Medicare
Commentary
Obamacare’s ACOs punish hospitals for quality care
Obamacare promised to cut Medicare’s costs by coordinating care among doctors. But the first effort to do so – Obamacare’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations – lost $2.6 million. Now, the administration is trying a “new and improved” version – so-called Next Generation ACOs. Maine’s Beacon Health Network is participating. But ...
Commentary
Health laws’ cost-cutting and patient care priorities
The Affordable Care Act promised to cut Medicare’s costs by encouraging doctors to coordinate care — and thus eliminate waste and duplication. So far, it’s backfiring. The White House claimed that its first efforts to get doctors to coordinate care — the Shared Savings Program and Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations ...
Commentary
Single-payer collides with reality
It’s a two-horse race for the Democratic nomination for president. This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) came within 0.2 percentage points of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses. Sanders zealots are “feeling the Bern” in large part because of his healthcare plan. “I believe in a Medicare for all ...
Commentary
Obamacare Enrollment Has Tapped Out
Obamacare’s third open enrollment period ends in a few days. The White House insists that it’s been an unequivocal success. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, the exchanges have seen “unprecedented demand” for coverage and “steady progress signing up new customers.” Andy Slavitt, head of the Centers ...
Commentary
The Ugly Reality of Single-Payer
Late Sunday night, just hours before the fourth Democratic presidential debate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled what’s probably the purest expression to date of his unreconstructed 1970s radicalism: a plan for “universal” single-payer health care in the United States. Proudly titled “Medicare-for-All,” the Sanders scheme would eliminate the private insurance ...
Commentary
Socialized medicine a global failure
Single-payer health care is back in the news. Activists in Colorado just secured enough signatures to put single-payer on the state ballot next fall. Last month, a state legislator from Philadelphia introduced legislation that would, if passed, install single-payer in Pennsylvania. And then there’s Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Bernie ...
Commentary
Obamacare Bloats U.S. Healthcare System
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a developed-country think tank, released its latest estimates of how much the rich world spends on health care. Yet again, the United States took the top spot. Our nation spends $8,713 per person on health care — more than double the ...
Commentary
Clinton would drive up health care costs
Five years and nine months after its passage, the federal government has issued more than 10,000 pages of regulations related to the implementation of Obamacare. Get ready for several thousand more pages if Hillary Clinton takes the White House. She’s proposing a raft of new government mandates to “protect the ...
Business & Economics
Increasing Benefits Without Reducing Jobs
Thought leaders on the left believe we can save federal government dollars by making employers pay more to their employees. Ralph Nader’s recent blog on the Huffington Post cites a Center for American Progress study that welfare rolls would drop by 6 percent if a minimum wage of $10.10 were ...
Commentary
Pharmaceutical Price Controls Risk Future Cures
Recent reports of significant price increases for certain medications have ignited, yet again, calls for pharmaceutical price controls. If implemented, price controls will reduce medical discovery and diminish patients’ access to life saving medicines. Pharmaceutical innovations help patients and strengthen the U.S. economy Pharmaceutical innovations are improving the quality of ...
Obamacare’s ACOs punish hospitals for quality care
Obamacare promised to cut Medicare’s costs by coordinating care among doctors. But the first effort to do so – Obamacare’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations – lost $2.6 million. Now, the administration is trying a “new and improved” version – so-called Next Generation ACOs. Maine’s Beacon Health Network is participating. But ...
Health laws’ cost-cutting and patient care priorities
The Affordable Care Act promised to cut Medicare’s costs by encouraging doctors to coordinate care — and thus eliminate waste and duplication. So far, it’s backfiring. The White House claimed that its first efforts to get doctors to coordinate care — the Shared Savings Program and Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations ...
Single-payer collides with reality
It’s a two-horse race for the Democratic nomination for president. This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) came within 0.2 percentage points of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses. Sanders zealots are “feeling the Bern” in large part because of his healthcare plan. “I believe in a Medicare for all ...
Obamacare Enrollment Has Tapped Out
Obamacare’s third open enrollment period ends in a few days. The White House insists that it’s been an unequivocal success. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, the exchanges have seen “unprecedented demand” for coverage and “steady progress signing up new customers.” Andy Slavitt, head of the Centers ...
The Ugly Reality of Single-Payer
Late Sunday night, just hours before the fourth Democratic presidential debate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled what’s probably the purest expression to date of his unreconstructed 1970s radicalism: a plan for “universal” single-payer health care in the United States. Proudly titled “Medicare-for-All,” the Sanders scheme would eliminate the private insurance ...
Socialized medicine a global failure
Single-payer health care is back in the news. Activists in Colorado just secured enough signatures to put single-payer on the state ballot next fall. Last month, a state legislator from Philadelphia introduced legislation that would, if passed, install single-payer in Pennsylvania. And then there’s Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Bernie ...
Obamacare Bloats U.S. Healthcare System
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a developed-country think tank, released its latest estimates of how much the rich world spends on health care. Yet again, the United States took the top spot. Our nation spends $8,713 per person on health care — more than double the ...
Clinton would drive up health care costs
Five years and nine months after its passage, the federal government has issued more than 10,000 pages of regulations related to the implementation of Obamacare. Get ready for several thousand more pages if Hillary Clinton takes the White House. She’s proposing a raft of new government mandates to “protect the ...
Increasing Benefits Without Reducing Jobs
Thought leaders on the left believe we can save federal government dollars by making employers pay more to their employees. Ralph Nader’s recent blog on the Huffington Post cites a Center for American Progress study that welfare rolls would drop by 6 percent if a minimum wage of $10.10 were ...
Pharmaceutical Price Controls Risk Future Cures
Recent reports of significant price increases for certain medications have ignited, yet again, calls for pharmaceutical price controls. If implemented, price controls will reduce medical discovery and diminish patients’ access to life saving medicines. Pharmaceutical innovations help patients and strengthen the U.S. economy Pharmaceutical innovations are improving the quality of ...
