Health Care

Abstract: The U.S. Senate's much-discussed Christmas Eve vote on health care reform has not received the attention it deserves on certain crucial details concerning the replacement of the so-called public option with a new federal contracting authority. In fact, the Yuletide bill is… Read more

Abstract: If implemented as enacted, Obamacare will impose significant new Medicaid costs on states and constitute a major federal usurpation of long-standing state authority in regulating private insurance. This will be expensive and disruptive for those Americans who rely on individual or employer-based insurance… Read more

No class of American professionals will be more negatively impacted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act than physicians. Third-party payment arrangements already compromise the independence and integrity of the medical profession; Obamacare will reinforce the worst of these features.… Read more

According to surveys, no group of Americans is more skeptical of Obamacare than senior citizens[1]—and with good reason. While bits and pieces of the massive law are designed to appeal to seniors—more taxpayer subsidies for the Medicare drug benefit, for example—much of the financing… Read more

Of the many ways that are available to tackle the question of what we all need to learn from Canada's 30-year love affair with the government monopoly, single-payer health care system that we in Canada call " Medicare," I think the model of that great health care analyst and public… Read more

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Abstract: Obamacare is on the march, and state policymakers must decide by 2014 how they will respond to this encroachment on states’ rights to control their own health insurance markets. The state of Utah has been on the reform path since 2005. With its system of defined contributions (as… Read more

Abstract: Obamacare is on the march, and state policymakers must decide by 2014 how they will respond to this encroachment on states’ rights to control their own health insurance markets. The state of Utah has been on the reform path since 2005. With its system of defined contributions (as… Read more

Over the past six years, Congress has twice passed and two Presidents have signed into law major legislation affecting Medicare. President Bush signed the bill creating a new drug benefit that provided an important modernization for the program yet also significantly worsened its finances. President Obama signed “Obamacare” into law,… Read more

Abstract: Americans who receive health insurance through their jobs generally have little flexibility: 86 percent of employers in the country offer only one plan. This system of “defined benefits” has worked well for expanding group coverage, but severely limits options for individuals, and has… Read more

Abstract: The Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) program is an actuarially unsound and fiscally irresponsible misadventure by Congress. Congress should never have enacted this new government-run long-term care insurance program. It places CLASS participants at risk of benefit cuts and American taxpayers… Read more

Abstract: Proponents of Obamacare claim that it will simultaneously provide millions of Americans with health insurance and reduce the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet Obamacare’s proclaimed budgetary discipline rests on unlikely assumptions and budget gimmicks—none worse than the CLASS Act,… Read more

Abstract: In 2006, the Dutch government implemented a universal insurance mandate. Many American policymakers are looking to the Dutch experiment as a model to fix America’s complex and costly health care system. But the Dutch reforms have not caused individual consumers to seek value,… Read more

Many states are lobbying the Senate to extend the Medicaid bailout enacted in the February 2009 stimulus bill. While several attempts by Senate leaders to extend the bailout—passed by the House—have failed, it is likely to be brought to the floor again. The Center on Budget and… Read more

Abstract: If implemented as enacted, Obamacare will impose significant new Medicaid costs on states and constitute a major federal usurpation of long-standing state authority in regulating private insurance. This will be expensive and disruptive for those Americans who rely on individual or employer-based insurance… Read more

Our Country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800 … Read more

Abstract: Based on Washington’s record of health policymaking, ending or rolling back Obamacare is anything but implausible. Now that President Barack Obama has signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, much of the focus of… Read more