The new House bill for health care reform (HR 3962), unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on October 29th, will not fundamentally reform U.S. health care.

If you were to believe the hype that accompanied its release, you might think that it would be as important as Medicare and Social Security....

Americans are dying at a faster rate -- 1 every 12 minutes, 5 an hour, 120 a day, 45,000 a year -- not from war or natural disaster, but from lack of health insurance.

That's the stunning finding of a study published today in the American Journal of Public...

Medicare has long been a flashpoint generating intense disagreement across party lines over the role of private markets versus that of government.

Republicans have fought against Medicare from the very beginning. They bitterly opposed it in various committees in both houses of Congress in 1964 -1965. But they relented,...

Having considered four of the major corporate stakeholders in our medical industrial complex -- the insurance, drug, and hospital industries as well as business -- it is now time to turn our attention to organized medicine. Since physicians order almost all services that are provided within our health care system,...

Faced with increasing political momentum toward some kind of health care reform, the hospital industry, together with other major stakeholders, wanted to retain a place at the negotiating table and protect its interests in whatever legislation resulted. Urgency increased after the drug and insurance industries offered up their pledges to...

In May, 2009, President Obama held a high-profile event in the White House, convening leaders from the health care industry to a meeting to discuss reform of the U. S. health care system. Participants included representatives from the insurance, drug, medical device, and hospital industries as well as business, labor...

We are told by supporters of health care reform bills in the Democrat-controlled Congress that they will save us money in the long run and contain skyrocketing health care costs. But the CBO has projected that the most comprehensive proposal yet, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R.3200 in...

Now that we're into the recess period of bitter and distorted controversy over the shape of health care reform when Congress re-convenes in September, it is timely to reassess the extent to which legislation this year may or may not meet the goals for reform. Recall that the three major...

As the leading proposal out of the gate for health care reform in this session of Congress, the House bill (H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act) during this August recess stage is considered the most robust of the various proposals so far coming out of congressional committees. This act...

A recent post on the National Center for Policy Analysis's (NCPA) web site by Dr. Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institute and Stanford University expounded on 10 "surprising facts" about our health care system. After an opening statement that U. S. health care has been denigrated compared to other developed...

As the debate over health care reform becomes all-out warfare between parties and within the Democratic party, Congress will adjourn shortly for its August recess with many of the key questions unresolved. However, the bill as shaped by two or three House committees (H. R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices...

The so-called public option has emerged as the single most divisive point in the health care reform proposals being shaped in various committees in Congress. Republicans have risen up to demonize it as a government takeover of health care on the slippery slope toward socialism. Within the powerful Senate Finance...

We've been here before. With much fanfare, health insurance mandates were enacted by Massachusetts in 2006 and touted by many as an effective model to reform health care. After three years' experience, here is what the "Massachusetts Miracle" tells us about mandates and their costs.

• Only about one-half of...

As July starts to wind down and the August recess by Congress fast approaches, the debate over health care reform enters a late stage with increasingly bitter partisan differences over very divisive issues. Every day we hear about more Democrats siding with the Republicans, especially the Blue Dogs worrying about...

Corporate America has highjacked the health care debate and threatens to make real health care reform impossible. Since corporate dollars trump individual votes, we have a corpocracy, not a democracy.

This is not a new story, but is still an under-recognized one. By a landmark ruling of the U....

History tells us that societal blind spots are common throughout the centuries from one society, culture or continent to another. An example in the late 1700s involves the first cancer hospital in the world. It was established in Reims, France, but was forced to leave the city in 1779 because...

Now that we have a new president espousing health care reform and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, isn't this a time to be excited and optimistic for long-overdue reform? Much as we would like to say "Of course!", we cannot. The "reform" effort is already way off...

It is now widely recognized that we are in a global recession of historic proportions, raising comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s. The failures of deregulated markets, whether in housing, banking or other industries, has become obvious to all. So far the private health insurance industry has not...

In a Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal just days ago, John Goodman, president of the conservative Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, repeats this classic premise of Milton Friedman's economic views: "Capitalism confers its greatest benefits on people at the bottom of the income ladder. People...

Market theorists have been telling us for years that the competitive marketplace will keep prices under control, as well as fix problems of access and quality of health care. This statement by senior fellows of the Hoover Institution in 2006 reflects market ideology which has framed health care policy for...