Speaking Truth to Evasion
Efforts to control health care costs go back at least to the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. Yet with only an occasional pause costs have steadily risen since then, now standing at an...
View ArticleEnding the Cost Insanity: Some First Steps
On May 11, the White House hosted a meeting of major players in the health industry – hospitals, doctors, insurers, drug manufacturers, and others – who collectively promised to shave $2 trillion off...
View ArticleCost Control: Where Does it Stand?
The reform caldron is heating up. Legislative directions are beginning to appear. And some important government reports, from the Senate Finance Committee and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO),...
View ArticleAct 2
The posts from May to September 8 were written while the debate over health care reform was getting under way and committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate were developing their bills....
View ArticleCost Control: Setting the Bar
With the fashioning of congressional legislation the health reform effort now moves into its (maybe) last phase. While the focus on cost was prominent at the beginning of the reform debate, it has...
View ArticleAn Outsider’s Perspective on U.S. Health Care Reform
Imagine a nation of 307 million people representing 5 percent of the world’s population who are privileged to be using 50 percent of annual global health expenditure (more than $6,000 per person per...
View ArticleBenchmarks for Cost Control
The Senate Finance Committee has completed the markup of its reform bill, and it will shortly be brought before the committee for a vote. It will then go before the full Senate for debate, likely to...
View ArticleCost Control: How Incapacitated Are We?
No reform plan that makes it through Congress this year will significantly control the growth of health care costs. Powerful interest groups are partly to blame. Private insurers want no limitation on...
View ArticleBending the Curve the Wrong Way
Is there any evidence to show that annual health care cost escalation has begun to “bend the curve”? Is there any evidence to that the Congress understands that the curve is supposed to bend downward...
View ArticleRestarting the Health Care Cost Monitor
The Health Care Cost Monitor is back. This time we will expand the scope a bit by taking on the work of three ongoing streams of inquiry at The Hastings Center that have significant overlap, and which...
View ArticleJust and Affordable Health Reform: Are Defined Contributions the Key?
Republicans have been characterized as the party of “no” regarding health reform. This is not an unfair characterization. Republican Party leaders have offered little in the way of substantive ideas...
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