Medicaid
Business & Economics
California Budget Revision Proves It: You Can’t Trust the State With Health Care
As California struggles to get control of its budget deficit, Governor Schwarzenegger (who as recently as January collaborated with Democrats to almost wrangle a $15 billion health care tax and spending increase through the legislature) has been forced to propose cutting $2 billion (5 percent) from the state budget for ...
John R. Graham
May 14, 2008
Commentary
Health-care system needs more caring
YoumaToday.com (LA), April 29, 2008 Daily Comet, (Lafourche Parish, LA), April 29, 2008 Presidential candidates condemn Americans for not providing health insurance to 47 million fellow citizens but the Washington Times carried an article by Sally Pipes, of the Pacific Research Institute, and presented facts that indicate political debaters try ...
Dr. Randolph M. Howes
April 29, 2008
Commentary
Arizona’s Addiction to Unhealthy Government Handouts
I wonder why the Wall Street Journal insists on running op-eds that are sure to infuriate its loyal readers (like myself). This morning, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano trotted out the tired old argument that President Bush is unfairly tightening the screws on states’ social programs, especially state children’s health insurance ...
John R. Graham
April 24, 2008
Commentary
Five myths of health care
Fictions don’t become facts through repetition. Keep that in mind next time you hear a politician breathlessly decry the horrors of the American health-care system and then explain how he intends to fix it. Some of the most popular talking points in the health-care debate pass as the gospel truth ...
Sally C. Pipes
April 18, 2008
California
California Benefits Mandate Mania: 85,000 To Lose Health Insurance
What is the point of passing a law that requires independent analyses of the costs of mandating which benefits health plans must cover, if the lawmakers are then free to ignore the results of the independent analyses? The California Legislature is considering ten bills mandating benefits that will cost $2.7 ...
John R. Graham
April 17, 2008
California
Governor has good plans for uninsured
In the wake of the Massachusetts health reform and California’s recent attempt at an overhaul, more states are jumping on the bandwagon to “cover the uninsured.” That can be a tricky matter, like health reform in general. Gov. Charlie Crist’s 2008-09 budget includes a few costly reforms including expanded coverage ...
Diana M. Ernst
April 10, 2008
Commentary
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1?
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, ...
John R. Graham
April 9, 2008
Commentary
Cost-Plus Medi-Cal Pricing in California’s Nursing Homes: What Were They Thinking?
Or, it might be more accurate to say, a deterioration in care, but I think there are other variables at work here that the research might not have analysed. The research in question is a 100-page study of the consequences of AB-1629, a 2004 California law that changed how Medi-Cal ...
John R. Graham
April 8, 2008
Commentary
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Why Are Activists Still Blocking It?
Only one, small, for-profit hospital has stepped forward to take the risk of re-opening a Los Angeles County community hospital that had such an atrocious record that the County closed it last August. Recognizing its own incompetence, the County Board of Supervisors decided that the hospital should not re-open under ...
John R. Graham
April 7, 2008
Commentary
Bay State model bodes ill for the nation
Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA), April 6, 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are creating quite a spectacle as they joust over the minutia of their respective health care plans in their attempts to secure the Democratic vote. To witness the real action in health care politics and policy – and ...
Sally C. Pipes
April 6, 2008
California Budget Revision Proves It: You Can’t Trust the State With Health Care
As California struggles to get control of its budget deficit, Governor Schwarzenegger (who as recently as January collaborated with Democrats to almost wrangle a $15 billion health care tax and spending increase through the legislature) has been forced to propose cutting $2 billion (5 percent) from the state budget for ...
Health-care system needs more caring
YoumaToday.com (LA), April 29, 2008 Daily Comet, (Lafourche Parish, LA), April 29, 2008 Presidential candidates condemn Americans for not providing health insurance to 47 million fellow citizens but the Washington Times carried an article by Sally Pipes, of the Pacific Research Institute, and presented facts that indicate political debaters try ...
Arizona’s Addiction to Unhealthy Government Handouts
I wonder why the Wall Street Journal insists on running op-eds that are sure to infuriate its loyal readers (like myself). This morning, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano trotted out the tired old argument that President Bush is unfairly tightening the screws on states’ social programs, especially state children’s health insurance ...
Five myths of health care
Fictions don’t become facts through repetition. Keep that in mind next time you hear a politician breathlessly decry the horrors of the American health-care system and then explain how he intends to fix it. Some of the most popular talking points in the health-care debate pass as the gospel truth ...
California Benefits Mandate Mania: 85,000 To Lose Health Insurance
What is the point of passing a law that requires independent analyses of the costs of mandating which benefits health plans must cover, if the lawmakers are then free to ignore the results of the independent analyses? The California Legislature is considering ten bills mandating benefits that will cost $2.7 ...
Governor has good plans for uninsured
In the wake of the Massachusetts health reform and California’s recent attempt at an overhaul, more states are jumping on the bandwagon to “cover the uninsured.” That can be a tricky matter, like health reform in general. Gov. Charlie Crist’s 2008-09 budget includes a few costly reforms including expanded coverage ...
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1?
There was quite an uproar when the politicians who decide what information Americans may or may not see attacked Pfizer for using a certain physician in its ad campaign for Lipitor, the popular anti-cholesterol pill. Remarkably, the spokesperson, Dr. Robert Jarvik, was the inventor of the first artificial heart. Apparently, ...
Cost-Plus Medi-Cal Pricing in California’s Nursing Homes: What Were They Thinking?
Or, it might be more accurate to say, a deterioration in care, but I think there are other variables at work here that the research might not have analysed. The research in question is a 100-page study of the consequences of AB-1629, a 2004 California law that changed how Medi-Cal ...
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Why Are Activists Still Blocking It?
Only one, small, for-profit hospital has stepped forward to take the risk of re-opening a Los Angeles County community hospital that had such an atrocious record that the County closed it last August. Recognizing its own incompetence, the County Board of Supervisors decided that the hospital should not re-open under ...
Bay State model bodes ill for the nation
Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA), April 6, 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are creating quite a spectacle as they joust over the minutia of their respective health care plans in their attempts to secure the Democratic vote. To witness the real action in health care politics and policy – and ...