Long time Heartland volunteer and friend, James Koller, sent a little advice for anyone out there looking for medicare options:

Finding co-pay medical insurance that you can afford these days is a problem, especially if you have a serious medical condition caused by an illness or accident. So while trying to figure out what to do, I think, I have found something new and different; and hopefully a few words about the dilemma I faced will prove interesting and maybe even helpful to some of you as well.

Continue reading "A Health Care Story" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 07:16 AM | Permalink

Long time Heartland volunteer and friend, James Koller, sent a little advice for anyone out there looking for medicare options:

Finding co-pay medical insurance that you can afford these days is a problem, especially if you have a serious medical condition caused by an illness or accident. So while trying to figure out what to do, I think, I have found something new and different; and hopefully a few words about the dilemma I faced will prove interesting and maybe even helpful to some of you as well.

Continue reading "A Health Care Story" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 07:16 AM | Permalink

Jonathan Cohn writes:

Thankful, because nationally the most important impact of this new law may be on politics, not policy. Once Romney starts boasting about how he achieved universal health coverage in Massachusetts, it will become that much harder for conservatives to demonize the very concept as "big government." Oh, they'll try--and they'll have at least some success. But now Democrats will have this retort: If a Republican governor and leading presidential contender with strong conservative credentials thinks universal health care is a good idea, how radical an idea can it be?

Continue reading "What do you mean, "universal?"" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 01:54 PM | Permalink

Kevin Drum is defending the idea that government should negotiate drug pricesfor seniors:

At any rate, big customers in the private sector routinely negotiate low prices with their suppliers, and it's not clear to me why things would be much different in this case. In fact, I can't think of any good reason to believe that the notoriously inefficient federal government should prove to be a steelier negotiator than, say, Blue Cross, which also buys in enormous volumes and has the added advantage of being a private company with plenty of incentive to negotiate the lowest prices possible.

Continue reading "It's the Government, People" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:46 AM | Permalink

Heartland President, Joe Bast, was featured on the editorial page of the Sun-Times this morning:

Democrat critics point to a section of the Medicare Modernization Act (1860D-11(i)) that reads, ''the Secretary may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and PDP [prescription drug plan] sponsors.'' This, they say, is evidence the bill was written to protect drug companies instead of consumers.

Is it? The text immediately preceding the words quoted above reads: ''In order to promote competition under this part and in carrying out this part. . . .'' The provision, in other words, is intended to protect competition from government interference.

The bill relies on private drug benefit management firms to negotiate steeper price discounts than the government could if it negotiated directly with drug companies. When asked if the cost of the program would be less if direct negotiation were allowed, the Congressional Budget Office in a Jan. 23, 2004, letter to Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the effect on federal spending would be ''negligible.''

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 05:29 PM | Permalink

While Illinois considers universal health care, Canada slowly dismantles theirs. Steve Verdon and Russell Roberts do a good job of covering all the bases.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 01:12 PM | Permalink

A Kansas-City Star report makes it sound as if Wal-Mart used its appearance before the National Governor's Associationg in Arkansas yesterday to point the finger at the employer based health system. Let's hope they did and let's hope someone actually reports it in detail ... though I'm sure no one will.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 12:51 PM | Permalink

A one-time fiscal conservative, Steve Laffey, is putting on his Roosevelt [pick either one] dancing shoes in a conservative populist (with apologies to co-blogger Randy Piper and his progressive conservatives) run for the Senate in RI against leftist Republican Lincoln Chafee. Ironically, while decrying government spending as a neo-Reaganite, Laffey, the budget-cutting no-nonsense Mayor of Cranston, serves up a bunch of bull about how government needs to protect citizens from big drug companies and big oil [the link to Laffey's criticism of big oil is down right now, but you will get the flavor from the opportunistic flagellation of the drug companies. What a shame that folks who want to shrink government think it should get bigger whenever there is a 'problem'. Reagan would have had the right solution, less regulation not more. Those claiming his mantle should practice what they preach.

More on my Reagan-esque ruminations in the follow, but if you want to hear a quality candidate -- with whom I disagree on some of these populist proposals -- Steve Laffey will be my guest on Rule Free Radio from 5:00 to 6:45 PM EST tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 24). You can Listen Live here.

Continue reading "Drug Wars: Markets vs. Populism [as usual]" »

Posted by Brian Bishop at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)

Too often in America we idealize countries that provide so-called "universal" health care as regimes of compassion. Unfortunately, the reality could not be farther from compassionate. When the government is the only health care provider, life and death decisions are made with bureaucratic indifference. According to the Trib, an English woman lost a battle with the government yesterday over her right to access the cancer drug, Herceptin. What was the basis of the denial:

Lawyers for the health authority had argued that providing the drug in Rogers' case would be inappropriate because it wasn't licensed for early-stage breast cancer, and because the National Institute for Clinical Excellence had not yet determined if it was safe or effective.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 08:23 AM | Permalink

The left finally seems to be getting honest about their vision for America's health care system. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Democratic proposals would bar insurance companies from eliminating drugs from patients' coverage once they had selected a specific plan and from raising the cost of the drugs in midyear. It would also set up a uniform process to tell beneficiaries when their drugs wouldn't be covered and it would mandate that Medicare guarantee payment for up to 60 days when the pharmacist can't verify whether a patient is enrolled in a plan.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:04 AM | Permalink

From the Latest Galen Institute Newsletter:

The debate is engaged. President Bush, as anticipated, has offered a number of new health policy initiatives designed around four goals: affordability, portability, transparency, and efficiency. Health Savings Accounts are the centerpiece of his agenda, with supercharged tax breaks to encourage people to sign up.
Some highlights:

Continue reading "Should All Health Care Spending Be Deductible?" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Heartland's Vice President for External Affairs, Sean Parnell, was quoted in a recent article on hospitals that increase what they charge for procedures in response to govrnments' failure to fully reimburse Medicare and Medicaid expenses. Read it online here.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Maryland has passed a law requiring companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend 8 percent of their payroll on Health Insurance.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:02 AM | Permalink