Healthcare

Liz Boardman has a report in this week’s South County Independent on a presentation given to the South Kingstown Republican Town Committee by Sean O’Donnell and Roland Benjamin on “Consumer Driven Health Plans”, i.e. health savings accounts combined with high-deductible insurance. Ms. Boardman provides a straightforward example of how CDHPs work…Under CDHPs, employees put pre-tax…

I’ll admit to being surprised by the spirited defense of employment-based healthcare offered by commenters on this blog and in a few face-to-face discussions I’ve had. Mark Schmitt, writing just yesterday on the American Prospect’s weblog, adds an angle to this discussion not yet mentioned here, suggesting that many people prefer employer-based health insurance for…

The issues in the looming Stop & Shop strike are all too familiar, centering on health benefits and retirement benefits. From Gregory Smith and Talia Buford in today’s Projo…[Stop & Shop], based in Quincy, Mass., wants union workers to contribute to their health-care premiums and allow it to switch from an employer-paid pension fund to…

I truly want to know the motivation behind proposed legislation such as this: Sen. John C. Revens Jr. (D-Dist. 31, Warwick) has introduced legislation that would extend private health insurance coverage to dependents up to the age of 25. The legislation, (2007 – S0327), targets individuals between the ages of 19 and 25 who are…

Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon), a Senator with a creative healthcare plan of his own, wants to compromise and combine his proposal with President Bush’s healthcare proposal. Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report has the details…Bush’s proposal in a nutshell is to end the preferential tax treatment for employer-provided health insurance….This decision…

President Bush outlined a serious healthcare reform plan in last night’s State of the Union. The President’s plan is to replace the existing tax-exemption that applies only to money spent on employer-sponsored health insurance with a standard deduction that can be taken by any individual who purchases health insurance, regardless of employer or employment status.…

I’ve seen a few blogospheric comments touting the reform of the Veteran’s Administration hospital system as an example of how strong government involvement in healthcare, maybe as strong as single payer, works well. The example doesn’t work for a very simple reason, illustrated below. An article from the July 17 issue of Business Week does…

It’s been a few months since I’ve written about it… Yet it’s back in the news… And it’s important, with impact on a major policy debate… So humor me, and pretend that it’s an exciting topic… With this introduction… Loyal Anchor Rising readers will know… That it can only be… [Dramatic pause]… [Unorthodoxly long dramatic…

Kari Chisholm of “Stand Tall for America”, a web-based effort founded to promote Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s universal healthcare plan, answers a few questions about the Wyden plan put forth by me in the comments section of the Virginia Progressive blog. (The Wyden Plan is a federal proposal different from the Rhode Island small business…

In today’s Projo, Felice J. Freyer describes a new small business/individual health insurance blueprint unveiled yesterday by the Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner…Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and UnitedHealthcare of New England are required, starting in May, to offer a “wellness health benefit plan” to individuals and businesses with…