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In a May 15 Health Affairs Blog post, Jeff Goldsmith argues against creating a new Medicare-like public health insurance plan to compete with private plans. As part of his argument, Goldsmith asserts that Medicare has done a worse job of controlling costs than private insurers have done.
Dr. Goldsmith’s bases this assertion on a recent paper [...]

Last week’s New Yorker article by Atul Gawande highlighted the phenomenally high variations in cost of medical care and services between regions in the United States, specifically focusing on McAllen, Texas. Gawande’s spotlight on McAllen was based on many studies of our health care system. For Gawande’s readers, we would like to point you to [...]

Despite economic hard times, Massachusetts still shows gains in insurance coverage and access to care as a result of its 2006 state health reform. However, some of the early gains in reducing barriers to health care and improving affordability had eroded by the fall of 2008, according to Urban Institute researchers in a new study published last week on the [...]

The number of uninsured Americans is projected to increase by at least 6.9 million by 2010 — meaning 19.2 percent of nonelderly Americans would be uninsured. This is an increase of 2.0 percentage points from 2007, say Todd Gilmer and Richard Kronick of the University of California, San Diego, in a paper published May 28 on the [...]

Merton Bernstein’s post on a single-payer approach to health reform tops the Health Affairs Blog most-read list for May. Top 10 posts also debate the public plan option now consuming Congress. Additional commenting is always welcome.

Propaganda and Prejudice Distort The Health Reform Debate
by Merton Bernstein
The Public Plan: Not Worth The Risks
by Jeff Goldsmith
Beyond The Public [...]

This week’s Health Wonk Review, the roving digest of the best of health policy blogging, features new posts on health reform, including the public plan option, health care costs, health IT, and more. This week’s host is Tinker Ready of Boston Health News.
Copyright © 2009 Health Affairs Blog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use [...]

Would-be health reformers love to point out the wide variations in care between hospitals in different U.S. regions — variations that lead hospitals in some parts of the country to charge Medicare far more than hospitals in other places, even when they aren’t necessarily delivering higher-quality care.
A study out today in Health Affairs adds weight [...]

There has been a great deal of debate over how much significance to attach to last week’s promise by health care industry leaders to “do our part” in achieving the Obama administration’s goal of cutting health care cost grown by 1.5 percentage points annually. President Barack Obama called the occasion “a historic day, a watershed [...]

If Congress creates a new national insurance exchange as part of health reform legislation, should a public plan be included as one of the options? That is the subject Jacob Hacker, Len Nichols, and Stuart Butler explored in a recent Health Affairs Blog roundtable. The full roundtable is posted here, and some of the highlights of the [...]

Editor’s Note: If Congress creates a new national insurance exchange as part of comprehensive health reform, should a public plan be offered as one of the choices for consumers? That contentious question was the subject of a Health Affairs Blog Roundtable including Stuart Butler, vice president, domestic and economic policy studies, at the Heritage Foundation; [...]