In an economics-textbook universe, wed expect to see competitors looking at the high profits that companies are able to charge, and eagerly pile into the market, driving down prices until they are once again at competitive levels. Why doesnt this happen?
Iowa is scheduled for the largest premium increases in the land next year, a whopping 69 percent according to health care consultancy Avalere. What's going on?
If Graham-Cassidy passes, it will return us to something more like the health-care politics of yore, because the federal government will be (mostly) out of the health-care-program business.
Health care reform is like one of those ill people in a Victorian novel. They are pronounced close to death, with no possibility of a cure and then they linger on for hundreds of pages of breathless plotting, while the reader wonders: Is this it? Could they possibly live after...
Running along the southwestern edge of the state, the Texas 23rd has 820 miles of border and a majority-Hispanic population. Hillary Clinton carried it by 3.4 percentage points. Hurd, a Republican, carried it by 1.3 points.
We were repeatedly treated to the incredible sight of health care bills that literally no one in the legislature actually wanted, even as they were voting to move them forward.
Despite the ugly optics, Republicans may well pass their replacement of the Affordable Care Act, knowing theyre likely to lose control of Congress relatively soon no matter what they do.
If single payer cant make it through these legislatures, then its American advocates are going to have to either resign themselves to a lifetime of certain failure, or find themselves another dream.
Health care is one-sixth of our economy. When youre dealing with such an important sector, its irresponsible to let the reform process be driven more by political logrolling than by practical impact.