Medicare
Commentary
Nobody wins when bureaucrats make health care decisions instead of patients
What is called “health insurance” in the U.S. is not insurance. People buy insurance to protect themselves against unlikely but costly risks, like having a car accident. The purpose of purchasing automobile insurance is not to pay for routine maintenance costs; the purpose is to pay the huge costs that ...
Commentary
ObamaCare Making Doctor Shortage Crisis Even Worse
America’s doctor shortage is quickly becoming a crisis. No less than 14 states have introduced legislation or created new programs to deal with the problem. The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that the country is currently short 20,000 doctors. Over the next decade, that number could quintuple. And ObamaCare ...
Commentary
Is Obamacare paving the way for single-payer system?
Suffering from illness or injury? Good thing youre not British. U.K. police recently investigated the deaths of 300 patients at one hospital. The suspected cause? Neglect. No wonder average waiting times for accident and emergency patients have hit a nine-year high. That could never happen in America, right? On ...
Commentary
Hospital Networks Reject Obamacare Initiative
Nine major hospital networks just decided they’d had enough of being “Pioneers” for ObamaCare. They withdrew from the health reform law’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, which launched in January 2012 with 32 health systems participating. These ACOs are supposed to integrate doctors, hospitals and other providers into one ...
Commentary
Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downward By Letting Healthcare Costs Rise
Earlier this year, a team of researchers in Europe decided to examine the relationship between cutting-edge technology and healthcare costs. Some wonks complain that expensive new medical technologies and therapies some of which deliver only marginal improvements to patient health are key drivers of health spending. But when ...
Commentary
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
Commentary
Treating Alzheimer’s with regulations
Bureaucracy stands in the way of the best treatment The U.S. health care system is rife with rising costs and stagnating quality. All too often, the cure for these ailments calls for ever greater government intervention. Such cures misdiagnose the problem. The health care systems problems are caused by too ...
Commentary
Big Pharma Accomplishes Big Things, Yet Obama Is Suffocating The Industry
Whats the most research-intensive industry in America? If you guessed Silicon Valley or the energy sector, guess again. In fact, its the drug industry. The 31 pharmaceutical companies comprising its main trade group spent $48.5 billion on research and development last year. All told, the pharmaceutical sector has spent $550 ...
Commentary
Obamacare To Slash Hundreds Of Billions From Medicare Advantage Over Next 10 Years
Earlier this month, officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that theyd increase payments in the market-based Medicare Advantage program by 3.3 percent next year. The decision is remarkable, as CMS hinted just two months ago that it would reduce payments by 2.2 percent in 2014. The ...
Commentary
Fed Up With Obamacare, Doctors Increasingly Prefer Cash For Care
Obamacares most intrusive changes to the healthcare marketplace including the individual mandate whereby Americans must secure health insurance or pay a fine and its massive expansion of Medicaid are less than a year from taking effect. Many doctors have decided that theyre not interested in seeing how those ...
Nobody wins when bureaucrats make health care decisions instead of patients
What is called “health insurance” in the U.S. is not insurance. People buy insurance to protect themselves against unlikely but costly risks, like having a car accident. The purpose of purchasing automobile insurance is not to pay for routine maintenance costs; the purpose is to pay the huge costs that ...
ObamaCare Making Doctor Shortage Crisis Even Worse
America’s doctor shortage is quickly becoming a crisis. No less than 14 states have introduced legislation or created new programs to deal with the problem. The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that the country is currently short 20,000 doctors. Over the next decade, that number could quintuple. And ObamaCare ...
Is Obamacare paving the way for single-payer system?
Suffering from illness or injury? Good thing youre not British. U.K. police recently investigated the deaths of 300 patients at one hospital. The suspected cause? Neglect. No wonder average waiting times for accident and emergency patients have hit a nine-year high. That could never happen in America, right? On ...
Hospital Networks Reject Obamacare Initiative
Nine major hospital networks just decided they’d had enough of being “Pioneers” for ObamaCare. They withdrew from the health reform law’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, which launched in January 2012 with 32 health systems participating. These ACOs are supposed to integrate doctors, hospitals and other providers into one ...
Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve Downward By Letting Healthcare Costs Rise
Earlier this year, a team of researchers in Europe decided to examine the relationship between cutting-edge technology and healthcare costs. Some wonks complain that expensive new medical technologies and therapies some of which deliver only marginal improvements to patient health are key drivers of health spending. But when ...
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
Treating Alzheimer’s with regulations
Bureaucracy stands in the way of the best treatment The U.S. health care system is rife with rising costs and stagnating quality. All too often, the cure for these ailments calls for ever greater government intervention. Such cures misdiagnose the problem. The health care systems problems are caused by too ...
Big Pharma Accomplishes Big Things, Yet Obama Is Suffocating The Industry
Whats the most research-intensive industry in America? If you guessed Silicon Valley or the energy sector, guess again. In fact, its the drug industry. The 31 pharmaceutical companies comprising its main trade group spent $48.5 billion on research and development last year. All told, the pharmaceutical sector has spent $550 ...
Obamacare To Slash Hundreds Of Billions From Medicare Advantage Over Next 10 Years
Earlier this month, officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that theyd increase payments in the market-based Medicare Advantage program by 3.3 percent next year. The decision is remarkable, as CMS hinted just two months ago that it would reduce payments by 2.2 percent in 2014. The ...
Fed Up With Obamacare, Doctors Increasingly Prefer Cash For Care
Obamacares most intrusive changes to the healthcare marketplace including the individual mandate whereby Americans must secure health insurance or pay a fine and its massive expansion of Medicaid are less than a year from taking effect. Many doctors have decided that theyre not interested in seeing how those ...
