In Memoriam: Jimmie Thompson, 1930-2010
Jimmie Thompson, a long-time supporter of the NCPA, passed away last Friday. Jimmie served as a member of the NCPA Board of Directors for many years and was generous with …
NCPA Experts
Senior Fellows Jacki PickJacki Pick is a Senior Fellow specializing in Energy. Her research and opinion has been featured in the Washington Post, Forbes, the International Business Times, the San …
Tax Experts
Roy G. Boyd, Ph.D.Roy G. Boyd is Professor of Economics at Ohio University. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University. He was formerly on the faculty of the …
The High Price of Cheap Drugs
Many Americans are buying prescription drugs from Canada over the Internet or in person at lower prices than in the U.S. – a shopping trend that has spurred some senators …
FDA's Mevacor Decision Is Costly
Consumers recently lost a money-saving opportunity when a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted against over the counter (OTC) access to the prescription cholesterol-reducing drug, Mevacor. They are …
Give Medicaid Recipients more Control
Medicaid, to put it simply, is an unsustainable program. Kansas and most other states are struggling to counter low-quality service and rising costs. Indeed, Medicaid costs are expected to overcome …
Health Insurance Is Better To Own Than Rent
Most people agree that it is better to own than rent. Ownership allows people to build up assets for the future while at the same time developing positive incentives for …
HSAs for State and Local Employees
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) were recently made available for federal government workers and are becoming increasingly available in the private sector. While Kansas legislators considered allowing state and local government …
Transparency Helps Patients Shop for Care
Patients often complain they have difficulty obtaining information on the price and quality of services offered to them by health care providers. Policies and procedures adopted by the industry are …
What Can Government Do About the Obesity Epidemic?
Obesity is an increasingly common problem around the world, and especially in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), two-thirds of the U.S. population is overweight, …
Health Care Equally Poor for Everyone, Studies Show
Two new studies–one from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the other by the U.S. Census Bureau–compare the effects of health insurance on health status and on the …
Telemedicine Provides Benefits, but Security and Privacy Risks Abound
The Internet is transforming the way Americans interact with the health care system, and consumers want more opportunities to use it. According to a 2002 Harris Interactive poll, 90 percent …
Consumer-Driven Health Care (CDHC) is Leading to New Models for the Delivery of Medical Services
Consumer-driven health plans generally include personal accounts — such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) — that allow patients to directly control some of their health care dollars. Because they have …
Interstate Competition in the Individual Health Insurance Marketplace
Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) has introduced the Health Care Choice Act (H.R. 2355), which would allow insurers licensed to sell policies in one state to offer them to residents of …
Book Review: Medicine Can Be Consumer-Centric
Your Health Matters: What You Need to Know about U.S. Health Careby Gregory Dattilo and Dave RacerBloomington, MN: Alethos Pr Llc, 2006336 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 0977753409, $24.95Available through Amazon.com "For …
Patients Get Direct Access to Lab Tests
One of the most basic aspects of health care reform is getting consumers to take more responsibility for their own wellness and disease prevention. In early May, a company called …
Medical Tourism Prompts Price Discussions
Howard Staab, a 53-year-old North Carolina contractor, was healthy in the summer of 2004–or so he thought, until his doctor found a life-threatening heart condition during a routine physical. Uninsured, …
Ailing Health Policies
Texas has more uninsured people than any other state. To make matters worse, health care is on a course to crowd out every other category of government spending in only …
What Is Consumer-Directed Health Care?
ABSTRACT: To control health care costs, someone must choose between health care and other uses of money. The value of most health care is experienced subjectively, as is the value …
Consumer-Directed Health Plans: Background, Structure, and Policy Issues
Consumer-Directed Health Plans (CDHPs) are a new model of health insurance, designed to give consumers greater control over the quantity and quality of the health care they receive. CDHPs provide …
Insurance Folly
The state children's health insurance program (SCHIP) was originally a Republican program to provide health insurance to children in near-poor families who did not qualify for Medicaid. Democrats now want …
Consumer-Centric Healthcare Congress
See John Goodman’s presentation at the Consumer-Centric Healthcare Congress The Annals of Thoracic Surgery: Our Health Care System at the Crossroads: Single Payer or Market Reform? by David U. Himmelstein, …
Debate: Our Health Care System at the Cross Roads — Single Payer or Market Reform?
In the 1940s, two decisions by federal agencies laid the foundation for the employer-based health care financing system that has characterized United Sates health care for the last 60 years: …
Grading the Candidates' Health Reform Plans
Originally published in Health Care News, January 2008. Twenty years ago Michael Dukakis campaigned for president with the boast, "I have insured everybody in Massachusetts." Of course he hadn't, and …
Myths of Socialized Medicine Lead to Bad Health Care Policies
Originally published in Health Care News, February 2008. Advocates of socialized medicine generally claim administrative costs are lower, quality of care is higher, and access to care is more equal …