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Massachusetts has won another round in its effort to get U.S. taxpayers to help fund its experiment in universal coverage. Gov. Deval Patrick announced Tuesday that the federal government has approved an extension of its waiver, allowing the state to continue to provide Medicaid subsidies to people making as much as $63,600 a year. Federal taxpayers will be paying nearly $11 billion to help the … [Read more...] about Massachusetts to San Francisco

While the financial markets roil, the health reform debate is boiling up on the campaign trail where the reality of the policies that are being offered is out of sync with the rhetoric of the promises. While Sen. John McCain's health reform plan is being labeled as "radical" by many critics, in fact the changes that he is proposing are designed to save the private health sector … [Read more...] about Reality vs. Rhetoric

Health Affairs this week focused on the health plans of the leading presidential candidates, but misunderstanding and even misrepresentation of Sen. John McCain's health policy proposal continues to confuse the debate. Tom Buchmueller, Sherry Glied, Anne Royalty, and Katherine Swartz wrote a critique of selected aspects of the McCain plan but ignored key aspects of it which I believe would … [Read more...] about Health Credits and Drug Importation

Highlights Equality in spending Free-riders New Web site features Elvis Equality in spending: Costs are the defining issue in the health care debate, and Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless offers some revealing new data showing the remarkably equal distribution of health spending among Americans in all income categories. Yes, the uninsured need coverage, and we must make … [Read more...] about Equality, Free-Riders, Elvis, and More

In addition to all of the televised political activities this week in the Twin Cities, there also were a number of serious policy discussions taking place. I spoke at several of them, including forums on health care organized by Congressional Quarterly and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. More on those in a minute. But first, I attended a breakfast hosted by PhRMA at the … [Read more...] about A Tale of Twin Cities

The Census Bureau's report on Tuesday surprised all of us, showing the number of uninsured had fallen last year to 45.7 million. But, as I wrote in my commentary for The Wall Street Journal, that's unfortunately not the whole story. The number of people with private insurance was flat (at 202 million), but because of population growth, there was actually a decline in private insurance in … [Read more...] about The Rest of the Story

The cost of health care is on everyone’s mind, so it’s nice to have good news to report: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported yesterday that average beneficiary premiums for the standard Medicare drug benefit will increase by just $3 a month in 2009, to $28. That is 37% lower than the $44 a month that legislators estimated seniors would pay this year when the Medicare … [Read more...] about Cost, Cost, Cost

Health policy news isn't exactly beach reading, so we've decided to offer a series of short items just to keep you current…   Not Too NICE: Our colleague Philip Stevens of the International Policy Network in London alerted us to an article in this morning's Times that offers fair warning to those who want to create a new government body to determine the effectiveness and … [Read more...] about Summer Shorts