Jay at Colorado Health Insurance Insider makes a few trenchant observations on the “government is incompetent” meme.

There’s been much to do here and thereabouts on the subject of mandated universal coverage, with a good bit of the “do” pretty negative. Universal coverage has raised the ire of several pundits, one of whom has gone so far as to set up his own club of anti-universal care people (secret handshakes, coded messages, and masks supplied at induction).
Why is universal coverage so bad? Here, culled from the speeches, monographs, and policy papers are the consensus top ten reasons.
I’ll explore each of them in turn this week.

Continue reading The top ten reasons universal coverage is bad

One of the more thoughtful pieces on individualism v. community responsibility has been (electronically) penned by Sarah Dine at Health Affairs’ blog.

Continue reading Why health care reform is so tough

Richard Eskow didn’t want me to have all the fun.
He’s taken the arguments against a libertarian free market health care funding and delivery system to their logical conclusion – no insurance for most of us, lots of bankrupt folks, and then a single payer system.
Libertarians, you have been warned!

Perhaps.
But I think not. At least the smarter ones won’t.
Health plans/insurers/managed care companies are all suffering from mature market malaise. This dread affliction affects companies toiling in an industry with very low growth, dominated by a few large competitors, wherein these competitors can only grow by taking market share from each other (by slashing price) or by acquiring whatever companies are left to buy.
Unless, the market gets bigger.

Continue reading Will insurers fight universal coverage?

There’s a bit of confusion out there re why people don’t have health insurance.
There are likely multiple reasons; some people choose not to, others can’t afford it, and for the rest coverage may just not be available. Here are the facts.

Continue reading Why are they uninsured?

One of the more puzzling arguments against universal coverage is that advanced by the worthies at the Cato Institute. They argue that if insurance companies could just charge people based on their risk profile, the market would solve the problem of coverage.
I don’t follow the logic.

Continue reading ‘Free markets’ in health insurance just don’t work

Medicare’s admin expenses are not really that much lower than private insurers’. Before single-payer advocates start accusing me of being an industry shill, check out the facts.

One in five voters named health care as the issue of most concern to them in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll: while health care is the top domestic issue, it is well behind Iraq as THE top issue.
But it isn’t ‘just’ health care; the poll data tells a much richer story about what voters want from Presidential candidates, and how they feel about the present contenders.

Continue reading What voters want

IMO there are three health care reform “have tos” – universal coverage, a consistent benefit plan, and community rating.
Here’s where the Democratic candidates stand on each. This is a synopsis, a cheat sheet; some of the candidates have nuanced positions that don’t lend themselves to this type of quick and dirty review.

Continue reading Health care reform – Where the Democratic candidates stand