Opinion
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Advocacy Groups Inflate Number of Uninsured
Opinion -Three of the most powerful advocacy groups in the country spearheaded an unprecedented $8 million campaign to persuade Americans to take yet another step down the road to a single-payer health care system. -
SARS Lessons for U.S.
Opinion -It’s been almost two months since SARS, the Asian “mystery pneumonia,” burst onto the world scene, yet already so much has changed. The causative agent is now believed to be an especially virulent form of a common cold virus--the coronavirus. -
Heart Problems Reported in Smallpox Vaccine Recipients
Opinion -Two women, both first-responder health care workers in their 50s, have died of heart attacks suffered after receiving vaccinations against the smallpox virus. -
Market-based Health Care Reform Can Spur the Economy
Opinion -The federal government released data in January showing the United States spent $1.4 trillion--$5,035 per capita--on health care in 2001. This year, spending could increase to nearly $1.7 trillion. -
05/2003 Scandlen at Large: Consumer Choice Matters
Opinion -The National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) are in the forefront of opposition to Association Health Plan (AHP) legislation now before Congress. -
Malpractice Reform Takes a Hit
Opinion -While the war in Iraq has distracted Congress from medical malpractice reform, it appears legislators remain focused on Medicare reform and the creation of a workable prescription drug benefit program for seniors. -
Rethinking Health Insurance
Opinion -Managing Editor’s Note: Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science, wrote this almost two years ago. His sage observations then are even more meaningful today. -
How the President’s Health Care Plan Covers the Uninsured
Opinion -Millions of Americans are without health insurance. President George W. Bush has proposed a number of positive policy initiatives that can reverse this situation and make health care coverage more affordable for millions of individuals and families. -
FDA Cracks Down on Drug Reimportation
Opinion -Seniors who have been buying cheap drugs over the Internet from Canada soon are likely to be searching for new suppliers. The U.S. -
05/2003 The Galen Report
Opinion -The former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Dan Crippen, advised the Senate Aging Committee to understand a problem before spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fix it. What a novel idea! -
Choice in Europe
Opinion -European governments have struggled to combine their traditional ethos of equity in health care with the demands of a more sophisticated, consumer-driven society. Few expected their inspiration for reform might come from Sweden. -
Improving on an Ambitious Proposal
Opinion -The President has laid out an ambitious health care policy agenda that includes substantial revisions in the federal tax code and the federal tax treatment of health insurance. Additional reforms, however, would improve the plan. 1. -
Kuehl-Care Wrong for Californians
Opinion -A new plan for a system of government health care in California is being touted by its author as a grand idea. That is a strange description for a measure that would be costly, counterproductive, and a danger to the well-being of all Californians. -
Smallpox Compensation Law Stalls
Opinion -Despite a recent floor defeat, House Republicans say they have not given up on a bill to create a federal compensation program for those harmed by the smallpox vaccine. -
Talking Health Care Reform on Capitol Hill
Opinion -Given the over-load of information on Iraq, SARS, and assorted forms of TV reality shows, there exists a false sense nothing is happening on important health care issues. -
Democrats Rally ‘Round Gephardt National Health Care Plan
Opinion -House Democrats are meeting April 29, 2003, at a health care forum to discuss how the party can expand its focus beyond the prescription drug agenda to a larger plan to include limiting health care cost increases. -
Health Care Conference Focused on Consumers
Opinion -The first annual Consumer Directed Health Care Conference (CDHCC) was held in Las Vegas April 7 - 9 and was a huge success with some 700 attendees and 45 exhibitors. -
Thumbs Down on Smallpox Vaccine Program
Opinion -Health care professionals nationwide are refusing to be inoculated against smallpox, worried about the vaccine’s side effects and not sure the threat of a chemical attack justifies the risk posed by vaccination. -
Why Doctors Are Leaving Medicare
Opinion -Medicare recently dodged a potentially fatal “bullet,” but 2003 is still a “make or break” year for the 23-year-old program that provides most of the health care for this nation’s senior citizens. Doctors throughout the U.S. -
Quality of Care for Medicare Patients Improving
Opinion -Medicare patients appear to be getting better care for such ailments as heart attacks, pneumonia, breast cancer, and diabetes than they did a few years ago, but the quality varies dramatically by region and state. According to Dr. -
Medicare-for-all Plan Headed for Congress
Opinion -A disconcerting letter has been circulating among physicians recently. It’s from a group called Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). You might have heard of them. Their chief spokespersons are Dr. -
From Welfare Reform to Medicaid Reform
Opinion -A study published in February 2003 by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured found the uninsured received $35 billion in health care for which they did not pay in 2001. Of this care, $30. -
AIDS: It’s Now up to Africa’s Leaders
Opinion -As the U.S. edges closer to war with Saddam Hussein, its global popularity seems to be ever diminishing. President George W. -
Obese Kids Re-Plead Their Case
Opinion -Lawyers for two obese New York teenagers and their siblings filed an amended complaint to replace the original suit dismissed by Judge Robert Sweet in the U.S. District Court of New York.
