Health Care
Commentary
Over Regulating Health Insurance & The Law of Unintended Consequences
I have written quite a few times about California’s regulatory adventurism that has made it impossible for health insurers to assess and price health risks in the market for individual health insurance, despite the fact that it is legal to do so. (Although, the recently defeated California Health Care Deforminator, ...
Commentary
What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas
Even at the glacial pace of take-over activities in the post-credit meltdown deal economy, merger arbitrageurs speculating on the UnitedHealth-Sierra Health Services spread might be forgiven for dozing off at their trading terminals. Almost a year ago, on March 12, UnitedHealth Group (headquartered in Minneapolis), announced a friendly take-over of ...
Health Care
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1? Pharmaceutical Promotion in a Free Society
Suppose that American politicians decided that spending on roads and highways was “unsustainable.” How could they cut those costs? One tactic would be to pass laws banning automobile advertising. Governments would invest in research showing that automobile ads are inaccurate and confusing. Because car manufacturers are only interested in profits, ...
Commentary
1 bad health plan dies; another looms
A real alternative to government control would be a system driven by consumer choice The state Senate Health Committee voted overwhelmingly last month to trash the universal health care plan promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Supporters of the plan, known as ABX1 1, murmured about ...
Commentary
Think-tank forum weighs merits of health-care solutions
Tallahassee Democrat, February 8, 2008 Ideas about fixing the American health-care system, including market-based answers for providing services, were the focus Thursday at a forum on the campus of Florida State University. Sponsored by The James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee think tank, the event attracted speakers from across the country. ...
Agriculture
I’m fat, you’re fat and your kids probably are, too
If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink. Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. ...
Commentary
Massachusetts Health Reform: Rewriting History
On January 31, Shikha Dahlia of the Reason Foundation wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “Saying No to Coercive Care”. It was great to see someone from Reason Foundation have a swing at the piñata: after all, it was back in November 2004 that Ronald Bailey wrote a ...
Commentary
Thrills, Chills and Hospital Bills: Maybe They’re Not So Crazy After All
The other day, I examined the pointlessness of a class-action lawsuit ordering Scripps Health hospitals in San Diego to give post facto discounts to uninsured patients who had been charged “too much”, even though most of them had not paid their bills anyway! Today, we learn the overall payment to ...
Commentary
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
Commentary
Another CON Bites the Dust?
In some late-breaking news, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has proposed repealing the state’s certificate-of-need (CON) law for acute-care hospitals to “increase competition and efficiency in the healthcare marketplace,” according to a plan included in the governor’s fiscal 2009 budget. The proposal suggests licensing as an alternative to Florida’s CON law, ...
Over Regulating Health Insurance & The Law of Unintended Consequences
I have written quite a few times about California’s regulatory adventurism that has made it impossible for health insurers to assess and price health risks in the market for individual health insurance, despite the fact that it is legal to do so. (Although, the recently defeated California Health Care Deforminator, ...
What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas
Even at the glacial pace of take-over activities in the post-credit meltdown deal economy, merger arbitrageurs speculating on the UnitedHealth-Sierra Health Services spread might be forgiven for dozing off at their trading terminals. Almost a year ago, on March 12, UnitedHealth Group (headquartered in Minneapolis), announced a friendly take-over of ...
Is Dr. Robert Jarvik Public Health Enemy Number 1? Pharmaceutical Promotion in a Free Society
Suppose that American politicians decided that spending on roads and highways was “unsustainable.” How could they cut those costs? One tactic would be to pass laws banning automobile advertising. Governments would invest in research showing that automobile ads are inaccurate and confusing. Because car manufacturers are only interested in profits, ...
1 bad health plan dies; another looms
A real alternative to government control would be a system driven by consumer choice The state Senate Health Committee voted overwhelmingly last month to trash the universal health care plan promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Supporters of the plan, known as ABX1 1, murmured about ...
Think-tank forum weighs merits of health-care solutions
Tallahassee Democrat, February 8, 2008 Ideas about fixing the American health-care system, including market-based answers for providing services, were the focus Thursday at a forum on the campus of Florida State University. Sponsored by The James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee think tank, the event attracted speakers from across the country. ...
I’m fat, you’re fat and your kids probably are, too
If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink. Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. ...
Massachusetts Health Reform: Rewriting History
On January 31, Shikha Dahlia of the Reason Foundation wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “Saying No to Coercive Care”. It was great to see someone from Reason Foundation have a swing at the piñata: after all, it was back in November 2004 that Ronald Bailey wrote a ...
Thrills, Chills and Hospital Bills: Maybe They’re Not So Crazy After All
The other day, I examined the pointlessness of a class-action lawsuit ordering Scripps Health hospitals in San Diego to give post facto discounts to uninsured patients who had been charged “too much”, even though most of them had not paid their bills anyway! Today, we learn the overall payment to ...
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
Another CON Bites the Dust?
In some late-breaking news, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has proposed repealing the state’s certificate-of-need (CON) law for acute-care hospitals to “increase competition and efficiency in the healthcare marketplace,” according to a plan included in the governor’s fiscal 2009 budget. The proposal suggests licensing as an alternative to Florida’s CON law, ...
