One great advantage of Medicare is that it has one risk pool that includes people with fewer health care needs and people with more needs. And, everyone pays the same premium. It does not...
Diane Archer
Health plan networks limit access to care
One of the biggest problems with health insurance companies is that they generally offer health plans that limit coverage to doctors and hospitals in their networks. And, too often their networks of...
Medicare for all, the Sanders proposal
Bernie Sanders is calling for Medicare for all. He says, “If the goal of health-care reform is to provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, the only honest...
How young is your heart?
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that most Americans have hearts that are “older” than they are. Their hearts could be older because they smoke...
How to avoid medical debt
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report reveals the many ways the healthcare marketplace for people under 65 is designed to promote medical debt. People with insurance as well as those without...
Financial incentives not improving quality in hospitals
Since October 2012, the federal government has been using financial incentives to reward or penalize hospitals based on the quality of their care. A recent GAO report reveals that these financial...
Observation care: What you need to know
For the last couple of decades, instead of admitting all Medicare patients who stay overnight as inpatients, hospitals have been providing some patients with “observation” care and...
Medicare and Medicaid at 50: Their roles in our health care...
A 2015 article in Health Affairs by Drew Altman and Bill Frist speaks to Medicare and Medicaid at 50, looking at the numbers, their roles in our health care system, the challenges they face and...
FDA backlog keeps generics from coming to market
In October 2015, there were as many as 3,000 generic drugs waiting to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. FDA underfunding may explain it in part. So might incomplete information on...
Competition can’t rein in health care costs
Like many policy debates, there are two principal schools of thought regarding how to rein in health care costs, with many variations on the themes. One school believes that competition is key to...