Posted in Healthcare on May 16th, 2012
Here is a health care reform I can get behind. I was amazed at the price difference for pregnancy care if you were willing to pay cash. For more information about the Colorado effort please go to the nonprofit Center for Improving Value in Health Care site. For more information about the nationwide effort go [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Feb 15th, 2012
Here is an interesting solution to the contraceptive debate. You change the policy to allow pharmacists to determine whether a female can purchase contraceptives. This policy could be extended to several drugs that presently require prescriptions such as Viagra. Increased access typically results in lower costs. This could lower health care costs without lowering health [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Feb 13th, 2012
I do not have a problem with other people using contraception or getting it paid as part of their health plan. I do have a problem with me paying part of it. The simple solution is for contraception to be a benefit of the Affordable Care Act’s “Gold” plan or as an extra cost item [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Sep 28th, 2011
As a resident of Ohio and purchaser of individual health insurance, I am particularly interested in how Ohio is impacted by the Obamacare reforms. In a previous post this year I performed a simple price check of similar health care policies in Ohio and in Massachusetts using my family information. Massachusetts was chosen as a [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Apr 29th, 2011
Entrepreneurs create new private marketplaces – years ahead of similar exchanges called for in the health law – in a move that could save employers money but continue to shift cost and responsibility to employees. Here’s the quote that got my attention since it is an issue no one seems to be talking about [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Apr 17th, 2011
I posted this as a comment to Ezra Klein’s post, The high-deductible plans in the Affordable Care Act. My complaint with his post is that although high-deductible plans are in the Affordable Care Act, they made them very expensive when compared to existing high-deductible plans. If this is reform, I want no part of it. [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Apr 12th, 2011
Ouch! As a health care plan, Romneycare is an unmitigated fiasco. It has caused costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to soar and nonprofit providers like Blue Cross to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. But as a political policy, Romneycare is nearly unparalleled in Republican history. It has destroyed one front-runner’s presidential hopes [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Apr 9th, 2011
In a previous post I compared my health insurance costs in Ohio with the lowest available plan in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts health care system is our best example of a fully implemented PPACA. The lowest available plan in Massachusetts would cost me an additional $991 per month or $11,892 per year. Now I see an [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Apr 3rd, 2011
on Taylor who is now blogging on The Incidental Economist blog pointed out an interesting essay on the Economics of Privately Sponsored Social Insurance by Uwe Reinhardt. The interesting part of the essay for me was his definition for employer-based insurance: Employment-based group health insurance, American style, is publicly subsidized, privately sponsored, community-rated social insurance [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Mar 11th, 2011
Healthcare cost shifting is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. As a healthy person I have been practicing my form of “cost shifting” for over ten years. My health care strategy arose when I moved to Cincinnati and was unemployed. When I looked at the COBRA insurance rates and our health [...]
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