More Poison, Not an Antidote: Mandating Employer Health Insurance
President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the “free market has not worked perfectly.” There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance.
Economic Research on Direct-Purchase Health Insurance: New Models for Real Health Care Reform
Paying for health care has been a problem since ancient times. In the Middle Ages, guilds collected funds to provide care for infirm members. In 1789, imitating the British, the U.S. Congress funded the Marine Hospital Service by taxing American seamen 20 cents a month.
As U.S. governments grew, they continued passing laws to regulate the kind of health coverage people could purchase. By 1960, most people with coverage got it through their employer. Plans provided by hospital monopolies controlled the coverage market. The true cost of health care was hidden from covered individuals. Vast spending increases were the result. The introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 made the situation worse. Finkelstein found that Medicare increased real hospital expenditure by 23 percent between 1965 and 1970. Extrapolating from the Medicare estimates suggests that the spread of health coverage may “explain at least 40 percent of the rise in real per capita health spending” between 1950 and 1990.[1]
Public Option Health Plan Fails Modeling Test in Colorado
The Obama administration has proposed a government-run health insurance plan generally referred to as a “public option.” Some believe that government can do a better job of running a health plan than private companies can. Others argue that a government-run health insurance plan will improve Americans’ health insurance choices.
Prepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance
Prepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance: the Senate Finance Committee has approved Colorado House Bill 1293. The Denver Post claims that this bill would reduce your insurance premiums. Not so. They will increase.
Politicians Cannot “Guarantee” Health Care
Politicians cannot guarantee health care, but by trying they can create an unaccountable and toxic insurance monopoly. So beware of Colorado House Bill 1273, which will be heard by the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee on March 18. The Rocky Mountain News described this so-called “Colorado Guaranteed Healthcare Act” as a “Canadian-style, single-payer” bill. A recent survey finds that nearly one in four state House members advocate single-payer health care. Their support of such politically-controlled medicine is appalling.
House Bill 09-1293: Tax Sick People to Create a Hospital Slush Fund
Note: the Fiscal note numbers referenced in this bill are from the March 18, 2009 Fiscal Note. The bill language refers to the unofficial preamended version of the bill as of March 20, 2009. For the purposes of this analysis, the main difference between the preamended version and the introduced version is that the limits of the buy-in program for the disabled were increased from 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level to 450 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
HB 1256 Would Aid Health Coverage
olorado House Bill 1256 would bring affordable insurance to thousands of Coloradans by allowing them to buy less-expensive policies available in other states (Health Care, Feb. 19).
National Puppet Masters Pull Strings for Local Health Reform Groups
Ever wonder why health care “reforms” that have failed everywhere they’ve been tried still get attention?
Follow the money.
The annual “grassroots” Health Care Day of Action will take place on the Colorado state capitol steps on March 9. This year’s slogan is “demand healthcare reform” because “economic recovery begins with healthcare reform.” The Obama administration is using the same slogan, suggestion that these grassroots are pretty shallow.
Rationing Care: Oregon Changes Its Priorities
To our knowledge, the Oregon Health Plan is the first government health care program anywhere in the world that has drawn up a formal procedure for rationing. After comment from interested parties, this state health program for low-income people ranks treatment for various diseases and conditions, currently from 1 to 680, in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met. As program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter.
Rationing Care: Oregon Changes Its Priorities
To our knowledge, the Oregon Health Plan is the first government health care program anywhere in the world that has drawn up a formal procedure for rationing. After comment from interested parties, this state health program for low-income people ranks treatment for various diseases and conditions, currently from 1 to 680, in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met. As program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter.
Medicare: More Waste, Less Care
If “Medicare for all” gives you that intoxicating “government as nurturing parent” feeling, think again. The Camera reported that “thousands of patients” … “will have to find new doctors” because Boulder Community Internal Medicine is closing — in part because of the “low reimbursement rates of its Medicare patients.”
Why Kids Count Can’t Count
The Colorado Children’s Campaign says Colorado’s children are in trouble. In its 2008 KidsCount in Colorado! report, the Campaign claims that “poverty is the biggest obstacle to opportunity for children, and between 2000-2006, the number of children living in poverty in Colorado increased by 73 percent—the highest increase by far of any state in the nation.”
