Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Because it expands health insurance coverage, one of the key effects of the recently passed health reform bill is that it will decrease the amount of compensated care. According to an Urban Institute study: “…the cost of uncompensated care will fall from $62.1 billion in 2009 to $46.6 billion in 2019 under the Senate bill,…
Health insurance mandates increase health insurance cost. By compelling insurance companies to cover certain medical treatments, cost inevitably rise. Of course the people who receive these treatments benefit while those who do not must pay additional premiums. A recent paper by the Pacific Research Institute summarizes the findings of various studies of the impact of…
Many health policy experts believe that when Medicare or Medicaid decrease prices, hospitals will increase the prices they charge to the privately insured. Does this make sense? Ginsburg (2003) summarizes the debate: Most executives in hospitals, physician organizations, health plans, and businesses have long been convinced that reductions in rates paid to Medicare and Medicaid…
Today, Sunday, March 21, 2010, the House passed the health care bill. This is a historic day…whether for good or for bad depends on your point of view. Some of my previous posts on health reform can be found here, here, here, here and many other places. My basic opinion was that health reform is…
Cohen and Siegelman (2009) document empirical research on adverse selection in 5 markets: i) automobile insurance, ii) annuities and life insurance, iii) long term care, iv) crop insurance, and v) health insurance. The presence of adverse selection varies not only across markets, but also within markets depending on the product sold and the type of…
Yesterday I game my evaluation of President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Today, I analyze the Republican Response. All Americans agree, we need a health care system that is affordable, accessible, and high quality. Cheap and high quality, who wouldn’t agree with that proposition? Figuring out how to get there is the problem. But…
Most workers have employer-provided health insurance. The old have Medicare and the poor Medicaid. Children have SCHIP and veterans have the VA. But what about the people who fall through the cracks? What about individuals who work for small businesses who don’t offer insurance, entrepreneurs, or illegal immigrants? Where can they get health care? An…
Merrill Goozner of GoozNews writes the following: The share of health care costs borne by individuals has remained fairly steady over the past several decades, and that is the prime argument behind conservative and economist claims that making patients have “more skin in the game” will drive health care costs lower. That ignores the fact…
The California Healthcare Foundation looks at the latest health insurance trends in the nation’s most populous state. In California, like in many states, there is a blurring line between what defines an HMO compared to other forms of health insurance. Almost all insurance carriers now offer “a broad array of products, some of which do not…
Many economists feel that Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are the direction in which health reform needs to head. HSAs combine high-deductible health plans with tax-deferred savings account. The theory behind HSAs is for the patient to pay for ‘basic’ health care to reduce the problem of moral hazard while letting insurance pay for catestrophic illnesses.…