John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis has an excellent column abut health care innovation. He summarizes:
Wherever there is third-party payment [insurance, a health plan, Medicare, Medicaid], the goal of innovation is to produce more products that qualify for reimbursement, even if the effects on patient ...
Note: This post is not about the proper legal status of abortion or whether it is moral. It's about medical care costs and how patients pay for it. Readers can appreciate the content of this post regardless of their position on legal abortion.
Politicians like to talk about how to keep ...
Jay Parkinson, M.D. writes:
If we really want to find out how to damn near perfectly manage any medical problem as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, we should be studying how doctors manage the medical problems of the cash-paying doctors they see in their own ...
From the Texas Policy Foundation:
State governments will face many new challenges and responsibilities under the recently passed federal health care legislation - one of the first being the creation of a state health insurance exchange. Massachusetts' state-subsidized exchange was the model for President Obama's plan, and the Bay State is ...
Instead of more political meddling in insurance markets like guaranteed issue and community rating, the following free-market-oriented reforms would help alleviate the problems with pre-existing conditions. From John Goodman at the Health Affairs Blog:
Encourage Portable Insurance.
Allow Special Health Savings Accounts for the Chronically Ill.
Allow Special Needs Health Insurance.
Allow Health ...
Last week I noted that President Obama does not know what health insurance is, and decries real insurance while praising prepaid health plans masquerading as insurance. I also posted about how ObamaCare, HR 3590, threatens real insurance policies, that is, HSA-qualified plans. Maybe the President should listen to one of ...
From Ari Armstrong:
Despite enactment of the Democratic health law, one reform Republicans and market advocates should fight to keep alive is the Health Savings Account (HSA), which allows people to put pre-tax money into an account dedicated to health-related expenses.
Experiences my wife and I have had this ...
I just sent the following e-mail to Janet Adamy, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal:
Dear Ms. Adamy,
You've mentioned that under Senate BIll 3590 would "Insurance companies would no longer be able to cancel enrollees' policies because they got sick." Yet, I have read that this has been ...
The president and CEO of Land O'Lakes says:
Offering consumer-driven health plans to Land O’Lakes employees is helping to keep health care costs in check, while maintaining or improving care quality. For Land O’Lakes, this approach supports our commitment to employees, while at the same time ensuring that we remain highly ...
The Wall Street Journal editorial board explains how so-called insurance exchanges of the House and Senate health care bills are government-run insurance:
Both bills [House and Senate] blow up the individual and small-business insurance markets, to be replaced with new "exchanges" in which people can buy heavily subsidized coverage and insurers ...
