Commentary
Commentary
Coronavirus could break ‘Medicare-for-all’ — single-payer systems struggle with outbreaks
On Jan. 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the head of the president’s Task Force on the Novel Coronavirus, declared a public health emergency in response to the global outbreak of the pathogen. The coronavirus has claimed more than 900 lives around the world so far, including that of Dr. ...
California
The Warm California Sun Needs to Shine in The Dark Corners of Government Operations
Gov. Gavin Newsom promised greater transparency in California government. Jerry Brown was elected secretary of state 50 years ago on a transparency platform. While serving one of his terms in what nearly turned out to be a “governor-for-life” political career, Brown said he was “committed to keeping state government open ...
Commentary
Gavin Newsom’s single-payer commission is doomed to fail
Last week, Gavin Newsom’s Healthy California for All Commission convened for the first time. The commission has been tasked with figuring out how to install a single-payer healthcare system statewide. The commission’s 13 voting and five non-voting members represent a who’s-who of big-government academics, union leaders, and public health officials. ...
Commentary
American health care needs more competition, not less, to bring down prices
Here’s a newsflash: when businesses don’t need to compete for customers, they tend to raise prices. Yet the progressive remedy to perpetually escalating health-care costs is not to increase competition — it’s to eliminate it completely and put the government in charge of health care, via Medicare for All. There’s ample ...
Commentary
What I’d tell California’s single-payer commission
On Jan. 27, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new commission exploring the viability of bringing government-run, single-payer health care to the Golden State met for the first time. As a California-based health care scholar who’s studied single-payer for more than 30 years, I hoped Newsom would ask me to join the business leaders, medical ...
Commentary
States Should Not Resurrect The Individual Mandate
Several states have resurrected the most-hated part of Obamacare—the individual mandate. Residents of California, Rhode Island, and Vermont must secure health insurance or pay a fine as of the beginning of this year. New Jersey and the District of Columbia implemented their mandates in January 2019. And Massachusetts’s state-level mandate has been in force since 2006. These mandates will fail to ...
Commentary
While Americans pine for ‘Medicare for all,’ Canadians look for US-style private insurance
About 56% of people in the United States favor “Medicare for all,” according to polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation out last week. That’s an increase of 3 percentage points from last November. That majority would be wise to take a look across our northern border. Waits for care in Canada’s government-run health ...
Commentary
Pelosi’s Drug Price Controls Are Dangerous—But So Are Trump’s
The White House Council of Economic Advisors just issued a damning indictment of a House bill (H.R. 3) designed to lower drug prices. According to White House economists, the measure endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and her fellow House Democrats could prevent the development of 100 new drugs over the next ten years. ...
Commentary
China Catches Cold from the Wuhan Coronavirus—and the World Sneezes.
The outbreak of infections from a novel virus that appears to have originated in Central China has elicited a storm of commentary, much of it uninformed. Opinions have ranged from predictions of a worldwide apocalypse to dismissal of quarantines and “social distancing” as a kind of public relations stunt by ...
Commentary
Warren’s Medicare for All isn’t affordable for anyone
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has released her new road map for Medicare for All. She’s proposing a series of executive actions and bills that would transition the country to a government-run health system during her first term in the White House. Sen. Warren claims her brand of Medicare for All, once fully in place, would require $20.5 ...
Coronavirus could break ‘Medicare-for-all’ — single-payer systems struggle with outbreaks
On Jan. 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the head of the president’s Task Force on the Novel Coronavirus, declared a public health emergency in response to the global outbreak of the pathogen. The coronavirus has claimed more than 900 lives around the world so far, including that of Dr. ...
The Warm California Sun Needs to Shine in The Dark Corners of Government Operations
Gov. Gavin Newsom promised greater transparency in California government. Jerry Brown was elected secretary of state 50 years ago on a transparency platform. While serving one of his terms in what nearly turned out to be a “governor-for-life” political career, Brown said he was “committed to keeping state government open ...
Gavin Newsom’s single-payer commission is doomed to fail
Last week, Gavin Newsom’s Healthy California for All Commission convened for the first time. The commission has been tasked with figuring out how to install a single-payer healthcare system statewide. The commission’s 13 voting and five non-voting members represent a who’s-who of big-government academics, union leaders, and public health officials. ...
American health care needs more competition, not less, to bring down prices
Here’s a newsflash: when businesses don’t need to compete for customers, they tend to raise prices. Yet the progressive remedy to perpetually escalating health-care costs is not to increase competition — it’s to eliminate it completely and put the government in charge of health care, via Medicare for All. There’s ample ...
What I’d tell California’s single-payer commission
On Jan. 27, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new commission exploring the viability of bringing government-run, single-payer health care to the Golden State met for the first time. As a California-based health care scholar who’s studied single-payer for more than 30 years, I hoped Newsom would ask me to join the business leaders, medical ...
States Should Not Resurrect The Individual Mandate
Several states have resurrected the most-hated part of Obamacare—the individual mandate. Residents of California, Rhode Island, and Vermont must secure health insurance or pay a fine as of the beginning of this year. New Jersey and the District of Columbia implemented their mandates in January 2019. And Massachusetts’s state-level mandate has been in force since 2006. These mandates will fail to ...
While Americans pine for ‘Medicare for all,’ Canadians look for US-style private insurance
About 56% of people in the United States favor “Medicare for all,” according to polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation out last week. That’s an increase of 3 percentage points from last November. That majority would be wise to take a look across our northern border. Waits for care in Canada’s government-run health ...
Pelosi’s Drug Price Controls Are Dangerous—But So Are Trump’s
The White House Council of Economic Advisors just issued a damning indictment of a House bill (H.R. 3) designed to lower drug prices. According to White House economists, the measure endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and her fellow House Democrats could prevent the development of 100 new drugs over the next ten years. ...
China Catches Cold from the Wuhan Coronavirus—and the World Sneezes.
The outbreak of infections from a novel virus that appears to have originated in Central China has elicited a storm of commentary, much of it uninformed. Opinions have ranged from predictions of a worldwide apocalypse to dismissal of quarantines and “social distancing” as a kind of public relations stunt by ...
Warren’s Medicare for All isn’t affordable for anyone
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has released her new road map for Medicare for All. She’s proposing a series of executive actions and bills that would transition the country to a government-run health system during her first term in the White House. Sen. Warren claims her brand of Medicare for All, once fully in place, would require $20.5 ...
