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Senator Edward Kennedy has completed and submitted a draft health care plan that is modeled after the plan in Massachusetts. This is in conjunction with the Obama Administration’s goal to…

As Congress tries to hash out health care reform (and wrangle over a public insurance option), many have wondered about the place of long-term care. Most have said including it in reform is too expensive. However, new legislation may help mitigate some of the costs — and provide a savings vehicle for those who expect [...]

Note to critics of the public plan option for health insurance: This debate is over. You lost. In 2007, more than 45 percent of all medical costs in the U.S. were paid by government, vastly more than the one-third funded by private insurance.   
Many Americans already have access to public coverage. There is Medicare for [...]

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) is floating the following trial balloon: Congress would fund part of health reform with a cap on the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance but only at a level “significantly above” the cost of the standard plan offered to federal employees. The measure would also exclude policies bargained [...]

This is the time of the year that I go on a rampage against the health care industry. Mainly because it’s the time of year that my health insurance is renewed — and my premium usually goes up, in spite of the fact that we rarely use our health insurance. (This year, I was lucky [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to taxing health insurance benefits, President Barack Obama hasn’t said yes, and may never. But he and his top aides won’t quite say no, either, to an idea he attacked sharply in his campaign for the White House.
Instead, they are &#1110n full straddle,…
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Despite the poor shape of the American health system, public preference is the limiting factor in how far we can change the system.
Ezra Klein notes the lessons learned from 1994, saying that there is a status-quo bias, and that people “want more options,” and “don’t want to be forced out of their current arrangements.”
This is [...]

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 [...]

Plummeting coverage and soaring costs characterize the nation’s health insurance crisis. With much coverage for the nonelderly based on employment, job loss contributes to this misfortune. In response, Congress seems headed to emulate the 2006 Massachusetts “reform.” That’s an unpromising prescription because it seriously increases costs — just the opposite of what President Barack Obama [...]

It’s that time of year again. When the health insurance company sends me a letter telling me what my new premium will be. This year, my plan resulted in a $50 increase. Because costs keep rising. (Or the CEO of the company is finding his hundreds of million dollars in compensation is inadequate.)
At any rate, [...]