list of policy issues on the carte du jour for the November general election. Fortunately, the current Administration recognizes the clear and present danger of Medicare insolvency. “Time is running out. Medicare is drifting toward disaster,”1 said U.S. Secretary of ...
New York’s Discount Prescription Drug Plan: Medicaid Hammer With A Twist?
A bill to provide discounts on prescription drugs to low-income New Yorkers recently passed the Assembly and has moved over to the Senate. A03848 seeks to give the state the power to “negotiate” discounts for prescription drugs for Empire Staters who earn up to 350% of the Federal Poverty Line, ...
Families USA’s “Failing Grades” Gets A Failing Grade
Families USA has found itself a great line of business: make up a quick and easy number to demonstrate how awful private health care is, and then replicate the made-up number for each state. We’ve already learned that 3,100 Californians supposedly die every year because of uninsurance; and that Medicaid ...
Will the University of California take over “Killer King”?
Finally, California’s mainstream media has run a story that allows me to address two of my favorite bugbears: Los Angeles’ Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital, and San Francisco’s Health Access Plan! Apparently, Gov. Schwarzenegger and other politicians are quarterbacking an effort for the University of California medical system to take ...
In a Time of Economic Trouble, Which Presidential Health Reform is Good Medicine?
With the specter of a serious recession looming, many Americans fear unemployment and loss of health coverage. Economists anticipate that the unemployment rate will jump from 6 percent up to 8 or 9 percent. Because most working people are entirely dependent upon their employer for health benefits, thousands will likely ...
