Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has used free-market thinking and a healthy dose of individual responsibility to create an innovative program to help uninsured people get health insurance. The Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) passed the legislature with bi-partisan support last year, and people already are enrolling in the new program. It has funding to cover 130,000 people, and tens of thousands of people … [Read more...] about Indiana’s free-market idea to help the uninsured get health coverage
Archives for December 2008
Indiana’s free-market idea to help the uninsured get health coverage
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has used free-market thinking and a healthy dose of individual responsibility to create an innovative program to help uninsured people get health insurance. The Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) passed the legislature with bi-partisan support last year, and people already are enrolling in the new program. It has funding to cover 130,000 people, and tens of thousands of people … [Read more...] about Indiana’s free-market idea to help the uninsured get health coverage
Putting a Dollar Sign on Patients' Lives
Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, December 22, 2008While Americans convincingly voted for change on Election Day, not all the change that President-elect Obama has promised on health care is for the better.Specifically, Obama wants to have the federal government establish a research program to compare different medical treatments and pharmaceuticals, deciding which are worthwhile and … [Read more...] about Putting a Dollar Sign on Patients' Lives
Putting a Dollar Sign on Patients’ Lives
Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, December 22, 2008While Americans convincingly voted for change on Election Day, not all the change that President-elect Obama has promised on health care is for the better.Specifically, Obama wants to have the federal government establish a research program to compare different medical treatments and pharmaceuticals, deciding which are worthwhile and … [Read more...] about Putting a Dollar Sign on Patients’ Lives
Follow the Money
Highlights New estimates for reform options Competition and choice in the UK? Massachusetts as a model? All roads to new legislation in Washington run through the Congressional Budget Office, and the CBO yesterday offered health policy makers a menu of 115 choices of reform initiatives, with price tags attached. It's like a shopping list for policy makers, who, using our money, … [Read more...] about Follow the Money
Kids First
SCHIP will be one of the early must-do agenda items for the new Congress and incoming Obama administration next year. You'll see below a commentary I was asked to write as half of a point-counterpoint debate on using the State Children's Health Insurance Program as a vehicle to achieve universal coverage for children. I took the unpopular position that the answer is "No". … [Read more...] about Kids First
Drug Safety: Jurors Shouldn't Be Practicing Medicine
Published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, December 7, 2008Jurors aren't physicians. They're regular people. So why would we entrust them with medical decisions best made by clinicians or scientists?It sounds preposterous, but jurors could be given the responsibility for deciding how doctors should practice. That's the scenario one woman is pushing before the Supreme Court.Instead of … [Read more...] about Drug Safety: Jurors Shouldn't Be Practicing Medicine
Drug Safety: Jurors Shouldn’t Be Practicing Medicine
Published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, December 7, 2008Jurors aren't physicians. They're regular people. So why would we entrust them with medical decisions best made by clinicians or scientists?It sounds preposterous, but jurors could be given the responsibility for deciding how doctors should practice. That's the scenario one woman is pushing before the Supreme Court.Instead of … [Read more...] about Drug Safety: Jurors Shouldn’t Be Practicing Medicine