For all of the quality care it delivers, the U.S. health care system is one of the most dysfunctional sectors of the U.S. economy. The government spends nearly 50 cents of every dollar spent on health care, most consumers are almost entirely insulated from the cost of their decisions, and employers decide what kind of health insurance their employees get.
But while the U.S. health care system begs for reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act only exacerbates all of the current problems, promising to devolve into a price-controlled system rationed and micromanaged by bureaucrats.
IPI believes there are much better options: reform the tax treatment of health insurance; remove the state and federal mandates and regulations that make coverage more expensive; pass medical liability reform; and promote policies that create value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace.
Trump May Have a Prescription for High Drug Prices
President Trump wants to address the high price of some prescription drugs, and new bilateral trade agreements would be a good place to start.
Those Drug Prices ... Oh, My Goodness!
It's an issue of bipartisan concern, but what can be done to fix prescription drug prices?
One BIG Reason Why Prescription Drugs Cost So Much
Pfizer has ended its quest to find a cure for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, but the research costs live on and must be absorbed in the price of other products.
Association Health Plan Proposal: Experts Wary of Weak Consumer Protections, Oversight Issues
Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., IPI resident scholar, praised the new proposed rule, noting that it allows small businesses to do what large employers have long been able to: self-insure. “Self-insured employers have been able to avoid many of the state and federal mandates imposed on the small group and individual markets, which helped employers keep down the cost of coverage,” he said.
Matthews: Labor Department Rulemaking a Welcome Setback to Obamacare
The Department of Labor’s proposed rulemaking released today would help clear the way for employers to band together in associations and self-insure, and is a good first step in the ongoing but challenging effort to provide employers and employees more flexibility under Obamacare.
We May All Be Exempt from Obamacare's Mandate--Sooner or Later
Obamacare drafters created an escape hatch, which they never thought they'd see it being used: the law's definition of "affordable" coverage. It allows people to escape the mandate if insurance is too expensive—which it increasingly is.
Kids Get Health Coverage While Taxpayers Get the Shaft
The “crowd-out effect” of CHIP would be an important lesson to remember as Congress tackles welfare reform next year.
Alarming Medicare Part B Overhaul Plan Reduces Drug Choice, Access
In a new publication, “Budgets First, Patients Last: MedPAC's Plan to Undermine Medicare Part B's Drug Benefit,” Matthews says MedPAC’s proposed changes to Medicare Part B’s prescription drug reimbursement plan would put patients' lives at risk by reducing access to care, especially for the sickest and most vulnerable patients — a substantial segment of Medicare’s Part B drug program.
Budgets First, Patients Last
The Medicare Part B prescription drug program works reasonably well, providing some of the sickest patients with access to the newest and most innovative drugs. Now MedPAC wants to change it, and not for the better.
End the Individual Mandate
Ending the mandate would allow people in the individual market who do not receive the taxpayer subsidies to find an affordable policy.
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