Healthcare

Senator Tom Coburn on Healthcare Reform

By Carroll Andrew Morse | July 25, 2006 |

At the Northeast Conservative Conference of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies held this past weekend at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, I asked Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma what the Federal government’s first step towards reforming health insurance in America should be� Senator Tom Coburn: You can’t tinker around the edges anymore. We have…

“Fair Share” Healthcare Struck Down by the Courts

By Carroll Andrew Morse | July 21, 2006 | Comments Off on “Fair Share” Healthcare Struck Down by the Courts

At the start of this legislative session, Representatives Amy Rice (D-Portsmouth/Middletown/Newport), Arthur Handy (D-Cranston), Raymond Sullivan (D-Coventry/West Greenwich), Joseph Faria (D-Central Falls), and Joseph Almeida (D-Providence) introduced a bill that would have required corporations with 1,000 or more people to either pay a fixed percentage of payroll for their employees health care, or pay into…

The Healthcare Reform Being Filibustered in the Senate, Part 1 (What it is)

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 16, 2006 |

Last week, the Senate voted to continue a filibuster against the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005. Here’s what the bill would do if passed. Like all significant legislation relating to health insurance in America, this act relates to one of the most incomprehensible laws on the books — the Employment Retirement…

Ramesh Ponnuru on the Mass Healthcare Plan

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 12, 2006 | Comments Off on Ramesh Ponnuru on the Mass Healthcare Plan

At National Review Online, Ramesh Ponnuru offers his analysis of the Massachusetts healthcare plan, and offers a few suggestions to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney…The governor has the ability to make modifications to this legislation through a line-item veto. He should use it to eliminate the mandates on coverage, strike the business taxes, and get rid…

David A. Mittell on the Mass Healthcare Plan

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 6, 2006 | Comments Off on David A. Mittell on the Mass Healthcare Plan

Projo columnist David A. Mittell likes the Massachusetts universal health care plan even less than I do. Among other things, Mittell is concerned that using government regulation to force people to buy an inferior quality insurance product seems to be more of a giveaway to big insurance companies than it is good healthcare policy. Here…

The Massachusetts Univeral Health Care Plan

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 5, 2006 |

According to Pam Belluck in the New York Times…Massachusetts is poised to become the first state to provide nearly universal health care coverage with a bill passed overwhelmingly by the legislature Tuesday that Gov. Mitt Romney says he will sign.The plan is a complex mixture of mandatory coverage requirements, tax incentives, and although Ms. Belluck…

Healthcare Assumptions

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 23, 2006 |

In Slate magazine, Michael Kinsley responds to a Paul Krugman/Robin Wells article in the New York Review of Books that argues that complete government control of healthcare — where the government is the only insurance company, and maybe even all doctors work directly for the government — is the only system of healthcare delivery that…

Hospital Attitudes Towards Healthcare Delivery II

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 7, 2006 |

The Providence Business News article by Marion Davis on healthcare pricing also discusses legislation introduced at the behest of Governor Carcieri…Gov. Donald L. Carcieri this year is pushing for legislation to require health plans to disclose to patients the negotiated amounts they pay to providers for services, procedures, tests, drugs or supplies that are subject…

Hospital Attitudes Towards Healthcare Delivery

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 7, 2006 |

Marion Davis has an interesting article in this week’s Providence Business News that discusses the maze of factors involved in healthcare pricing. One section of the article discusses how hospitals seem not to like the health-savings account/high deductible insurance combination because they don’t want to deal with some basic record-keeping that would be involved…Hospital officials…

Discussing the Laffey Plan to Remedy High Drug Costs, Part 2

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 22, 2006 |

The next two problem/solution pairs proposed in Steve Laffey’s plan to remedy high drug costs concern different aspects of the problem of regulation. (The first two problem/solution pairs are discussed here) . 1. The first issue is the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration…Today’s Problem: FDA regulates drugs foremost on…