Consumers may soon be able to shop for health care the way they shop for groceries. But in order for patients to become savvy shoppers in the medical marketplace, they must be able to discover what things cost and to compare prices as well as value. Today, that's not easy.
Subsidized agriculture in the developed world is one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in the developing world. In 2002, industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) spent a total of $300 billion on crop price supports, production payments and other farm programs. These subsidies encourage overproduction.
Critics of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) have a litany of complaints. They are essentially the same complaints critics made a decade ago, at the dawn of the consumer-driven health care revolution. We now have evidence that consumer-driven health care works.
Consumer-driven health care (CDHC) allows patients to manage some of the dollars they spend on health care. Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are a mechanism for them to do so.
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) allow patients to manage some of the dollars spent on their health care. Critics say that giving health care consumers the ability to control their own spending will have dire consequences. The evidence shows otherwise.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush devoted only a few sentences to health policy. But as the president was speaking, the administration released a five-page document describing health policy proposals so sweeping and bold, they are comparable in scope to Hillary Clinton's proposals of a decade ago. If the White House devotes the energy and political capital necessary to see them through, these reforms will leave a lasting mark on social policy in this country.
One of the peculiarities of the U.S. health care system is that the health plan most of us have is not a plan that we chose; rather, it was selected by our employer. Even if we like our health plan, we could easily lose coverage because of the loss of a job, a change in employment or a decision by our employer. These problems affect all Americans, but have the greatest impact on older workers, who are more likely to have health problems.
Texas is blazing a new trail in welfare reform that will improve access to more than 50 different programs, while reducing administrative costs. The state is using modern technology and private contractors to create a "one-stop" application process for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Food Stamps, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Long-Term Care and other programs. Texas' new system provides a model for privatizing the administration of social services in other states.
America 's defined benefit pension plans are in crisis. Traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions are usually paid to retired employees based on years of work and final salary. Although still common at large companies, they have fallen out of favor at small and mid-sized firms. Virtually no new DB plans have been created in the last 10 years. Once the Cadillac of retirement plans, they are now the Edsels of employee benefits, as employers shift to defined contribution (DC) plans, such as 401(k)s.
In a major step forward for welfare reform, Texas is about to roll out an ambitious program using private contractors to streamline the process of applying for public health and welfare programs. The reform is expected to save taxpayers more than $100 million a year, while making it easier for people who qualify for social services to enroll in programs and claim benefits. Texas is the first state in the country to implement such a comprehensive, statewide reform and it could serve as a model for other states.
The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform was guided by two outstanding economists, Edward Lazear and James Poterba, and an equally impressive former IRS commissioner, Charles Rossotti. They deserve great credit for recommending critical improvements to our tax system. The list includes eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), limiting mortgage and health insurance tax subsidies, eliminating the deductibility of state and local taxes, rationalizing deductions, exemptions, tax credits and retirement account options, and reducing the taxation of saving. If these reforms are implemented with transition rules that don't give away the store, our tax system will be more efficient and, in many ways, more equitable.
Steve Forbes has done a commendable job spelling out why America's tax system must be simplified. Scrap the mind-numbingly complex, loophole-filled, savings-averse code, advises the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, in favor of one elegant, clear rate. A flat-rate income tax is what America needs.
These are turbulent times for the Food and Drug Administration. The almost daily barrage of headlines questioning the safety of marketed drugs is probably depleting regulators' personal stocks of aspirin and antacids. But as they try to soothe their own pain, regulators must not forget their mission: to ease the plight of patients who need new medicines.
Public officials and teacher unions often compare teacher salaries in a particular city or region against the national average or against other U.S. cities. They assume teachers in areas with higher than average pay are doing well, whereas teachers in areas below the national average must fare poorly. Legislators in states where teacher pay is below the national average are under considerable pressure to raise salaries.
Hurricane Katrina wrought devastation and chaos, leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed and homeless. Among the victims are at least 372,000 displaced students.
Many people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are faced with the challenge of finding new housing with few resources and a lack of steady income, at least for now. The federal government spends billions of dollars a year on housing assistance and programs to provide low-cost housing for the poor. However, attempts to house homeless evacuees by expanding these programs would be a big mistake. Specifically, it would drive up demand for all low-income housing without increasing supply. The result: a large government expense with no reduction in need.
People displaced by hurricanes and floods in the Gulf Coast region will need health care. How will they get it? Right now, their options are limited.
Charter schools are independent public schools exempt from many of the rules and regulations that impede innovation and flexibility in conventional public schools. Traditionally, charter schools are sponsored by churches, community centers or nonprofit organizations, and cater to lower-income or needy families. However, they are increasingly becoming a tool for nonprofit and commercial builders to lure young families into urban and suburban housing developments.
Environmental lobbyists quickly responded to the Gulf Coast devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita with loud assertions that the underlying cause of these more frequent, more dangerous and more costly hurricanes is global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. There is just one problem: science. Historical data and ongoing hurricane research reveal scant evidence linking human-caused warming to more frequent or powerful hurricanes.
People on both the left and right are using the tragedy of Katrina as a handy excuse to push agendas they favored long before the hurricane disaster. Here's a better idea: Put the normal political wrangling aside and seize the opportunity to enact serious reforms that can garner broad agreement.
Despite claims that there is a health insurance crisis in the United States, the proportion of Americans without health coverage has changed little in the past decade. The increase in the number of uninsured is largely due to immigration and population growth.
A consensus is forming concerning the appropriate response to global warming. While scientists continue to debate the extent to which humans are responsible for rising average global temperatures, a growing number of economists and policy experts have concluded that the best response to climate change is to adapt by investing resources in more pressing problems.
Speculative "bubbles" can appear in various sectors of the economy when the Federal Reserve eases monetary policy by lowering interest rates. Generally speaking, when the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy, the sectors of the economy that went up the most during the easing phase will fall the hardest as the bubble bursts. For instance, stocks went up the most from 1995 to 1998, when the Federal Reserve eased the money supply; stocks fell the most after the Federal Reserve tightened the money supply in 1999 and 2000.
Hurricane Katrina has focused attention on the increasing cost of natural disasters. Some federal programs unintentionally contribute to those losses. Federal flood insurance and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' flood control and beach replenishment projects subsidize construction in flood-prone areas, encourage high-risk development and harm environmentally sensitive areas. These programs should be reconsidered.
Today's health consumers are taking a more active role in diagnosing and treating themselves. With new tools to assist them – from Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that allow patients to control some their health care dollars to an unprecedented wealth of information on Internet Web sites – consumers are more empowered than ever to understand their health condition(s) and participate in decisions about their treatment.