I haven’t devoted much time to Managed Care Matters, but I had assumed that Joe Paduda was reasonably well informed on the nuances of health care. So, having followed a link from Kevin, MD to Paduda’s site, I was surprised to find him promulgating a myth that few people with knowledge of the industry take seriously. Commenting on the costs […]
Gail Wilensky says she’s “troubled” by my criticism of her recent post on the Health Affairs blog:
David Catron seems to be saying that everything would be fine if we would just let the market work …
This ignores the main thrust of my comments, which involved her seeming inability to imagine a market-based alternative […]
A variety of pro-single-payer blogs gleefully linked to a recent “study” purportedly showing that women are penalized by HSA plans simply because they are female. To quote Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, the study’s author:
High-deductible plans punish women for having breasts and uteruses and having babies.
That tendentious assertion suggests that the good doctor is not as objective […]
A popular talking point among advocates of socialized medicine is that rising health care costs can only be brought under control if the government takes over the system. If that seems counter-intuitive, it is not an illusion. I just discovered this 2004 study, by Christopher Conover, which shows that government regulation is one of the […]
Kevin, MD links to this post about the HHS Secretary’s refusal to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers for lower drug prices. At first glance, this policy seems crazy, but Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute advises that it is indeed the wisest course:
Many people … say that Medicare should follow the lead of the U.S. […]
Gail Wilensky’s Health Affairs piece on the SGR is informed and thorough, but her approach to the subject is symptomatic of an ailment that afflicts many designers of health care policy: a tendency to disregard the market as a viable solution for any problem. Here’s a revealing selection:
Medicare needs to institute policies that … reward […]
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Posted 13 March 2007
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SK also gets it:
The big problem today with health care is the complete disconnect between the consumer and the providers.
And his suggestion for reconnecting the consumer with the cost of the product is pretty sound, at least in theory:
One approach that makes sense is a two pronged non-taxed HSA (like the 401(k)) where 25% of […]
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Posted 26 February 2007
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What’s wrong with health care in the United States? Why has its cost increased so much faster than the CPI? By way of answering that question, Star Parker defers to the wisdom of Milton Friedman:
Friedman explained that the problem is that the person buying health care is most often not who is paying for it […]
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Posted 26 February 2007
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