Health Care Innovation

Republicans in Congress are moving forward with a new bill that would enable veterans to seek medical care outside the Veterans Health Administration. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act earlier this month. The measure has already attracted the support of more than a dozen GOP ...

When lawmakers feel they have no boundaries, as is the case in California, ideas that would have little to no chance elsewhere not only get a hearing, but become law. This explains how the mere thought of hiking the minimum wage for health care workers and support staff to $25 ...

There’s an old proverb—everything old is new again. That is certainly true for healthcare policy. Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2023, the single-payer health plan the Vermont socialist has been pushing for years. President Biden will surely dust off his old proposal for a ...

Patients in several states could soon find it easier to access life-saving medical care, if state legislators and executive officials eliminate so-called certificate-of-need restrictions for new acute-care hospitals in rural areas. Certificate-of-need laws require health care providers to get a state government’s sign-off before building new facilities, expanding existing ones, ...

Politicians don’t agree on much these days, but one thing seems to bring even Democrats and Republicans together. And that’s refusing to cut Medicare. That position may be politically popular. But it’s at odds with the long-term sustainability of the program. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund is set to go bankrupt ...

America is facing a chronic doctor shortage. Solving that problem will require not just more doctors but a much bigger role for advanced-practice nurses in our healthcare system. A 2021 report found that the United States will need nearly as many as 48,000 more primary care doctors by 2034 to ...

The spending cuts included in the bill House Republicans passed in late April to raise the debt ceiling have Democrats up in arms. But federal spending has soared. It’s now 5 percentage points higher as a share of GDP than the average since 1960. As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy quipped this week, “Is it ...

The Biden administration is cracking down on hospitals that keep their prices secret. Under a policy announced last week, failing to abide by Trump-era hospital price transparency rules will no longer prompt a warning letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Instead, hospitals will have 45 days to ...

Misinformation is killing Americans. At least, that’s what one of America’s top public health officials says. Speaking to CNBC in April, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said misinformation is part of the reason Americans have lower life expectancies than people in other wealthy nations. The FDA chief is hardly ...