Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
How did Obama’s Healthcare Summit go? It was basically a pile of bad ideas. Senator Harkin gave the best explanation of what’s truly needed, but I’ll save that for last. Examples of BAD IDEAS include Starting over. John McCain asked to “Go back to the beginning” and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said “If we can start…
In January, the CBO released a report titled The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020. A summary of the findings is available on the CBO Director’s blog. Today, however, I focus on CBO’s evaluation of how changes in health care spending affect the federal budget. “Medicaid spending (excluding stimulus funding) increased by…
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…
Below are healthcare-related excerpts from President’s Obama’s State of the Union Address with my comments afterward. Now let’s be clear – I did not choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was…
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…
The California HealthCare Foundation has an almanac entry on Children’s Health Coverage Facts and Figures. Eligibility requirements for these programs is described in this table. Other key findings include: The proportion of children without health insurance continued to decline through 2007, though the pace of improvement has slowed. Nearly 80 percent of California’s uninsured children…
Megan McArdle broke a story that Jon Gruber, a famous MIT health economist, was paid $300,000 by the Obama Administration for “special studies and analysis” of the health care bills. Did this sway his opinion on the evaluation on endorsing various legislative bills? I would say no. Dr. Gruber is a well respected health economist…
One problem with any government-run health insurance program is that politicians have an incentive to make decisions that are attractive to small, wealthy, cohesive constituencies, rather than for the greater good. For instance, although CMS administrator tried to stem the tide of rising physician costs, Congress has repeatedly reinstated the physician raises. The following three…
“…the broad generalizations by many presidential candidates can be misleading. These statements convey the message that substantial resources can be saved through prevention. Although some prevention measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not.” Cohen JT, Neumann PJ, and Weinstein MC (2008) “Does Preventive Care Save Money? Health…
On Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a plan to use repaid TARP monies to fund a job creation program. The question is, can the government actually create jobs? Initially, one would say yes. If the government hires more workers, this is job creation. If the government hires more contractors, this is job creation. If the government…