Jane Norton on health care

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

If you're looking for the latest drama in Colorado politics, or a accusations that Jane Norton is a liar, you have the wrong post.  This post is about what Norton says about health care policy. Jane Norton is seeking the Republican Party's nomination to run for U.S. Senate this Fall. The ...

More Colorado employers are offering HSAs

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

The Denver Business Journal reports: Twenty-seven percent of Colorado and Wyoming employers surveyed by MSEC recently said they now offer Health Spending Accounts as an option for their employee benefit plans, up from 21 percent in 2009, 18 percent in 2008, 15 percent in 2007 and 7 percent ...

HSAs for state employees: empower patients, trim budgets

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

High-deductible insurance policies combined with health savings accounts have been a success story in terms of keeping premiums in check, encouraging prudent consumption of health care, and allowing patients to save for future medical expenses. The Texas Policy Foundation reports that States with the HDHP/HSA option currently in place include: Arkansas, ...

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

From David Hogberg in Investors Business Daily: ...It is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose [with health "reform" passed]. Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians ...

Dems exempt unions from insurance tax

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Michael Tanner at Cato summarizes: Congressional Democrats received another $68 million from unions in 2008, and $21 million more so far this year. And that doesn't count the value of "in kind" contributions like phone banks, poll volunteers and independent advertising. Looks like the unions are getting their money's worth — with ...

Why to condemn insurance companies

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Is the for-profit insurance industry a "predator" that "prevent[s] us from having a decent health care system"?  Letter writer Bruce Robinson says so (Daily Camera, December 1). He's partially right. The real predators are politicians who inhibit needed health policy reform.  But insurers are guilty for concealing how they benefit ...

One more victim of Medicaid and employer-based insurance

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

John R. Graham of the Pacific Research Institute offers a great critique of Nicholas D. Kristof's recent New York Times column.  Kristof relates a distressing story about a John Brodniak, who lost his job due to illness, exhausted his COBRA benefits, and ended up on Medicaid.   Yet, Kristof reaches an ...

Harvard Medical School Dean: Health “reform” a failure

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Some choice words from Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard's Medical School.  Some excerpts from his Wall Street Journal article: Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for ...

Why health insurance companies are bad

Monday, August 17th, 2009

You often hear animosity for insurance companies from the Left.  That is, those who want more government control of medical insurance. Yet, those who want less government should advocate repealing laws that coddle insurance companies at the expense of patients. As I wrote last week, insurance companies could gain so ...

How insurance companies can gain credibility

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Insurance companies are unpopular, so they don't get much sympathy when arguing that the "public option" is unfair competition.  The insurance industry should come clean by admitting how much the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance coddles them, which gives them an unfair competitive advantage. It shields insurance companies from competition ...