Health Care

America's health care financing and insurance systems need major reform. Policymakers should take decisive steps to move today's bureaucracy driven, heavily regulated third-party payment system to a new patient-centered system of consumer choice and real free-market competition. In such a system, individuals and families would make the key decisions and control the dollars.

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  • Backgrounder posted December 28, 2007 by John O'Shea, M.D. The Crisis in America's Emergency Rooms and What Can Be Done

    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

  • WebMemo posted April 11, 2007 by Greg D'Angelo The VA Drug Pricing Model: What Senators Should Know

    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

  • Play Movie Nina Owcharenko on Health Care Reform on PBS Video Recorded on December 15, 2009 Nina Owcharenko on Health Care Reform on PBS

    Nina Owcharenko discusses health care reform, the public option and health care negotiations. … Read more

  • Backgrounder posted December 5, 2006 by John O'Shea, M.D. The Urgent Need to Reform Medicare's Physician Payment System

    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

  • WebMemo posted July 11, 2007 by William Beach 22 Million New Smokers Needed: Methodological Appendix

    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

  • WebMemo posted May 22, 2007 by Nina Owcharenko Reforming SCHIP: Using Premium Assistance to Expand Coverage

    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

  • WebMemo posted July 31, 2007 by J.D. Foster, Ph.D. Health Care Tax Credits: The Right Prescription for Expanded HealthCare Coverage

    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

  • WebMemo posted July 23, 2007 by Edmund Haislmaier State Health Reform: How Pooling Arrangements Can Increase Small-Business Coverage

    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

  • WebMemo posted August 1, 2007 by Cheryl Smith The House SCHIP Bill: Cutting Medicare, Undercutting Private Coverage, and Expanding Dependency

    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

  • WebMemo posted April 23, 2008 by Robert Moffit, Ph.D. State Health Reform: Six Key Tests

    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

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