Medicaid
Commentary
Do Our Candidates Need Their Vision Corrected?
The campaign trail is awash with promises to make universal health care a reality in the next presidential term. Candidates from both parties claim they can lower costs — and insure everyone — through legislative mandates and increased government intervention in the healthcare market. But they’re wrong. Only with a ...
Commentary
Massachusetts Hospital Association’s New Recipe for Fudge
An amazing story in the usually reliable Boston Globe by Steve LeBlanc made me gulp: might I have to recant my position on the ineffective and expensive Massachusetts health reform? Luckily, no: a report by the Massachusetts Hospital Association on the reform’s “success” manages to fudge the numbers just enough ...
California
What Now for California Health Care?
Last month the Senate health committee dumped the Schwarzenegger/Núñez Model ABX1 1, California’s trend-setting gadget for health-care repair. Senator Sheila Kuehl, who chairs that committee, tossed it for more personal reasons, other than the obvious $14-billion price tag and state budget deficit of similar size. Senator Kuehl wants to bring ...
Commentary
1 bad health plan dies; another looms
A real alternative to government control would be a system driven by consumer choice The state Senate Health Committee voted overwhelmingly last month to trash the universal health care plan promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Supporters of the plan, known as ABX1 1, murmured about ...
Commentary
Thrills, Chills and Hospital Bills: Maybe They’re Not So Crazy After All
The other day, I examined the pointlessness of a class-action lawsuit ordering Scripps Health hospitals in San Diego to give post facto discounts to uninsured patients who had been charged “too much”, even though most of them had not paid their bills anyway! Today, we learn the overall payment to ...
Commentary
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
California
Healthy San Francisco raises costs for everyone
Two years ago, our family moved from San Francisco to Marin County, motivated partly by high prices in San Francisco restaurants. Now we mostly dine north of the Golden Gate Bridge and for 2008 we were prepared to give up on San Francisco entirely. The reason? San Francisco’s Health Access ...
Commentary
Like Romney Before Him, Schwarzenegger Has Been Hoodwinked
Much as I hate to admit it, those of us who believe that patients should control the dollars spent on their health care do not hold the high ground in California. Actually, I think only the Endangered Species Act keeps us alive! The real “struggle” is between those who want ...
Do Our Candidates Need Their Vision Corrected?
The campaign trail is awash with promises to make universal health care a reality in the next presidential term. Candidates from both parties claim they can lower costs — and insure everyone — through legislative mandates and increased government intervention in the healthcare market. But they’re wrong. Only with a ...
Massachusetts Hospital Association’s New Recipe for Fudge
An amazing story in the usually reliable Boston Globe by Steve LeBlanc made me gulp: might I have to recant my position on the ineffective and expensive Massachusetts health reform? Luckily, no: a report by the Massachusetts Hospital Association on the reform’s “success” manages to fudge the numbers just enough ...
What Now for California Health Care?
Last month the Senate health committee dumped the Schwarzenegger/Núñez Model ABX1 1, California’s trend-setting gadget for health-care repair. Senator Sheila Kuehl, who chairs that committee, tossed it for more personal reasons, other than the obvious $14-billion price tag and state budget deficit of similar size. Senator Kuehl wants to bring ...
1 bad health plan dies; another looms
A real alternative to government control would be a system driven by consumer choice The state Senate Health Committee voted overwhelmingly last month to trash the universal health care plan promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Supporters of the plan, known as ABX1 1, murmured about ...
Thrills, Chills and Hospital Bills: Maybe They’re Not So Crazy After All
The other day, I examined the pointlessness of a class-action lawsuit ordering Scripps Health hospitals in San Diego to give post facto discounts to uninsured patients who had been charged “too much”, even though most of them had not paid their bills anyway! Today, we learn the overall payment to ...
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
Healthy San Francisco raises costs for everyone
Two years ago, our family moved from San Francisco to Marin County, motivated partly by high prices in San Francisco restaurants. Now we mostly dine north of the Golden Gate Bridge and for 2008 we were prepared to give up on San Francisco entirely. The reason? San Francisco’s Health Access ...
Like Romney Before Him, Schwarzenegger Has Been Hoodwinked
Much as I hate to admit it, those of us who believe that patients should control the dollars spent on their health care do not hold the high ground in California. Actually, I think only the Endangered Species Act keeps us alive! The real “struggle” is between those who want ...
