Health Care

What Health Care Needs Now: Transparency of Real Pricing

As the Trump Administration continues to issue an unprecedented number of regulatory waivers and rules to allow the medical professionals in our health care system to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress goes about its business of creating unintended consequences. The well-intentioned policies of eliminating cost-sharing for patients testing positive for the COVID-19 virus coupled with the...

April 15, 2020

Health Care

Ten years of Obamacare, aka the Medicaid Expansion Act

Obamacare was signed into law 10 years ago today. Although the public’s attention is squarely focused on the coronavirus crisis, the law has been the dominant issue in our nation’s politics over the past decade, and it’s important to understand how it’s working. Unfortunately, it’s not working at all. As employers and families know, Obamacare...

March 23, 2020

Health Care

Here’s why expanding Medicaid isn’t the answer

In between pleas for us to wash our hands, stock up on supplies and — above all — not panic, we’re now being told that the coronavirus outbreak shows that we should unanimously support Medicaid expansion. The irony of this statement is that the states with the highest incidence of acquiring the infection are those that expanded Medicaid. According...

March 13, 2020

Health Care

Medicaid Expansion & Housing Without Help Will Hurt Austin’s Homeless

Advocates are attempting more and more to link the Austin homelessness crisis to Texas’ refusal to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. But the advocates’ proposal is a recipe for disaster that will cause further harm to our neighbors experiencing homelessness, and make it more difficult for the poor to access health care. The plan is...

March 12, 2020

Health Care

Liberal flip-flop: To keep or dump ObamaCare?

Many media outlets and political leaders continue to promote the belief that more than 20 million people will lose health insurance if the Affordable Care Act is struck down. That’s most likely false. At the very least, the loss would not be immediate, as the case would likely be sent back to the district court to establish...

February 29, 2020

Health Care

The advantage of paying for medical care directly

According to a PBS health report about a retiree on a Medicare Advantage plan, Z. Ming Ma was issued a prescription from her physician that cost $285 for a 90-day supply. “A month later,” the article says, “Ma and his wife were about to leave on another trip, and Ma needed to stock up on her medication.”...

February 8, 2020

Health Care

There is no free lunch — even in health care

Obamacare was supposed to fix all of this — so why are so many Americans still uninsured, even when they qualify for subsidized and even free insurance? According to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “28 percent of uninsured individuals who could shop on the Marketplace, or 4.7 million people nationwide, are eligible to purchase...

December 30, 2019

Health Care

Steering toward a government health care off-ramp

My friend David was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010. The next time the union contract was up, his health insurance premiums, deductibles and copays shot up so much that he and his wife elected to go with Medicare and a supplement, even...

November 14, 2019

Health Care

The employer-health insurance connection an ‘accident of history’

Everyone likes the idea of fair competition. That’s why everyone supported the 2007 investigation of an N.B.A. referee who knowingly influenced the outcome of professional basketball games on which he or his associates had placed bets. There was an outcry by the players, the owners, the league, and the fans — because the idea of picking winners...

November 9, 2019

Health Care

American Business Wants Out of Healthcare

Henry Ford once said “a customer can have a car painted any color—so long as it’s black.” The automobile was new to the market, and Ford wanted his factories to run so efficiently that the cost could be low enough “that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one.” Once competitors...

November 6, 2019

Health Care

Uninsured by circumstance — or by choice?

I often tell people that I am among the statistic of the uninsured. I’m not covered under traditional health benefits, nor is my family. We use other forms of coverage that provide us with the peace of mind and access to affordable care that we desire. We’re not alone; the Census Bureau released data last week that...

September 18, 2019

Health Care

‘Sabotage’ of the Affordable Care Act is just political rhetoric

In a recent House committee hearing, witnesses came forward to say that if the ACA is invalidated, important patient initiatives would be eliminated. They brought up the initiatives pertaining to combatting the opioid epidemic, curtailing the AIDs epidemic, and advancing kidney health. Perhaps they didn’t know that these were all put in place by the Trump Administration. Repeated claims...

August 9, 2019