Showing archive for: “Health Care”
How the Employer Mandate Delay Thwarts the ACA’s Insurance Exchanges and Ignores the Main Problem With the Act’s Mandate/Subsidy Scheme
Has a piece of legislation ever been subject to as much cynicism-inspiring manipulation as the Affordable Care Act? It was rammed through Congress, on a totally partisan basis, via an unprecedented use of the reconciliation process. Its passage required blatant vote-buying with such unjust goodies as the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase. Its proponents ... How the Employer Mandate Delay Thwarts the ACA’s Insurance Exchanges and Ignores the Main Problem With the Act’s Mandate/Subsidy Scheme
My Hip Saga and How the Affordable Care Act Squandered Our Best Opportunity to Lower Health Care Costs
After two years of nagging and increasingly worse hip and leg pain, I learned last August (at age forty) that I have a congenital hip deformity and need to have both hips replaced. In planning for this surgery, I’ve witnessed first-hand a problem that is driving American health care costs through the roof and is exacerbated by ... My Hip Saga and How the Affordable Care Act Squandered Our Best Opportunity to Lower Health Care Costs
Zeke Emanuel on the ACA’s Adverse Selection Problem and Solutions to It
Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother and former health care adviser to President Obama, acknowledges in today’s Wall Street Journal that adverse selection may prove to be a “bump in the road” in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But never you mind. He’s got solutions. And, as usual, they all come down to messaging. Emanuel describes ... Zeke Emanuel on the ACA’s Adverse Selection Problem and Solutions to It
How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing
[Cross posted at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property blog.] Today’s public policy debates frame copyright policy solely in terms of a “trade off” between the benefits of incentivizing new works and the social deadweight losses imposed by the access restrictions imposed by these (temporary) “monopolies.” I recently posted to SSRN a new ... How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing
George Will on My “Plausible Judgment” About the Future of the ACA
In his nationally syndicated column this week, Washington Post columnist George Will highlights what he termed my “plausible judgment” (I’m taking that as high praise!) that the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision “may have made the ACA unworkable, thereby putting it on a path to ultimate extinction.” Will focuses on the first of my three major points ... George Will on My “Plausible Judgment” About the Future of the ACA
Regulation Magazine Cover Article: “How the Supreme Court Doomed the ACA to Failure”
My recent essay, How the Supreme Court Doomed the ACA to Failure, is the cover article of the current issue of Regulation Magazine. I’ve been over the essay’s basic points several times (e.g., here, here, and here), so I won’t belabor them now. My basic assertions are: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions mandating both “guaranteed issue” (insurers must sell to everyone) and ... Regulation Magazine Cover Article: “How the Supreme Court Doomed the ACA to Failure”
How Many Patents Make a “Patent War”?
I have a guest blog posting up on Intellectual Ventures’ blog on why a patent war — or “patent thicket” in scholarly parlance — cannot be defined solely in terms of the number of patents involved in the legal and commercial conflict. Check it out at: http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/insights/archives/how-many-patents-make-a-patent-war As an aside, this issue is important because ... How Many Patents Make a “Patent War”?
Do Your Low-Wage Employees a Favor: Drop Their Health Care Coverage
Another day, another (presumably) unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act. (I say presumably because there’s a plausible theory out there that the Act was engineered to fail and thereby pave the way for a single-payer health care system. I’m not cynical enough to embrace that view, though a close look at the Act reveals design flaws so ... Do Your Low-Wage Employees a Favor: Drop Their Health Care Coverage
Today’s Software Patents Look a Lot Like Early Pharma Patents
The recent New York Times article on the high-tech industry argues that software patents and the current “smart phone war” are a disaster for innovation, and it backs this with quotes and cites from a horde of academics and judges, like Judge Richard Posner, that software patents are causing “chaos.” Judge Posner in particular has ... Today’s Software Patents Look a Lot Like Early Pharma Patents
Why the Affordable Care Act, as Construed by the Supreme Court, Will Fail
I’ve recently posted to SSRN a new paper with the same name as this post. The paper asserts, in greater detail, a number of points I’ve previously made on TOTM: Health insurance premiums will rise under the (SCOTUS-modified) ACA, because the Act’s “guaranteed issue” and “community rating” mandates will generate widespread adverse selection that cannot be ... Why the Affordable Care Act, as Construed by the Supreme Court, Will Fail
NPR’s List of Policies Economists Love
The NPR put together a panel of economists with various political and ideological views to see what economists agree on. (HT: Mankiw) Here is the list: One: Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, which lets homeowners deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages. Gone. After all, big houses get bigger tax breaks, driving up prices for ... NPR’s List of Policies Economists Love
From July 30 WSJ
Wall Street Journal OPINION July 31, 2012 ‘A Climate That Helps Us Grow’ By PAUL H. RUBIN President Obama’s riff on small business—”If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen”—has become a major controversy. The Romney campaign has made this quote the subject of several speeches and ads, and ... From July 30 WSJ
