Last week’s presidential debate at the Reagan Library elevated Social Security as a national issue that could reshape the 2012 campaign. Candidates spent the week trading blows about the role of the 76-year-old social insurance program. Leaving aside the political rhetoric, one thing is certain: Social Security needs to be …
Last week, the state of Wisconsin released a report summarizing the effects of Obamacare on the Badger State’s health care system. The study, which was conducted by Gorman Actuarial and MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber—an Obamacare supporter—and commissioned by former Governor Jim Doyle (D), provides further proof that Obamacare is on …
In a recent article in Health Affairs, health economist James Robinson reveals that in areas where hospitals consolidate and enjoy a larger market share, providers are more likely to charge higher prices, as low competition gives them a monopoly in delivering patient care in the region. The lack of competition …
States are desperate for ways to make their budgets more cost-effective. Illinois found a way—but the federal government won’t let the state implement a requirement that would help repair its faulty Medicaid system. Federal government health care laws are preventing a new Medicaid ID requirement—passed by bipartisan majorities in the …
Conservatives should beware of policies that simply meet a budget target number without considering whether the underlying policy changes move a program in the right direction. Case in point: the Medicaid blend rate, which would replace the various federal matching rates for different categories of enrollees with one unified federal …
Red Alert! Conservatives in Congress and elsewhere should be warned: The Administration’s latest signal for “compromise” may end up as little more than an expansion of existing bad policy, rather than a serious effort to enact substantive reforms. And only substantive reforms can change the perverse incentives that plague giant …
The Hill reports that conservatives in Congress are considering extending Medicaid drug rebates to low-income seniors participating in the Medicare prescription drug program (Part D) as part of a deficit reduction deal to increase the debt limit. Transforming certain federal health programs—i.e., Medicare and Medicaid—is crucial to making a meaningful …
The literature on the quality of Medicaid has mixed findings—some shows that having Medicaid is better than being uninsured; some shows the opposite. But virtually all of these studies suffer from a statistical issue that makes it impossible to tell whether or not it’s Medicaid or something else driving the …
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on bureaucratic barriers for patients covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. These two programs serve the elderly and the poor, respectively, and people who fall into both categories—the “dual-eligibles”—should get better-quality care with more efficient taxpayer spending. According to the WSJ, an estimated 9.7 …
