Category Archives: Medicaid/Medicare/SCHIP

PolitiFact’s “lie of the year” once again not a lie

PolitiFact’s past three Lies of the Year have been about health care. Not one of them was a lie. … Moreover, even if these three statements were false, the speakers believed them to be true. Therefore, they cannot be lies. Every single Lie of the Year award has gotten that basic fact wrong. Continue reading

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Medicare price controls and rationing

On Stossel, Peter Suderman and Scott Gottlieb discuss how to fix Medicare. Gottlieb discusses Medicare’s price controls such that physicians get paid the same regardless of their quality, and that insurers mimic the system. He says government authorities will tighten control over doctors, control what care they can provide. Suderman discusses the point of his article, Medicare Whac-A-Mole Why health care price controls always fail. Continue reading

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The Collectivist Mind: the left’s double standard for government & private health plans

Health care collectivists tolerate policies of Medicaid that they would respond to with outrage if a (nominally) private health plan had the same policy. Continue reading

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Improving Medicaid with block grants & consumer-directed health care

If Medicaid were turned into a block grant program in which the federal government gave each state a set amount of money, it could improve patient care, restrain the growth in costs, reduce complexity and improve outcomes. Continue reading

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Why Medicare & Medicaid fraud dwarfs commercial endevours

” Politicians are spending other people’s money, so their incentive to prevent fraud is far less. Therefore, fraud will always be higher in government programs than in similar market endeavors.” Continue reading

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Fallacy watch: containing health care spending vs. health care costs

Don’t confuse controlling health care costs with controlling spending. A government health plan can contain spending by refusing to pay for life-saving treatments, but this would impose great costs. Continue reading

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Feds slam Colorado Medicaid for lax procedures, practices

Colorado Medicaid’s sloppy administration puts its federal funding in peril: delays in eligibility notification, not documenting legal citizenship, wrongfully terminating Medicaid beneficiaries’ claims, improper notification of coverage decisions. Continue reading

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Colorado underestimates Medicaid cost, scales back program

Colorado Medicaid grossly underestimates costs of expanded eligibility, & limits eligibility to the program. The underestimate shouldn’t surprise anyone – it’s typical of government estimates. Continue reading

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Poverty, equality, and the free-market

“If left wing political theory is true, we should expect to see huge inequalities in the ownership of goods sold in the market, but fairly equal consumption in health care & education. But there’s the irony. The exact opposite of this prediction has been borne out!’ Continue reading

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If Social Security were run like Medicare

Those who oppose changing Medicare into a voucher program for “private” insurance should support running Social Security like today’s Medicare: authorities would assign housing to seniors and “pick up government-approved groceries for little or no money.” Continue reading

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