In their July 2, 2015 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commentary, “Price Transparency or TMI,” Office of Policy Planning authors Tara Isa Koslov and Elizabeth Jex noted, “Is more information about prices always a good thing for consumers and competition? Too much transparency can harm competition in any market, including in health care markets.”
Pharmaceutical Transparency Legislation – Sounds Good but Foolhardy
Legislation to create “transparency” in drug costs has been introduced in dozens of state legislatures across the country, purportedly to understand how prescription drugs are priced. While details vary from state to state, all the bills would require pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide reams of pricing and cost data, much of it proprietary, to state officials. […]
Obamacare Still Vulnerable to Fraud
Even before Congress failed to pass a repeal and replacement for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), a November 2016 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report again exposed rampant and systematic fraud in the application process.
Can President Trump Finally End the VA Scandal?
As the nation prepares for the transfer of power from the Obama administration to the Trump administration, the issue of veteran healthcare and the insidious and continuing wait-times scandal remains a critical area of concern.
Recovery Auditors and the Administrative Law Backlog: More “Fake News” Debunked
News junkies have been inundated lately with commentary on the ubiquity of “fake news” and its viral spread online. On December 12, 2016, The New York Times President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson gave a thought-provoking speech before the Detroit Economic Club in which he made some incisive observations about the epidemic of junk news, including the fact that in this new anything-goes, free-for-all information environment, it is easy to forget that “fake news is not new. The spreading of false rumors for political advantage, for pure malice, or just for entertainment, is as old as the hills….Until something is proven to be false, it’ll remain a story. …Though it often seems like it to partisans, this is not a battle between Left and Right. …It’s a battle between facts and lies.”
Tobacco Harm-Reduction: Big League Healthcare Savings
In the twenty-first century, remarkable technology innovations have improved nearly every aspect of everyone’s lives. Smart TVs and smartphones are the most well-known examples; however, these innovations even extend to smoking. By 2025, health experts approximate that there will be nearly 1 billion cigarette smokers around the world. While cigarette smoking has declined in the […]
A Cure for Electoral Depression: Focus Final 2016 Presidential Debate on Policy Solutions
In a recent poll, a sizable portion of young Americans said they would rather vote for a giant meteor to strike the Earth over either of the two presidential candidates. There might be a reason for such a dark and depressing result. The first two presidential debates have utterly failed to discuss important issues facing the nation with any depth, choosing to focus on shenanigans instead of substance.
Medicare Making Improper Payments to Prisoners
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently exposed vulnerabilities that end up costing taxpayers hundreds of billions in wasteful spending due to erroneous and sloppy billing, and outright fraud. The OIG’s October 7, 2016 report documented that even though The Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization […]
Clinton/Trump Round 2: Taxpayers Deserve a Policy Debate
Before the first Presidential debate on September 27, 2016, CAGW proposed policy questions that would enlighten taxpayers as to where each candidate stands on critical government waste issues facing the nation. Unfortunately, the debate utterly failed to discuss any of these issues with any depth, choosing to focus on shenanigans instead of substance. Hillary Clinton […]
VA Scandal Rages On In 2016
One of the most crippling scandals of the Obama administration is poised to outlast the president’s time in office. The outrageous patient wait times at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics nationwide have not waned since the issue burst into the public consciousness in 2014. Indeed, the scandal has widened and the depth of the misconduct has continued unabated.