Patients Get Direct Access to Lab Tests
One of the most basic aspects of health care reform is getting consumers to take more responsibility for their own wellness and disease prevention. In early May, a company called …
Medical Tourism Prompts Price Discussions
Howard Staab, a 53-year-old North Carolina contractor, was healthy in the summer of 2004–or so he thought, until his doctor found a life-threatening heart condition during a routine physical. Uninsured, …
Ailing Health Policies
Texas has more uninsured people than any other state. To make matters worse, health care is on a course to crowd out every other category of government spending in only …
What Is Consumer-Directed Health Care?
ABSTRACT: To control health care costs, someone must choose between health care and other uses of money. The value of most health care is experienced subjectively, as is the value …
Consumer-Directed Health Plans: Background, Structure, and Policy Issues
Consumer-Directed Health Plans (CDHPs) are a new model of health insurance, designed to give consumers greater control over the quantity and quality of the health care they receive. CDHPs provide …
Insurance Folly
The state children's health insurance program (SCHIP) was originally a Republican program to provide health insurance to children in near-poor families who did not qualify for Medicaid. Democrats now want …
Consumer-Centric Healthcare Congress
See John Goodman’s presentation at the Consumer-Centric Healthcare Congress The Annals of Thoracic Surgery: Our Health Care System at the Crossroads: Single Payer or Market Reform? by David U. Himmelstein, …
Debate: Our Health Care System at the Cross Roads — Single Payer or Market Reform?
In the 1940s, two decisions by federal agencies laid the foundation for the employer-based health care financing system that has characterized United Sates health care for the last 60 years: …
Grading the Candidates' Health Reform Plans
Originally published in Health Care News, January 2008. Twenty years ago Michael Dukakis campaigned for president with the boast, "I have insured everybody in Massachusetts." Of course he hadn't, and …
Myths of Socialized Medicine Lead to Bad Health Care Policies
Originally published in Health Care News, February 2008. Advocates of socialized medicine generally claim administrative costs are lower, quality of care is higher, and access to care is more equal …
Practicing Medicine Without Borders
Originally published in Health Care News, March 2008. There is only one thing you need to know about telemedicine: Location doesn't matter. The pathologist who examines your blood tests, the …
Markets and Medicare
Rarely in Washington does the president get to propose legislation that Congress is required to fast track. Such an opportunity exists right now, and it pertains to the most serious …
Time, Money and the Market for Drugs
Americans spend more than $234 billion a year on legally purchased chemical entities. Although the expense is a small part of our nation’s $1.8 trillion health care bill, the dollars …
The Health Fork: Why Government-Centered Reforms Don't Work
Originally published in Health Care News, May 2008. Do you think it's possible to demonstrate with a single graph the fallacy behind every wrong-headed solution to the problem of rising …
Ten Big Problems with Hillary Clinton's Health Care Plan
Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) had it right from the beginning: The health plan touted by his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), would force people to buy something …
Ten Steps to Insuring the Uninsured
A state can reform its health care system, which means lowering costs and increasing access, through 10 steps.
Ten Steps to Reforming Medicaid
Typically, Medicaid enrollees face restricted treatment options and limited access to health care. At the same time, they are sheltered from health care costs because they pay nothing out of …
Four Steps to Reforming Long-Term Care
Although it is optional, every state provides a long-term care benefit through its Medicaid program–and not just to the poor. Medicaid is paying for the long-term care of a growing …
Consumer-Oriented Government Policy Can Avert Dire Health Care Mega-Trends
One of the most innovative ideas that appeared in Patient Power: The Free-Enterprise Alternative to Clinton's Health Plan, a book I wrote in 1993 with Gerry Musgrave, and again in …
McCain Is the Radical on Health Reform
If you listen only to presidential campaign rhetoric, you might conclude that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama proposed bold new changes for our health-care system, while John McCain is offering …
Sen. McCain's Plan Addresses Flaws in Current Health Care Policies
Health insurance for most non-elderly Americans is purchased with funds from three sources: an employer contribution, an employee contribution, and a government tax subsidy. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John …
Six Steps to Improve Workers' Compensation
Workers' compensation is often neglected in discussions of state health care reform. That is unfortunate, because employers who think they have achieved real savings after a significant change in their …
The 180-degree approach to medical benefits reform
Originally Published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Spring 2008. ABSTRACT President Bush has proposed a plan for insurance reform that would provide a standard income-tax deduction to …
Drug Industry Profits Are Good for Everybody
Americans' intake of prescription and non-prescription drugs has now surpassed $250 billion annually, reflecting a steady increase to new record levels each year. One key reason: Drug therapy continues to …
SCHIP Alternative: Free the Kids
Originally published in Benefits Selling Weekly, January 28, 2009. The House passed a bill earlier this month that would expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Senate is expected …