The only way to fix health care in Canada is to put patients at the center of the system, says Dr. Brian Day...

FRASER

LOW TECH CARE IN A HIGH TECH WORLD

Canadians are often unable to access the latest advances in health care -- even from the technologies that are available to them, says Nadeem Esmail...

FRASER INSTITUTE

THE WHO'S SICK MANIFESTO

Many of the World Health Organization's recent recommendations on ways to improve global health seem to be specifically designed to undermine economic growth, say experts...

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION/FRASER INSTITUTE

BAUCUS HEALTH PLAN IS FATALLY FLAWED

Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) proposal is a blueprint for economic disaster in health care coverage for Americans, says Devon Herrick, a health economist...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURES IN 2040

By 2040, the United States will spend 29 percent of gross domestic product, or $9.07 trillion, on health care, according to Robert Fogel...

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH/HEALTH CARE ECONOMIST

LOOK PAST PRICE FOR HEALTH CARE VALUE

Access to new drugs has slowed the growth in America's disability rates, according to report...

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE/NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH/INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Ostensibly, employers of more than 50 people must apply the same copayments, deductibles, etc., to mental health services as they have for medical services. But the employer doesn't have to cover mental health at all. And if there is coverage, employers can pick and choose which disorders they will cover. [link]

So why does this interest us? Because it is an example of very bad law. It does the opposite of what good public policy should be all about.

Continue reading at the John Goodman Health Blog.

The sweeping health reform plan proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus suffers from several expensive and fatal flaws, according to a National Center for Policy Analysis health economist.

NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick called the Baucus proposal a "blueprint for economic disaster in health care coverage for Americans."

"The end result of Baucus' plan would destroy any choices that consumers have to select health coverage that meets their individual needs," said Herrick. "We would be stuck with a government-designed and regulated health plan that will drive up costs and limit access for too many consumers."

"Whenever these types of regulations are imposed at the state level, premiums have jumped two to three times the national average," said Herrick, a noted NCPA health economist.  "Mandated coverage would force consumers to buy plans with benefits they may not want at prices they cannot afford."

The Baucus plan includes many of the same elements implemented in the Massachusetts mandated health plan, which Herrick said is now suffering from massive cost over-runs for the state and escalating premium costs for consumers."  He added, "Many newly insured patients have been unable to find doctors willing to treat them under the new reimbursement levels."

The solution, said Herrick, is portable coverage that moves with workers from job to job, and that allows families to choose the level of benefits they need at a cost they can afford.

"The bottom line," said Herrick, "is that the Baucus plan will exacerbate current problems of skyrocketing costs and limited access while creating a huge burden for individual taxpayers and businesses.  There is no such thing as free health care."

Herrick is a preeminent expert on 21^st century medicine, including a variety of critical health care issues, such as health insurance and the uninsured, patient empowerment and trends in state health policy reform.

The Medicare prescription drug program cost $44 billion in the fiscal year ended September 30, $6 billion less than in 2007...

USA TODAY

WILL WE VOTE AGAINST A CANDIDATE'S DNA?

Office seekers may one day be pressured to disclose genetic test results, say observers...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

UTAH TRIES CHEAPER COBRA ALTERNATIVE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE

A new plan from Utah insurers aims to make between-jobs insurance more palatable by offering coverage that's less comprehensive but cheaper...

WALL STREET JOURNAL/DESERET NEWS

SCIENCE AND SAFETY

The use of irradiation to eliminate bacteria can significantly reduce food-borne illnesses, says Diane Katz...

FRASER INSTITUTE

HAVING GOOD TEETH CAN PAY OFF

Women who resided in communities with fluoridated water during childhood earn approximately 4 percent more than women who did not, but (there is) no effect of fluoridation for men, say researchers...

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Goodman started off in health care policy almost accidently, IBD reports.  “I got into health care policy because there was a need and it wasn’t being met by others,” said Goodman.  “It wasn’t getting the attention it deserved, and yet with each passing year it became more and more obvious that this was the most pressing domestic problem that we had and every other country had.”

Goodman found a need that public policy was not successful in solving, and in response, established the National Center for Policy Analysis in 1983.  At the time of its creation, the NCPA had to compete with other well-established conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.  But NCPA began to focus on issues other think tanks were neglecting.

“We began focusing on issues that were not being addressed by the larger, older think tanks, what I call the social insurance issues—the role of the government in retirement, health care, disability, unemployment, welfare and entitlement programs,” said Goodman.

“John is an independent thinker,” remarks Consumers for Health Care Choices President Greg Scandlen.  “He’s not an ideologue, he’s a real economist.  If he supports something, it’s because he really believes it is the way to go, not because political winds are blowing that way.”

Such determination led to perhaps his greatest policy success, health savings accounts.  Goodman was central to popularizing support for HSAs, fighting the uphill battle with both the private and public sectors.  Through his popular book “Patient Power” and the success of health savings account among a few individual firms, Goodman eventually got Congress to catch-on to HSAs and the change they could bring to healthcare.

But for Goodman and the NPCA, getting HSAs into law is not the end of the road.  Says Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger, “[Goodman] has a fount of good ideas about what to do in health care.”

To read the full article from Investor’s Business Daily, click here.

Some 750,000 Americans traveled abroad for medical care in 2007, according to a new report by the Deloitte Center for Health...

AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN

CLARIFYING THE McCAIN HEALTH PLAN

McCain's health tax credit is larger than the current tax subsidy for insurance...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

MENTAL HEALTH PARITY PROVISION OPENS A PANDORA'S BOX

The mental health parity provision in the Wall Street/bank bailout bill should be reversed or modified to apply to severe disorders, say two psychologists...

BALTIMORE SUN

ARE YOU PAYING TOO MUCH FOR HEALTH INSURANCE?

The average premium for family coverage has increased 119 percent since 1999...

FORBES

AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE

One-in-three Canadian physicians sends a patient to the United States for treatment each year...

TOWNHALL.COM/FRASER INSTITUTE/CATO INSTITUTE

WOMEN BUYING HEALTH POLICIES PAY A PENALTY

Women pay more for the same health insurance coverage than men do, but the higher cost is because women use more health care services than men do, say insurers...

NEW YORK TIMES

Yet by far the most interesting, informative and valuable article [gated, but with abstract] I’ve ever read in Health Affairs didn’t make it into any press release. Nor did it get covered in any of the mainstream health policy media outlets. It was an article about a country with institutions that produce health care quality as good or better than what we have, at a fraction of the cost! It describes how and why this happens and what institutions keep similar innovations from occurring in the United States.

So why the news blackout? Hard to say. As in art, food and sex, perhaps in health policy there’s no way to explain the diversity of human interests. Continue Reading

An end to employer-based health insurance is exactly what the American health care market needs, say observers...

BOSTON GLOBE

HOW OBAMA WOULD STIFLE DRUG INNOVATION

The high price of developing specialty drugs distorts future investment decisions, says Dr. Scott Gottlieb...

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE/WALL STREET JOURNAL

ADVANCING HEALTH CARE

Liability is a big reason that an estimated 93 percent of doctors are engaging in $210 billion worth of defensive medicine per year, says R. Bruce Josten...

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE/POLITICO.COM

GOOD HEALTH EQUALS BETTER GRADES

There is a clear connection between student health and academic success, say researchers...

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA/MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

DEBUNKING MYTHS OF ERS

A higher proportion of patients with public insurance, such as Medicaid and Medicare, use emergency departments more than the uninsured, say researchers...

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION/USA TODAY

HEALTH CARE FIXES: PLAN VS. PLAN

Under Sen. John McCain's health care plan, among families making between $100,000 and $149,000 annually, 38 percent would save more than $2,500 a year on health costs...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

By discouraging inappropriate medical procedures, evidence-based reimbursement strategies could save billions of dollars annually while simultaneously improving the overall quality of care, say cardiologists George Diamond and Sanjay Kaul...

FORBES

DEATH RATE 70 PERCENT LOWER AT TOP U.S. HOSPITALS

If all U.S. hospitals performed at the level of top-rated five-star hospitals, 237,420 Medicare patient deaths could potentially have been prevented from 2005 to 2007, according to study...

HEALTHGRADES/MSN.COM

HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS' LAST CHANCE?

Consumer power has gained some ground during the Bush administration; now voters have a decision to make -- whether to extend that progress or roll it back, say observers...

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

AS HOME IVs GROW, MEDICARE PATIENTS MISS OUT

Administering medications at home generally costs $150 to $200 a day, compared to $1,500 to $2,000 a day at a hospital...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

WHO WILL PAY FOR BARACK OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN?

The cost of Barack Obama's health care plan will be almost completely borne by workers in the form of lower wages, say experts...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS/AMERICAN SPECTATOR

OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN: MORE POWER TO WASHINGTON

Barack Obama insists that his health care proposal will save American families $2,500, but the costs are truly unknown, say observers...

HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Why doesn't Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) support Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) health plan?...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

MCCAIN IS THE REAL HEALTH-CARE REFORMER

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) does not want to scrap employer-based insurance all together; he would keep part of the tax deduction in place...

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE/WALL STREET JOURNAL

WAITING YOUR TURN: HOSPITAL WAITING LISTS IN CANADA

Surgical wait times are down but Canadians still wait more than 17 weeks for treatment, according to study...

FRASER INSTITUE

MEDICAL LICENSING: AN OBSTACLE TO AFFORDABLE CARE

State licensing laws unnecessarily restrict the supply of medical care, because they require physicians to perform tasks that could be performed ably and less expensively by less-skilled professionals, say economists...

CATO INSTITUE

DEFINING DEATH

As demand for organs increase, doctors are under pressure to shift the line that divides life from death, say observers...

THE ECONOMIST

Every year, about 536,000 women die giving birth, and deaths are heavily weighted to the poorest and most isolated in each country, say observers...

TIME

THE FLAW IN EMPLOYER-BASED HEALTH INSURANCE

New Jersey has one of the most highly regulated, expensive health insurance markets in the country, says Devon Herrick, a health economist...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLLICY ANALYSIS/PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

BRING ON THE MEDICAL TOURISM

The main reason for the explosive growth in medical tourism is economic opportunity and the chance for consumers to make their own decision, say experts...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS/FLORIDA TODAY

PAYING WORKERS TO GO ABROAD FOR HEALTH CARE

Open-heart surgery, which can cost roughly $100,000 in the United States, can be done at an internationally accredited hospital in India for just $8,500, say observers...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

THE SHIFTING TAX IMPLICATIONS OF MCCAIN'S HEALTH PLAN

Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) health care plan would give people a refundable tax credit ($2,500 for individuals; $5,000 for families) to buy insurance through work or on their own...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF SINGLE PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE

Americans should avoid a Canadian-style single-payer health care system, say researchers...

FRASER INSTITUTE

Just as autism is being found more often, so are dubious explanations for the source, says Paul A. Offit...

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS/WALL STREET JOURNAL

RETIREES' DISABILITY EPIDEMIC

Virtually every career employee with the Long Island Rail Road -- as many as 97 percent in one recent year -- applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, say observers...

NEW YORK TIMES

MEDICARE PAID BILLIONS IN SUSPECT CLAIMS

At least $1 billion of the roughly $10 billion in Medicare payments over 2007 were improper, say investigators...

ASSOCIATED PRESS/WALL STREET JOURNAL

PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTMENT AND NURSING HOME CARE

Private equity investment in nursing homes have not adversely affected the quality of care to date, say researchers...

HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL/HEALTH AFFAIRS

REFORMING THE U.S. HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) health care plan would completely replace the current system with a fairer, more efficient one, providing a much better chance of insuring the uninsured and controlling health costs, says John Goodman...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS/FRASER INSTITUTE

To reform Medicare, three fundamental reforms need to occur, says John C. Goodman...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

INSURING THE UNINSURED

Employers should be encouraged to automatically enroll their employees in a health savings account, says John C. Goodman...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

E.R. PATIENTS OFTEN LEFT CONFUSED AFTER VISITS

Many emergency room patients are discharged without understanding how to care for themselves once they get home, say researchers...

ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE/NEW YORK TIMES

ANOTHER BENEFIT OF HEALTH: WEALTH

Obese people spend a third more than fit people on health services and three-quarters more on medications, say observers...

TIME MAGAZINE

CANDIDATES' HEALTH PLANS UNLIKELY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

The health reforms of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will not solve the current and future problems of the health care system, say analysts...

HEALTH AFFAIRS/DALLAS MORNING NEWS

BEATING THE GERM INSURGENCY

Drug resistance is due in large part to antimicrobial drug misuse, say researchers...

RAND CORPORATION

With interstate competition, consumers would be more likely to find a health policy that fits their budget, giving more people access to affordable insurance, say Devon Herrick and Ariel House...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

OUTSOURCING THE DRUG INDUSTRY

U.S. drug giants are rushing to partner with Indian and Chinese companies where the cost of labor and testing are much cheaper, say observers...

BUSINESSWEEK

YOUR MARRIAGE LICENSE, PLEASE

Employers often find themselves footing health care costs for employees' ex-spouses and adult children who are not in school, say observers...

FORBES MAGAZINE

MCCAIN ON HEALTH CARE

Under Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) health plan, the federal government would provide tax incentives for people to buy health insurance...

NATIONAL JOURNAL

OBAMA ON HEALTH CARE

Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) health plan would require parents to insure their children and would allow children up to age 25 to stay on their parents' plans...

NATIONAL JOURNAL

GETTING REAL ABOUT HEALTH CARE

Health care, no matter how lavishly provided, can only partially compensate for individual differences, says columnist Robert J. Samuelson...

NEWSWEEK

Nearly 12 million -- out of the estimated 47 million Americans who are uninsured at some point during the year -- could receive public health coverage, but fail to do so, according to report...

HEARTLAND INSTITUTE/NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT

CURBING ANTIBIOTIC USE IN WAR ON SUPERBUGS

Monitoring hospitals' use of antibiotics and restricting prescriptions of specific drugs when they become less effective at fighting infections will prevent bacterial infections, say observers...

WALL STREET JOURNAL

ELEVATED RATE OF TEEN SUICIDE STIRS CONCERN

Researchers are concerned that warnings about antidepressants are scaring people away from medicines that could help them...

U.S. CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION/WALL STREET JOURNAL

THE JOHN MCCAIN HEALTH PLAN

Under Sen. John McCain's health care plan, employers could no longer buy insurance with pretax dollars; such payments would be taxable to the employee, just like wages, says John C. Goodman...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

THE BARACK OBAMA HEALTH PLAN

Sen. Barack Obama's health plan would impose a "pay-or-play" mandate on all employers -- taxing those who do not provide health insurance for their employees, says John C. Goodman...

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

MEDICARE PART D SAVES MONEY FOR MANY PARTICIPANTS

A first year review of Medicare Part D's performance shows that the program is quite successful, according to researchers...

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH