Federalizing Medicaid

Here is a new post I’ve got up at the Health Care Cost Monitor, in which I try to convince folks that even Republicans should be in favor of federalizing Medicaid. I’d love your feedback, as I’m still developing this idea.

Here is a new post I’ve got up at the Health Care Cost Monitor, in which I try to convince folks that even Republicans should be in favor of federalizing Medicaid. I’d love your feedback, as I’m still developing this idea.
Two patients lie asleep on operating room tables, each with an inflamed appendix demanding to be relocated to a specimen jar. Two operations take place, each one lasting close to fifty minutes, each one performed by an experienced surgeon at a state-of-the-art U.S. hospital. One operation was priced at $1200 dollars. But the other one…
I have been writing a bit lately on the need for healthcare providers to talk with their patients about healthcare costs, if for no other reason than to enable patients to determine whether they can afford to pay for the healthcare that their doctors are recommending them to receive. I have been criticized for this position, on…
Healthcare systems are big and complex beasts, that are very hard to transform overnight. In the United States, for example, we have long had a system of care dominated by fee-for-service payment. In this kind of system, the more tests and procedures and office visits that a physician orders, the more that physician gets paid….
In 2010, the state of Rhode Island decided to tackle high healthcare costs. It did so by requiring insurers to meet affordability standards. The plan worked, but not for the reasons you probably suspect. Let’s start with what Rhode Island’s standards look like. It required several things of insurers: Premium caps – with annual inflation equal…
The gynecologist made several incisions and inserted the laparoscope. With the help of her surgical team of nurses, students and anesthesiologists, she removed the patient’s uterus, which had been bleeding uncontrollably for the past six months despite aggressive medical therapy. The price tag of the procedure? Around $6,000. Meanwhile in a nearby hospital, another gynecologist…
I have been writing a lot lately about out-of-pocket costs for health care in United States. In my research on this topic, I came across the following picture, which shows how much insurers are spending on healthcare, among people in the United States receiving insurance through their employers, and also how much those employees are spending…