Media

Why the Parties are Realigning

Why the Parties are Realigning

High-income, highly educated people often vote for liberal Democrats for two reasons: guilt and mythology. It is not unusual for these folks to think they won the genetic lottery unfairly. They were born in the right ZIP code to the right parents and with the right genes. They feel guilty about that. The mythology is regularly repeated by Paul Krugman: Republicans favor the rich and Democrats favor the poor and the middle class. The problem: Krugman’s view of the world is a myth. More
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Making Health Savings Accounts Better

Making Health Savings Accounts Better

Writing in Health Affairs,  John Goodman says there are a number of ways to make HSAs available to more people and to serve more needs. Included:

  1. Roth-type HSAs for seniors on Medicare.
  2. Roth HSAs for people who buy insurance in the exchanges.
  3. Use of HSAs to obtain 24/7 “direct primary care.”
  4. HSAs for chronic care.
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What Should Be Done with Obamacare?

What Should Be Done with Obamacare?

No objective observer can think that Obamacare is working the way we were promised it would. It is time for bipartisan reform. John Goodman proposes reforms that would turn the (Obamacare) exchanges into functional markets.

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Fact Checking Claims About Taxes

Fact Checking Claims About Taxes

Here are four surprising facts: (1) the subject on which there is the most disinformation is “taxes”; (2) almost all the disinformation comes from the left; (3) it is spread to the general public by the mainstream media; and (4) it is almost never fact-checked. More.

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11 Billion Prices

11 Billion Prices

In 2011, Tom Saving and John Goodman pointed out in Health Affairs that Medicare was setting 6 billion prices on any given day. Writing at Forbes, Goodman says that today that number has almost doubled — to 11 billion. And the way Medicare pays, is the way employers and insurance companies also pay. Of all the things that are bad about our health care system, this probably should rank near the top. Yet it rarely gets the attention it deserves. See: What’s Wrong with the Way We Pay Doctors?

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Why We Are Not Getting All the Medical Care We Need

Why We Are Not Getting All the Medical Care We Need

Even though the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world, we have fewer doctors per capita than most other developed countries, and they are seeing patients less often.. The average wait to see a new doctor in this country is 3½ weeks. At the worst-performing hospitals, one in ten visitors to the emergency room leave without ever receiving medical attention – apparently because they get tired of waiting. Solutions: Let nurses practice to the top of their training and open new avenues for foreign-trained doctors and medical school graduates without residencies. More.

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The Greed Theory of Inflation

The Greed Theory of Inflation

The common perception among commentators and pundits was that the Democratic National Convention was devoid of any focus on issues. There was a lot of joy. But very little substance. Except for one rather remarkable exception. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “the delegates united in blaming corporate greed for high prices.” As Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote, “Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter.” There is just one problem. There is no such thing as an economic theory of inflation – including high grocery prices — that is based on greed. More.

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Why Health Policy Problems Rarely Get Solved, Part II

Why Health Policy Problems Rarely Get Solved, Part II

People with costly medical problems who lack the ability to pay for their medical care and also lack health insurance pose a social problem. The American way of dealing with that problem is to force the private sector to bear the full cost of solving it. In response, employers have adopted health plans that are attractive to the healthy and unattractive to the sick. More.

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How to Fix the Social Security Benefits Tax

How to Fix the Social Security Benefits Tax

John Goodman and Steve Moore say that Trump’s idea of abolishing the SS benefits tax is too expensive. But it is probably the worst tax on the books. They show how to get rid of its worst features without a big loss of revenue for the government. More.

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