Healthcare

S-CHIP Veto

By Marc Comtois | October 3, 2007 |

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…

Poor Diagnoses, or Munchausen by Proxy?

By Justin Katz | September 16, 2007 |

Rhode Island Kids Count’s Jill Beckwith is correct that Rhode Island is “heading in the wrong direction” when it comes to healthcare.

Never Know Unless You Ask

By Justin Katz | September 6, 2007 |

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…

United States Leads All Developed Countries — Even Those With Universal Health Care — In Cancer Survival

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 28, 2007 |

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%…

ProJo: Teacher Benny’s “All over the board”

By Marc Comtois | August 26, 2007 |

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…

The Wisconsin Universal Coverage Plan

By Carroll Andrew Morse | July 24, 2007 |

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…

Too Many Sperm Being Injected in Rhode Island

By Carroll Andrew Morse | July 19, 2007 |

Anecdotal evidence of the unintended consequences of insurance mandates and bureaucratically-set healthcare pricing, courtesy of the Associated Press…Fertility clinics are overusing a laboratory technique and costing infertile couples and some insurers hundreds of extra dollars, a new study suggests. At issue is a procedure that injects a single sperm into an egg. The method is…

Truth: An Antidote to Sicko

By Justin Katz | June 29, 2007 |

Having watched Michael Moore’s latest bit of propaganda — Sicko, about the evil of American healthcare in comparison to saintly socialism — a bit more closely than is probably healthy, David Gratzer felt compelled to offer another view: Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore’s claim that ERs don’t overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently…

Another Argument for In-Store Health Clinics

By Carroll Andrew Morse | June 1, 2007 |

In an op-ed in today’s Projo about CVS’ proposed network of in-store health clinics, Joann Fitzpatrick (a retired editor for the Quincy Patriot Ledger) argues that much of what appears to be a healthcare “crisis” is really the result of an inflexible system that poorly aligns available resources with people’s needs…Our confusing, overpriced health-care system…

The Financial Times on Walk-in Health Clinics

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 24, 2007 |

Eventually, the big international business papers are able to catch up to Anchor Rising’s coverage of an issue. Here’s the Financial Times on the movement towards in-store health clinics by companies such as Wal-Mart and CVS…Walk-in clinics represent one of the most advanced and aggressive attempts by US business and entrepreneurs to drive reform of…