“Before now, Warren’s radical proposal never would have been introduced by someone with a serious shot at becoming president,” Galen Senior Fellow Brian Blase explains in a piece for RealClearPolitics. “But the health care status quo is failing too many Americans. She is right that health care prices are generally too high, that provider consolidation is a…
DetailsLast month’s Census Bureau report on the uninsured overlooked an important point: More than 99 percent of Americans have access to health coverage, regardless of their income or medical condition. The overwhelming majority of those lacking insurance could have obtained coverage but did not enroll. Many of those with lower incomes may not sign up…
DetailsIn his recent speech on health care, President Trump highlighted a proposed rule that hospitals make their prices public. It’s time for hospitals to comply. Transparency will likely lead to lower prices and a reduction in health care spending. Many policy experts dismiss the importance of price transparency in health care. Skeptics argue that because health insurance…
DetailsOne item on voters’ short list for congressional action is addressing the growing problem of surprise medical bills. Insured patients should be confident that if they receive care at a facility that is in their health plan’s network or have a medical emergency, they will be responsible only for their share of the plan’s negotiated…
DetailsSen. Mark Warner, D-Va., authored the resolution, which would curtail an administration initiative that was the driving force behind the first-ever reduction in average Obamacare premiums: the authority to grant states waivers from certain regulatory requirements in the Affordable Care Act.
To the Editor: Re “Four Key Things You Should Know About Health Care” (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, Sept. 12): Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Victor R. Fuchs argue that price transparency won’t lower health care costs. Fortunately, they’re wrong, largely because they missed several avenues for how transparency will help. Transparency should lower prices through four critical paths:…
DetailsThe House of Representatives this week will begin acting on a bill that would limit Americans’ access to lifesaving medicines, impede the development of new treatments for deadly and debilitating diseases, and increase health spending over the long term. The Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019 (H.R. 3), introduced last week with the backing…
DetailsGood politics involves consistent, simple messages. Opponents of the Trump administration believe they have found one with health care: sabotage. When new numbers showed a small uptick in the number of uninsured from 2017 to 2018 (which actually resulted from ObamaCare’s own failures), Democratic presidential candidates and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi all had statements including…
DetailsThroughout much of last year, critics of the White House darkly predicted that Congress’ repeal of the tax penalty on the uninsured, coupled with an administration rule lifting federal restrictions on short-term policies, would lead to double-digit premium increases in 2019. The good news is that none of that has happened. To the contrary, average premiums for…
DetailsThe Trump administration’s assault on e-cigarettes is the latest move by the White House to salvage Donald Trump’s health care agenda ahead of the 2020 elections. Turning away from the bitter Obamacare debates that have been a disaster for Republicans, Trump’s been building his disease-by-disease agenda all year, aimed at suburban voters who may be…
Details