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Health care advances have delivered great benefits to society, bringing material improvements in average life spans and quality of life. Yet these improvements have come at a cost—an ever-expanding portion of the US GDP is being consumed by healthcare expenses. Could technology be part of the solution by enabling delivery of healthcare advances while improving affordability?

California lawmakers are headed for a showdown over how many illegal immigrants should qualify for government-subsidized health care. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed allowing unauthorized immigrants under age 26 to enroll in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. Some members of the legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, have proposed that low-income people of all ages…

States that expanded Medicaid have signed up more than twice as many “able-bodied adults” than expected and per-person costs have exceeded original estimates by a whopping 76%, according to a 2018 report by the Foundation for Government Accountability. This led to cost overruns of 157%, the report showed, with Medicaid now accounting for one of every three state budget dollars.

For generations, the prices that hospitals charge patients with private insurance have been shrouded in secrecy. An explosive new study has unlocked some of those secrets. It finds that employers and their insurers are failing to control hospital costs, increasing calls for transparency into insurer-hospital agreements. The analysis, by Chapin White and Christopher Whaley of…

The Medicare for All plan embraced by leading 2020 Democrats appears more lavish than what other advanced countries offer, compounding the cost but also potentially broadening its popular appeal. The plan from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would charge no premiums, copays or deductibles, allowing only limited cost-sharing for some prescription drugs. It would cover long-term…

Dr. Chuck Blahous, who testified (with Grace-Marie Turner) before the House Rules Committee last month on Medicare for All, lists key findings: New federal costs under M4A would be unprecedentedly large We do not know how or whether the federal government could successfully finance its additional spending under M4A The projected additional costs of M4A’s coverage expansion would exceed the…

HHS Secretary Alex Azar has been almost singularly focused in delivering on the administration’s promises to increase transparency and lower prescription drug prices since President Trump released his American Patients First blueprint in a Rose Garden ceremony a year ago. The blueprint offered nearly 30 policy recommendations to modernize payment policies, including bringing down out-of-pocket costs for patients. Just…

In a year already marked by a wide variety of congressional health care legislation, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) on Thursday released the details of a plan they hope will help bring down health costs and eliminate surprise medical bills for patients. Alexander and Murray are the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

In Britain, both health insurance and the delivery of health care is socialized. But the NHS is no paradise. Open a random edition of a British daily newspaper and you will likely encounter an article about some egregious problem that the NHS has failed to solve. For example: NHS doctors routinely conceal from patients information…

The latest liberal policy idea would effectively end all private health care for many Americans. The proposal, the Medicare for America Act, first appeared as a 2018 paper by the Center for American Progress. It’s been called “the Democratic establishment’s alternative” to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s single-payer scheme and has been framed as a moderate proposal.…