The Politics and Principles of Health Care Reform

The health care system is ready for change, but to make it better, politicians should embrace five principles for designing effective, sustainable reform.

Medicare Is No Model for Health Reform

Instead of pretending that Medicare is the best model for the country, policymakers should recognize that the program is as much in need of reform as the rest of the health system.

Here's Why the Public Plan Won't Work

Trading fifty sets of state regulations for federal regulations that are even more restrictive would eliminate private competitors.

Bending the Curve

Experts in health care policy reached a consensus on a set of concrete, feasible steps that show promise for slowing spending growth and improving quality in health care.

A Look at Health Care Reform by the Numbers

There is one number that matters most in this debate: your bank account number, because regardless of the political promises, you will be paying for whatever passes for health care reform this year.

The Case for Real Health Care Reform

Barack Obama has taken on the task of major health reform, and he might succeed. It is less clear that legislative success would yield a sustainable health care system based on values shared by most Americans.

Obama Targets Wrong Tax for Health Reform

Obama could simultaneously lower health costs and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans by reforming the tax treatment of health insurance.

The GOP's Health-Care Alternative

More people can be covered by making the current insurance tax subsidy more fair.

Financing Health Care Reform

There are two basic ways to finance a reformed health system: raise revenue or reduce health spending. We will undoubtedly do both.

Spending Our Way to Health Care Reform

President Obama has kicked off his health care reforms with an unprecedented shopping spree that will drive costs up, not down.

Would the Health Reform Prescriptions Offered by President Obama and Congressional Leaders Help Patients?

Several elements of the health reform plans moving proposed by the White House and moving through Congress would be detrimental to patients.

Stimulus Bails Out States, Puts off Health Care Reform

President Obama has not even presented his health care reform plan to Congress and already new health spending is spinning out of control.

Statement on the Fiscal Responsibility Summit

President Obama's Fiscal Responsibility Summit offers a valuable opportunity to focus public attention on an unsustainable budget outlook and to highlight various approaches to meaningful action.

Health Policy in the New Administration

President Obama and the largely Democratic Congress have committed to spend $227 billion over the next decade in the health sector.

Stakeholder Perspective: Health Reform and the Next President

Progress for health reform is possible.

Obama's $2,500 Promise

Senator Obama's plan will ensure that someone writes a check to cover the high cost of your health care. But that someone will probably be you.

Symptomatic Relief, but No Cure

The Obama plan offers a host of policy proposals that, in the main, address the symptoms but not the underlying disease that afflicts the health care system.

The Obama Plan

If the economic incentives that drive spending growth are not addressed, any savings gained through Barack Obama's proposed reforms will disappear.

Treading Water

In spite of what we spend on health care, research tells us that we only receive appropriate care half the time. We are simply not getting what we are paying for.

Have Health Reformers Forgotten Medicare?

Tackling Medicare is essential to meaningful health care reform, but Congress seems willfully blind to urgency of fixing Medicare.

Financing the U.S. Health System

Health reform proposals across the spectrum have included changes in how the U.S. health system is financed, but they have policy implications that have received little public attention.

Saving Medicare

A system of sustainable credits would limit the runaway growth of Medicare spending and give seniors the power to make the best of a difficult situation.

Health Reform and the Presidential Candidates

The next president will face a deteriorating economy and tight budget, leaving little room for system-wide health reform.

Lessons from the Clinton Plan

The Clinton health reform attempt in the mid-1990s and the U.S. experience since then suggest some clear lessons for the next U.S. president.

Saving Medicare

Medicare might be preserved through a system of credits or vouchers for senior health care that grow at a financially sustainable rate.

Medicare's Bad News

Medicare is in serious fiscal trouble, but no one seems to be paying attention. What can we do to avoid fiscal disaster?

Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008

The first step toward restoring budget responsibility is to reform the budget decision process so that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are no longer on auto-pilot.

Taking Back Our Fiscal Future

Congress and the president need to reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security because they are no longer able to run on autopilot.

Medicare Coverage Policies for Biologics: The Broad Gray Line

What impact does the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services drug coverage have on the future of biologic products?

The Uninsured and Affordability

Instead of micromanaging the health sector, sensible policy would take advantage of market incentives to reduce inefficiency and promote a high-value health care system.

Medicare Coverage Strategies: Impact of the MMA and PBMs

Medicare reform is important to maintain and regulate the distribution of funds for health care.

Competition: A Prescription for Health Care Transformation

Senator Tom Coburn's proposalon reforming Medicare is sound, but we must first focus on smaller plans that are more politically feasible.

Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Cancer Patients?

Unless the public intervenes, a new rule will make patients sicker.

SCHIP Guidelines: Principles for Health Insurance Coverage for Children and Families

Scholars offer considerations for the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Living without Health Insurance

We have an opportunity and an obligation to seek solutions to the health-system problems that have put insurance out of reach for millions of Americans.

Saving Medicare from a Fiscal Breakdown

Is Medicare headed for a fiscal breakdown?

Slowing the Rising Costs of Health Care Possible

Everyone must work together to curb the costs of health care.

Everything You Wanted to Know about Medicare But Were Too Confused to Ask

Changes in Medicare that give consumers more say--like the new Part D drug benefit--are helpful, but we will have to make tough trade-offs in the years ahead.

Medicare Advantage

Scholarsassess the Medicare Advantage plans, howthey differ from traditional Medicare, how well they meet beneficiaries' needs, and how they affect competition.

Good Medicine for the Tax Code

The president’s health care proposal would put patients in charge of buying their health care, and eliminate today’s perverse incentive to overspend.

Market Initiatives to Improve Access to Health Insurance

Testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensionsonimproving the functioning of the health insurance market and making health coverage more affordable.

Medicare Part D and Prescription Drug Prices

Scholars from AEI and elsewhere answer key questions about Medicare drug coverage and government controls.

Is There a Right Way to Promote Health Insurance through the Tax System?

How can we promote greater efficiency and equity in the health market?

Crisis du Jour or the Real Thing?

Will Medicare's trust funds be depleted by the year 2018?

The Role of Health Services Research in Improving Our Nation’s Health

Testimony to the House Approprations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Other Related Agencies on the role of health services research in improving our nation’s health.

Ensuring Access to Affordable Drug Coverage in Medicare

What will become of the Medicare drug benefit program?

Will Competition Return to Medicare?

Although Medicare's drug benefit might prove to be a significant obstacle to future reforms, it is an important test of competition and consumer choice.

President's Vision for Health Care

Health Care

Cutting through Confusion in Part D

Seniors are struggling to decide whether to enroll in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that began January 1, 2006.

Ensuring Access to Affordable Drug Coverage in Medicare

Although it is too early to assess the full impact of Part D on beneficiaries,employers, and taxpayers, we can discuss the major tradeoffs that will determine the success of the program.

Medicare and the Prescription Drug Benefit

We have made promises in Medicare that cannot be kept, and we have compounded those promises with the Medicare Modernization Act.

Medicare: Yesterday and Tomorrow

Effective competition can change the culture of entitlement that drives patients and providers to demand more without regard to the impact on our ability to finance other pressing social needs.

Inflated Claims about Drug Prices

Reports from AARP and Families USA have heightened concerns among policymakers and the public about the affordability of prescription drugs. However, those reports are misleading.

Health Policy on a Budget

Congress should take action to move Medicare toward a sound, long-term financial footing; to eliminateabuses in Medicaid payments; and to change the tax treatment of health insurance.

Medicare Prescription Drugs

Congress should revisit the Medicare prescription drug program and insist on significant market-based reforms, not merely an ever-expanding array of benefits.

Analyzing the Kerry and Bush Health Proposals

This study presents an independent cost estimate and impact analysis of the major policies offered byPresident George W. Bush and John Kerryto expand access to health insurance.

Kerry, Bush, and the Uninsured

By giving individuals ownership of their health insurance, the George W. Bush plan begins to change the incentives toward prudent purchasing and better value for our health care dollars.

New Drug Plan

A government program cannot beat the prices available in a vigorously competitive health care market.

Fixing the New Medicare Law #3

Congress has provided a good start on a properly structured drug benefit through its transitional drug card program with funding for certain low-income beneficiaries.

Fixing the New Medicare Law #2

Cost estimates of the new Medicare law are at the center of a national debate.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Medicare reform is required that improves health care delivery and provides better incentives to patients, providers, and health plans; the issue needs to be reopened--as early as next year.

Of Sausage-Making and Medicare

Through the Medicare Act of 2003, private plans will offer more services to seniors, but with restrictions that could blunt the effectiveness of competition in restraining cost growth.

Can Medicare and Medicaid Promote More Efficient Health Care?

Congress has a second chance to design a competitive Medicare program that will work and that can begin to transform the health sector.

A Medicare Prescription-Drug Safety Net

It would be a mistake to create even a limited Medicare drug benefit that repeats the mistakes of the past.

How to Overcome Four Key Obstacles to a Medicare Drug Benefit

Legislation could create a sensible drug benefit and put us on the path toward prudent reform, but achieving those aims will require the conference committee to rethink parts of the proposals.

The Cost of Adding a Prescription-Drug Benefit to Medicare

Reforms that go beyond prescription drugs are needed if the program is to survive the financial pressures created by the baby boomers, who will double Medicare enrollment by 2030.

The Medicare Prescription-Drug Benefit Is Bad for America's Health

The new prescription drug benefit will be a fiscally irresponsible subsidy with astronomical long-term costs.

A Benefit That Is Bad for America's Health

Antos and Gokhale on the dangers of the new prescription drug benefit.

The Role of Market Competition in Strengthening Medicare

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program can serve as a model for Medicare reform.

Reforming Health Insurance

Congress and Prescription Drugs

The Medicare program has not kept pace with modern medicine's advances.

What Congress Should Do about Prescription Drugs for Seniors

The leading proposals for a Medicare drug benefit would displace existing insurance coverage for many seniors, impose tremendous new costs on taxpayers, and slow the development of new drugs.

Outside View

Time for a Sensible Medicare Drug Benefit

Members of Congress are trying to outdo each other in offering senior citizens a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

Some Bad Options for Drug Coverage

The Senate expects to debate bills designed to lower the cost of prescription drugs and provide a drug benefit to seniors, butall of these bills would be dangerous to your health.

Medicare Financing and Prescription Drugs

Testimony before the House Committee on the need to modernize and reform Medicare.

Medicare + Choice

Lack of choice in Medicare industry adds to its many obstacles.