Health Care

America's emergency rooms are in crisis. Emergency medicine encompasses the care of patients with traumatic injuries or serious signs and symptoms of disease. Quick evaluation and rapid treatment of these patients obviously cannot be done on an "elective" basis. These services are invariably provided under the auspices of a hospital and are available to patients 24… Read more

The Senate will soon debate Medicare drug price "negotiation," or repeal of the "non-interference" clause of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which prevents government interference in the negotiations between drug companies and the private plans that market drug benefits in Medicare. During the recent House debate on price negotiation, several Members cited the experience of… Read more

The 5.1 percent reduction in Medicare payments scheduled to begin in January 2007 could lead many physicians to stop accepting new Medicare patients, to defer investments in new equipment and technol­ogy, or both. These problems are merely symptoms of a deeper pathology within Medicare and highlight the need… Read more

PART I: Calculating the Base Year (2005) We followed these steps in developing our base year estimates: We calculated the average consumer expenditure (in dollars/year) on tobacco products (aggregate, which includes cigarettes, cigars, smokeless, etc.) for the typical consumer unit in each socioeconomic category (all, age,… Read more

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), jointly financed by the federal and state governments but administered by the states, should focus on transitioning eligible lower-income children into private, family coverage. Unfortunately, the current structure of SCHIP displaces private coverage instead of strengthening it. In the upcoming reauthorization of… Read more

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is up for extension, and Congress threatens to more than double the program, to be financed in part by higher taxes. This would raises taxes even further above the modern historical average, add even more spending to the federal government's already unaffordable health care obligations, and take another… Read more

America's history of organizing health insurance coverage on a group basis through large employers leads many to view pooling as the solution to the lack of coverage often experienced by small business employees. If enough small businesses can be aggregated together into a pool, their logic goes, the… Read more

Congress is debating the future health care of millions of Americans, and its decisions will affect families and children, Medicare beneficiaries, and taxpayers for years to come. The 465-page bill favored by House leadership, The Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act (H.R. 3162), greatly expands dependency of millions of… Read more

State legislators are increasingly focused on health care reform. Escalating health care costs, state deficits, rising numbers of uninsured, and federal inaction have forced them to take up the challenge of changing state law, restructuring flawed state health insurance markets, and overhauling existing health care financing and delivery. This… Read more

The final disposition of the unpopular Senate health care bill in the House of Representatives does not end the national debate on the future of American health care.[1]… Read more

Abstract: Americans want health care reform--but they do not want compulsive mandates imposed by Congress and the Administration. Private citizens and state legislators across the country, from both sides of the aisle, are… Read more

This week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) and the House leadership are working feverishly to enact H.R. 3590, the highly unpopular Senate health bill. It includes new middle-class taxes and government spending, bunches of federal boards and bureaucracies, mandates and penalties, an entitlement expansion, and unprecedented… Read more

President Obama has put forward another variant of health care reform whose foundation is H.R. 3590. Nearly a year after the President launched the health reform process with a White House summit, public opinion has moved even more strongly in the direction of keeping longstanding prohibitions on federal… Read more

Abstract: America's health care system is in need of change, but not change that consists of overhauling one-sixth of America's economy by centralizing health care decisions in Washington. The cornerstone provisions of the House and Senate bills, along with the President's recent recommendations, would put more power… Read more

President Barack Obama released an updated health care reform plan this week. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not yet had an opportunity to review and assess this latest offering. However, Administration officials have claimed that it would cost $950 billion over a decade, is “fully paid for,” and would… Read more

Abstract: Contrary to their stated intent, the health care reform bills passed by the House and Senate would substantially increase health care spending if either became law. Based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what drives health care spending, these bills exacerbate many of the inefficiencies in the… Read more

Abstract: Both of the current House and Senate health care bills disproportionately burden younger, healthier Americans with higher insurance premiums. To ensure that these young people buy health insurance anyway, Congress has decided to nudge them into purchasing insurance by enforcing a penalty… Read more

The Senate health care bill passed on December 24 does not contain an explicit “public option.” It does, however, still include provisions that could put private health plans out of business. Specially, the bill would: Give federal regulators… Read more