Medicaid
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
Commentary
There is good in drug advertising
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 4, 2008
Commentary
Corruption & Waste in New Jersey’s State Health Plans
Back in September, President Bush held the line on Congressional Democrats’ (and many Republicans’) irresponsible plan to make more American kids dependent on government health care. Congress proposed to expand SCHIP (state government health insurance program) grants into the middle class, which drew a rare response of relative fiscal responsibility ...
John R. Graham
April 2, 2008
Business & Economics
Alaska’s Tort Gold Rush Stalls: Eli Lilly Shakedown Stumbles
Back in 2006, Alaska’s Attorney-General (like many others) decided he could mine some gold from a successful drug company: in this case, Eli Lilly & Co. Zyprexa, a successful psychiatric drug from Lilly, has also been associated with the side effect of obesity. Alaska alleged that Lilly was slow to ...
John R. Graham
March 28, 2008
Health Care
Ranking Health Care in the States: Promises and Pitfalls
As the scribbler of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, the only piece of health policy research that ranks states’ laws and regulations according to the principles of free markets and individual choice, I always look forward to the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality’s State Snapshots, which derive from ...
John R. Graham
March 27, 2008
Commentary
Los Angeles Times Health Care Whiplash!
Reading the Los Angeles Times, you might think there are two different Los Angeles, in two parallel universes. On the one hand, Karl Mannheim and Jamie Court criticize Hillary Clinton’s and Barrack Obama’s proposals for mandatory, private, health insurance by correctly asserting that that the Constitution does not give lawmakers ...
John R. Graham
March 26, 2008
California
California’s Convenient Clinics: Some Win, Some Lose, All Change
The Sacramento Business Journal (subscribers only) has surveyed the “drop-in” clinics that have sprouted up around the state’s capital city in the last three years or so. It’s amazing what a diverse group they are! Sutter Express Care, owned by a large non-profit, hospital chain, has been hoping to use ...
John R. Graham
March 11, 2008
Commentary
Colorado Commission Proposes More Government Intervention
The Colorado Legislature’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform has approved a package of recommendations for comprehensive reform of the state’s health care system. Health policy analysts criticized the commission’s recommendations, saying they would damage the market and decrease consumer choice. Calling for Government Action The Blue Ribbon Commission ...
Dr. Sanjit Bagchi
March 1, 2008
California
Senator Kuehl’s Health Care Agenda
Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who chairs the Senate health committee, made sure that a recent attempt at health care overhaul in California went down in flames last month. Her committee rejected ABX1 1, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez health care reform legislation. That measure aimed for “universal” health care through compulsory purchase of ...
Diana M. Ernst
February 22, 2008
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 ...
There is good in drug advertising
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, ...
Corruption & Waste in New Jersey’s State Health Plans
Back in September, President Bush held the line on Congressional Democrats’ (and many Republicans’) irresponsible plan to make more American kids dependent on government health care. Congress proposed to expand SCHIP (state government health insurance program) grants into the middle class, which drew a rare response of relative fiscal responsibility ...
Alaska’s Tort Gold Rush Stalls: Eli Lilly Shakedown Stumbles
Back in 2006, Alaska’s Attorney-General (like many others) decided he could mine some gold from a successful drug company: in this case, Eli Lilly & Co. Zyprexa, a successful psychiatric drug from Lilly, has also been associated with the side effect of obesity. Alaska alleged that Lilly was slow to ...
Ranking Health Care in the States: Promises and Pitfalls
As the scribbler of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, the only piece of health policy research that ranks states’ laws and regulations according to the principles of free markets and individual choice, I always look forward to the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality’s State Snapshots, which derive from ...
Los Angeles Times Health Care Whiplash!
Reading the Los Angeles Times, you might think there are two different Los Angeles, in two parallel universes. On the one hand, Karl Mannheim and Jamie Court criticize Hillary Clinton’s and Barrack Obama’s proposals for mandatory, private, health insurance by correctly asserting that that the Constitution does not give lawmakers ...
California’s Convenient Clinics: Some Win, Some Lose, All Change
The Sacramento Business Journal (subscribers only) has surveyed the “drop-in” clinics that have sprouted up around the state’s capital city in the last three years or so. It’s amazing what a diverse group they are! Sutter Express Care, owned by a large non-profit, hospital chain, has been hoping to use ...
Colorado Commission Proposes More Government Intervention
The Colorado Legislature’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform has approved a package of recommendations for comprehensive reform of the state’s health care system. Health policy analysts criticized the commission’s recommendations, saying they would damage the market and decrease consumer choice. Calling for Government Action The Blue Ribbon Commission ...
Senator Kuehl’s Health Care Agenda
Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who chairs the Senate health committee, made sure that a recent attempt at health care overhaul in California went down in flames last month. Her committee rejected ABX1 1, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez health care reform legislation. That measure aimed for “universal” health care through compulsory purchase of ...