Improving Medicaid with block grants & consumer-directed health care
If Medicaid were turned into a block grant program in which the federal government gave each state a set amount of money, it could improve patient care, restrain the growth in costs, reduce complexity and improve outcomes. Continue reading
Why Medicare & Medicaid fraud dwarfs commercial endevours
” Politicians are spending other people’s money, so their incentive to prevent fraud is far less. Therefore, fraud will always be higher in government programs than in similar market endeavors.” Continue reading
Fallacy watch: containing health care spending vs. health care costs
Don’t confuse controlling health care costs with controlling spending. A government health plan can contain spending by refusing to pay for life-saving treatments, but this would impose great costs. Continue reading
Feds slam Colorado Medicaid for lax procedures, practices
Colorado Medicaid’s sloppy administration puts its federal funding in peril: delays in eligibility notification, not documenting legal citizenship, wrongfully terminating Medicaid beneficiaries’ claims, improper notification of coverage decisions. Continue reading
Colorado underestimates Medicaid cost, scales back program
Colorado Medicaid grossly underestimates costs of expanded eligibility, & limits eligibility to the program. The underestimate shouldn’t surprise anyone – it’s typical of government estimates. Continue reading
Poverty, equality, and the free-market
“If left wing political theory is true, we should expect to see huge inequalities in the ownership of goods sold in the market, but fairly equal consumption in health care & education. But there’s the irony. The exact opposite of this prediction has been borne out!’
If Social Security were run like Medicare
Those who oppose changing Medicare into a voucher program for “private” insurance should support running Social Security like today’s Medicare: authorities would assign housing to seniors and “pick up government-approved groceries for little or no money.”
Colorado short on primary care docs, “reform” will make ER over-crowding worse
Colorado’s overcrowded ERs to get worse with Obamacare because of lack of primary care doctors. In the Wall Street Journal, John Goodman explains how Medicare’s price controls contribute to this problem, and what to do about it.
U.S. Credit Rating: Don’t Shoot the Downgrade Messenger
Attacking S&P for the U.S. credit downgrade is like criticizing your doctor for diagnosing your cancer.
Entitlement Bandits Rob Medicaid/Medicare
Giving Medicare enrollees vouchers for private insurance and block-granting Medicaid (as passed by the House of Representatives but defeated in the Senate) would reduce the crushing levels of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicaid as a ghetto: poor access to medical care
“While specialists turned away 11 percent of privately insured children, 66 percent of children with Medicaid were unable to get an appointment. For those who did, the waiting time was 22 days longer than for other patients.”
video: the case for federal Medicaid block grants
The Medicaid program imposes high costs while generating poor results. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video explains how block grants, such as the one proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan, will save money and improve healthcare by giving states the freedom to innovate and compete.
