War on Healthcare

Today’s word: medical underwriting. “the use of medical or health status information in the evaluation of an applicant for coverage”
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As I’ve pointed out before McCain’s healthcare plan relies heavily on state-run high-risk pools; it would essentially eliminate employer-sponsored group insurance by making group premiums non-deductible for employers. Everyone would be given a tax [...]

Slimymarketing Alert

Have you purchased health insurance through a college or university recently? Be advised that those seemingly trustworthy institutions are selling some slimy merchandise: health insurance. BusinessWeek reports that many people with claims under those policies are finding themselves not-so-insured:
More than half of the insurance plans recommended by colleges offer benefits of $30,000 [...]

McCain GAP revisited

In a previous post I noted McCain’s plan to guarantee everyone access to health insurance–or GAP–consists of dumping millions of people into the dysfunctional state high-risk pools. I know this is going to be hard to believe but that’s precisely the solution favored by the advocacy group formed by private insurance carriers, Council for Affordable [...]

Waiting for McCain’s Health Plan

A few weeks ago I noted that McCain has no healthcare plan. Well, he does, but it amounts to
“throw[ing] you to the market wolves–an individual health insurance market that gives the best prices to the young and healthy and sends the sick off to government-run risk pools that fall way short of giving people decent [...]

It’s the solidarity, stupid!

Maggie Mahar has an interesting post on why we don’t have national healthcare.
“[inequality], says Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, is what makes health care reform so much more difficult in the U.S. than in countries such as Finland, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Denmark, Germany and Norway. In these largely middle-class countries, the [...]

Faith in markets

Now that housing and credit market fiasco is clear to all observers it might be a good idea to ask how we got here. Answer: regulators asleep at the wheel. Or, more precisely, blind regulators. Blinded by ideology. It worth re-reading something Paul Krugman had to say on this subject [...]

I like this strategy

Quotable:
Robert Laszewski at Healthcare Policy and Marketplace Review:
“There is an old salesman’s axiom, “Don’t ever ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
Key House Democrats have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the individual health insurance market. They also want the GAO to review the operation of the state high risk [...]

To help or not to help

…that is the GOP’s question:
President Bush yesterday: from wire service reports:
“President Bush told those affected by a series of deadly tornadoes in five Southern states that help from the federal government is on the way.”
“Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the government,” Bush said. “I do want [...]

Social Darwinism v2

From the Wall Street Journal opinion page:

Why can’t people living in New Jersey buy health insurance available to residents of, say, Pennsylvania?
Rep. John Shadegg, an Arizona Republican, thinks they should — and today will reintroduce legislation to make that possible.
The Health Care Choice Act would allow residents in one state to buy health insurance that [...]

Weeding out the weak

For a party that doesn’t believe in evolution the GOP seems to have no trouble believing in Social Darwinism. The NY Times reports that the Social Security Administration is trying to deal with a huge backlog of disability claims:
“the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared [...]