July 1, 2008
It is becoming a standard line in news stories on the presidential contest — including this one from Congressional Quarterly — that, if elected president, Senator Barack Obama would “build on” the employer-based system. But is it true? No, not by a long shot. The Obama plan has three features that would work in...
June 20, 2008
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (Medpac) issued its annual June report (available here in PDF) to Congress last week. This year’s report has as its main theme reform of the delivery system — which is to say, reform of those arrangements which govern how and where patients get care. What can be done to make...
June 11, 2008
Medicare’s stark financial problems are well known but worth repeating often. Promised benefits are expected to exceed dedicated financing for the program by $36 trillion over the next seventy-five years (measured in present value terms). Between 1975 and 2005, annual program spending growth per beneficiary outpaced per capita GDP...
June 6, 2008
The centerpiece of Senator Barack Obama’s health care plan is a so-called “play or pay” mandate on American employers. This idea has been a staple of Democratic health care reform plans for a quarter century — going back to Michael Dukakis and Senator Ted Kennedy in the 1980s — and it’s one of the main...
May 28, 2008
News stories continue to suggest that Senator Barack Obama’s health care plan would build on today’s employer-based system of private insurance. In a new National Review Online article, I argue that Obama’s plan would actually lead to the demise of private health insurance, including coverage provided by employers. The...
May 20, 2008
This week, Google unveiled Google Health, its long-awaited portal for storing patient medical records. This is another promising development in the long, slow movement to better use of information technology (IT) in health care. As matters stand, most patient records are stored on paper and housed inaccessibly in physicians’...
May 14, 2008
Here is a key but subtle question in the health care debate: Is Medicare a passive victim of rapid health care cost inflation, or a primary cause of it? To some, Medicare is just one car among many attached to the runaway cost train. From this perspective, slowing Medicare spending will require slowing down the engine which is pulling...
April 30, 2008
Republicans have been on the defensive on health care for many years. Public opinion polls show more voters trust Democratic candidates on health issues than trust Republicans. On the campaign trail, that generally means Democratic candidates look for opportunities to bring up health care, while Republicans tend to avoid the subject...
April 25, 2008
On Wednesday, The Hill ran this very interesting story on the prospects for health care reform if either Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama were to win the presidential election in November. Both Democratic candidates, of course, have spent months telling voters they are just the leaders the country needs to swiftly pass a...
April 21, 2008
In the latest Weekly Standard, my EPPC colleague Pete Wehner and I have an article examining the success of the Medicare prescription drug benefit to date. As we point out: Now in its third year, the drug benefit is working better than predicted. More than 1,800 private plans are competing for enrollment. More important, Medicare...