Government does not have patients. It has interest groups, a crucial distinction that yields important implications for the design and operation of such government benefit programs as Medicare and Medicaid.
Less than a month remains before the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, popularly known as the Supercommittee, must submit a bill to Congress that will cut the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion in ten years. Read more
As Texas governor Rick Perry makes a splash in the Republican presidential primaries, one place where people are looking for evidence of poor executive leadership is his record on health care. Fellow conservatives have focused on his 2007 executive order that girls entering grade 6 should receive a vaccine, Gardasil™, which protects against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Read more
In a recent article, I reported and discussed the lackluster - basically non-existent - results of the Utah Health Exchange. As a critic has pointed out, I used to be much more accomodating of the Utah exchange. However, Utah's experience demonstrates why unsubsidized exchanges are unlikely to attract significant numbers of beneficiaries from the small-group market.
A few days ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the first raft of regulations purporting to govern Health Benefits Exchanges and Small-Business Health Options (SHOP) Exchanges established in the March 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Read more
Perhaps the most dispiriting occurrence during the debate over health reform in 2009 and 2010 was the eagerness with which many business interests in the health sector embraced the federal government takeover of Americans’ access to health care. Read more
he Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a new bureaucracy established by Obamacare that will limit Medicare beneficiaries’ access to certain medical goods and services—especially new prescription drugs. Read more
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