On Tuesday, March 26, 2019 President Trump threw a virtual grenade into the Washington debating room when he tweeted, “The Republican Party will become ‘The Party of Healthcare.’” This announcement came the day after the Justice Department wrote a March 25 letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans that it would side […]
On Wednesday, February 27, Rep. Pramila Jaypal (D-Wa) introduced H.R. 1384, the “Medicare for All Act of 2019.” As of March 8, the bill has 106 co-sponsors. That represents 45 percent of the Democratic caucus. If the bill should become law, within in two years there would be no more private health insurance. Instead, Americans […]
Today the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing entitled, “Strengthening Our Health Care System: Legislation to Reverse ACA Sabotage and Ensure Pre-Existing Condition Protections.” The irony cannot be lost that Chairwoman Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) was a co-sponsor of H.R. 676 in 2018, “The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” which […]
For years, physicians, nutritionists, and behavioral scientists have been telling us that too many children are obese, eat too many foods high in fat and sugar, and are too sedentary. A May 29, 2018 Washington Post article noted that “the average American child spends five to eight hours in front of a digital screen.” We […]
In their never-ending quest to run roughshod and exert control over the research-intensive biopharmaceutical industry, socialists in Congress have introduced various price-control bills. For some reason they continue to think innovative drugs that cure cancer or other chronic diseases, such as hepatitis C, are whipped up in a back room with a 1970s-style “Mr. Wizard’s […]
On Friday, December 14, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in Texas, et al v. United States, et al, that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, was unconstitutional. The hysteria immediately began, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stating, “This is an awful ruling. Of course, it undoes pre-existing conditions, […]
On December 6, John O’Brien, the senior advisor on drug pricing reform to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, published a blog, entitled, “How the IPI Model Would Introduce New Market Competition to Medicare Drug Spending.” The blog left a lot of fiscal conservatives and patient-centered, free-market healthcare advocates scratching their heads. Mr. […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) admitted last week that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital payment process is broken. The OIG’s report, “Significant Vulnerabilities Exist in the Hospital Wage Index System for Medicare Payments,” showed that from 2004 to 2017, CMS overpaid nearly […]
It’s a common saying in D.C., that bad news gets released on Fridays. But, that was not the case on Friday, November 30, 2018. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma announced that her agency was releasing four waiver concepts to help governors and state legislatures take advantage of Section 1332, Waiver […]
Poll, after poll, after poll shows that healthcare was the top issue in the 2018 elections. This should not be a surprise as Democrats ran on the issue, while many Republicans hid from it. That’s too bad because the Trump administration has been doing a lot via regulations and guidance to create more choices and […]
