Planting one health-care system requires uprooting another. Critics of American health care often ask why ours is the only highly developed country without a taxpayer-funded universal health-care system. It is a question meant to answer itself: There is no good reason, so the U.S. should fall in line with European financing methods. That is the view...
In an important paper the Galen Institute is releasing today, Senior Fellow Doug Badger examines the role that employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) plays in the larger U.S. health sector and offers considerations for policymakers contemplating replacing ESI with government-financed coverage. In “Replacing Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance with Government-Financed Coverage: Considerations for Policymakers,” Badger examines the history...
by Grace-Marie Turner — The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services is continuing the drumbeat of modernizing the two gargantuan programs it runs to generate more accountability, greater transparency, and provide better value for both patients and taxpayers. Administrator Seema Verma announced on Thursday a new proposed rule that would bring more accountability into...
Congress ordered the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to come up with a new payment system for the more than 400 million clinical laboratory tests that Medicare pays for each year so that prices would be more closely aligned with those paid by private insurers. But the new system relies on data...
President Trump’s plan to lower prescription drug costs uses a surgeon’s scalpel to address a range of issues, offering nearly 30 policy recommendations to modernize payment policies, weed out counter-productive regulations, improve price transparency, and expand competitive price negotiations. The plan reflects the complexity of the industry and the regulatory system that governs government approval...