Medicare
California
Reforms Should Improve the Efficiency of the Pharmaceutical Market
The refrain that pharmaceuticals are driving the health care affordability problem has been repeated so often that it is becoming an illusory truth – people believe it to be true simply because they have heard it repeated so often. Obviously, repeating the same incorrect statement over and over again does ...
Wayne Winegarden
September 11, 2017
Commentary
How to Bring Down the Cost of Health Insurance Premiums, Guaranteed
Earlier this summer, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make medical malpractice suits less lucrative to plaintiffs and trial lawyers. The measure is part of House Republicans’ effort to tackle skyrocketing health costs. Such reforms are sorely needed. But Congress is the wrong forum for these changes. ...
Sally C. Pipes
September 7, 2017
Commentary
Here’s What Single-Payer Advocates Don’t Want You To Know
Single-payer is back on the docket in California. Late last month, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced that he’d formed a special committee “to develop plans for achieving universal health care in California.” Rendon has been under pressure from progressive activists all summer, ever since he shelved SB 562, a bill ...
Sally C. Pipes
September 5, 2017
Commentary
Medicare Is in Deep Trouble: Here’s How to Rescue It
Medicare’s trust fund will run out of money in just over 10 years, according to a new report from the program’s trustees. Once that happens, the federal government won’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover beneficiaries’ hospital bills. Congress could hike taxes to cover the shortfall. Or it could ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 23, 2017
California
Don’t let California prove how single-payer fails patients
Is single-payer health care dead in California? There were a lot of headlines to that effect in late June, after Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved the Healthy California Act, which would have abolished private insurance and established the state as the sole provider of health coverage in California. But advocates ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 20, 2017
Health Care
Obamacare Enrollment Program Signed Up a Fraction of Those Who Canceled Coverage in 2017
The Affordable Care Act Enrollment Assistance Program helped 14,500 individuals enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, which represented only 0.007 percent of the 1.9 million individuals who decided to drop their Obamacare plan in 2017. The Obama administration established the Enrollment Assistance Program, which created storefronts and hired workers to help ...
Ali Meyer
August 18, 2017
Commentary
Expansion Of Health Savings Accounts Can Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downwards
More than six in ten Republican voters want Congress to keep trying to repeal and replace ObamaCare, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Lawmakers won’t be able to do so in one fell swoop, given the Senate’s failure to agree on a comprehensive reform plan. But Republicans can ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 14, 2017
Commentary
Beware The Trojan Horses For Single-Payer Health Care
Republicans left Washington this month having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare. Many Democrats and their ideological allies are using the congressional recess to crow about the GOP’s defeat — and dream about replacing Obamacare with a bonafide single-payer system. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has promised to introduce a single-payer ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 14, 2017
California
California’s Single-Payer Bill Is Still Alive — And That’s A Shame
The Democrats’ dream of single-payer health care is alive and well in California — it’s just been temporarily deferred. In late June, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved SB 562, the Healthy California Act, until next year. If passed, the bill would abolish private insurance and force everyone — including ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 3, 2017
Commentary
Yes, We Should Block-Grant Medicaid
The Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act is effectively dead following the 57–43 no vote on July 25. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also did not have the votes to pass the Obamacare-repeal bill that Congress passed in 2015 but President Obama vetoed; it was rejected the next day, 55–45. That’s mainly ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 28, 2017
Reforms Should Improve the Efficiency of the Pharmaceutical Market
The refrain that pharmaceuticals are driving the health care affordability problem has been repeated so often that it is becoming an illusory truth – people believe it to be true simply because they have heard it repeated so often. Obviously, repeating the same incorrect statement over and over again does ...
How to Bring Down the Cost of Health Insurance Premiums, Guaranteed
Earlier this summer, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make medical malpractice suits less lucrative to plaintiffs and trial lawyers. The measure is part of House Republicans’ effort to tackle skyrocketing health costs. Such reforms are sorely needed. But Congress is the wrong forum for these changes. ...
Here’s What Single-Payer Advocates Don’t Want You To Know
Single-payer is back on the docket in California. Late last month, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced that he’d formed a special committee “to develop plans for achieving universal health care in California.” Rendon has been under pressure from progressive activists all summer, ever since he shelved SB 562, a bill ...
Medicare Is in Deep Trouble: Here’s How to Rescue It
Medicare’s trust fund will run out of money in just over 10 years, according to a new report from the program’s trustees. Once that happens, the federal government won’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover beneficiaries’ hospital bills. Congress could hike taxes to cover the shortfall. Or it could ...
Don’t let California prove how single-payer fails patients
Is single-payer health care dead in California? There were a lot of headlines to that effect in late June, after Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved the Healthy California Act, which would have abolished private insurance and established the state as the sole provider of health coverage in California. But advocates ...
Obamacare Enrollment Program Signed Up a Fraction of Those Who Canceled Coverage in 2017
The Affordable Care Act Enrollment Assistance Program helped 14,500 individuals enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, which represented only 0.007 percent of the 1.9 million individuals who decided to drop their Obamacare plan in 2017. The Obama administration established the Enrollment Assistance Program, which created storefronts and hired workers to help ...
Expansion Of Health Savings Accounts Can Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downwards
More than six in ten Republican voters want Congress to keep trying to repeal and replace ObamaCare, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Lawmakers won’t be able to do so in one fell swoop, given the Senate’s failure to agree on a comprehensive reform plan. But Republicans can ...
Beware The Trojan Horses For Single-Payer Health Care
Republicans left Washington this month having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare. Many Democrats and their ideological allies are using the congressional recess to crow about the GOP’s defeat — and dream about replacing Obamacare with a bonafide single-payer system. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has promised to introduce a single-payer ...
California’s Single-Payer Bill Is Still Alive — And That’s A Shame
The Democrats’ dream of single-payer health care is alive and well in California — it’s just been temporarily deferred. In late June, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved SB 562, the Healthy California Act, until next year. If passed, the bill would abolish private insurance and force everyone — including ...
Yes, We Should Block-Grant Medicaid
The Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act is effectively dead following the 57–43 no vote on July 25. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also did not have the votes to pass the Obamacare-repeal bill that Congress passed in 2015 but President Obama vetoed; it was rejected the next day, 55–45. That’s mainly ...