Trillion Dollar Mind Game

I’ve been frustrated for some time by the “$1 trillion over 10 years” price tag that has been placed on federal health reform legislation. First, because it was an arbitrary number that entered the debate, and second, that it has been touted as a...

San Francisco: Taking a Bite Out of Health Care Costs

In a blog post in the Huffington Post, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom writes about the successes of the city’s expaned health care program: But in San Francisco we are going far beyond the notion of health care as just a way of treating sickness. We are saving...

Massachusetts Takes a Step Back From Health Care for All

[UPDATE: From the New York Times (7/17/09): A high-level state commission recommended Thursday that Massachusetts seek to rein in health care costs by radically restructuring the way doctors and hospitals are paid. Read more.] In a real-life test of what happens when...

Why We Must Ration Health Care

When should a health care system that is trying to maximize the health of an entire population deny an individual a specific treatment? What is the value of extending a life for a day, or a year? In a long and excellent article for the New York Times, Peter Singer, a...

Health Care’s Infectious Losses

This came in recently from Jonathan Ater, who served as vice-chair of the Oregon Health Fund Board: The following op-ed from the New York Times makes the same point that the Oregon Health Fund Board made: the problem with health care is not simply a financial problem,...