Healthcare
The economics of changing insurance rates based on demonstration of a healthy lifestyle are simply to understand. Still, do we really wish to make it the responsibility of employers to enforce those lifestyles? [State Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher F.] Koller explained that HEALTHpact was created, at the direction of Governor Carcieri and the General Assembly,…
Hyperbole aside, Robert Whitcomb’s Projo op-ed from October 19 can be summarized by his one statement:In short, extend Medicare to everyone.He proceeds to use exaggerated estimations of private insurance overhead costs and completes his argument by saying:Then we would not have to hang our heads in shame that Americans are the most unhealthy people of…
I wonder, when Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts proposes a five-year plan for healthcare reform, followed by Projo columnist Charles Bakst writing approvingly of it…It was a pleasure to hear Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts deliver a thoughtful speech Tuesday calling for a program of compulsory, affordable health insurance for Rhode Islanders…. “Where is the vision? Rather…
In a signed editorial that doesn’t appear to be online, Providence Journal Editorial Pages Editor Robert Whitcomb suggests that the simple solution to America’s healthcare problem is to expand Medicare to encompass everybody: The Republicans will do anything but go to thye simplest, most cost-effective reform — putting everyone into Medicare. The latter’s overhead: 2…
The President vetoed the bill that sought to expand the S-CHIP program and our usual suspects piped up with the same old hyperbole: “Playing politics with the health care coverage of 10 million children is unacceptable, but that is exactly what President Bush did today when he vetoed H.R. 976, the reauthorization of the State…
Rhode Island Kids Count’s Jill Beckwith is correct that Rhode Island is “heading in the wrong direction” when it comes to healthcare.
There’s an odd omission from Steve Peoples’s article about the new medicine copays for impoverished recipients of state aid. We get the policy’s numbers: McCaffrey is among 14,000 impoverished Rhode Islanders on fee-for-service Medicaid who will be asked to shoulder a portion of their prescription drugs — $1 for generics and $3 for brand-name drugs…
According to a study published in The Lancet Oncology medical journal, the United States has the best cancer survival rate in the developed world. The tables below are from an article on the study published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph (h/t Andrew Stuttaford)… Female Cancer Survival Rates USA62.9% Iceland61.8% Sweden61.7% Belgium61.6% Finland61.1% Switzerland61.1% Italy59.7% Spain59.0% Germany58.8%…
The ProJo reports that teacher benefits in RI are “all over the board” and gives some stats in the differences among plans by district and differences in buyback options. It’s an old and familiar tune around here, but the central point is worth repeating: Last year, after a decade in which health insurance emerged as…
Today’s OpinionJournal has an editorial describing a universal health care plan proposed for Wisconsin. To borrow a phrase from Ian Donnis, the budget numbers are eye-popping…Democrats who run the Wisconsin Senate have dropped the Washington pretense of incremental health-care reform and moved directly to passing a plan to insure every resident under the age of…
