My op-ed on Medicare reform in Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Medicare "doc fix" is no fix: Medicare needs systemic remedies ajc.com

Adverse Selection in ObamaCare and RomneyCare

Will ObamaCare suffer the same problem of adverse selection that RomneyCare does? An exchange of views in the Wall Street Journal prompts my latest blog entry at John Goodman's Health Policy Blog.

Medical Tort in the States

Using colleagues' research, I rank all 50 states according to their medical-malpractice laws and other tort laws relevent to health policy: This month's Health Policy Prescription.

Should the State Decide How Many Nurses Hospitals Must Hire

Yes, if you want a major nurses' union to have its way. No, if you want patient-centered health care. This month's Capital Ideas.

Healthy San Francisco's Job-Killing Taxes to Live On

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Golden Gate Restaurant Association’s appeal of a 9th Circuit decision that permits San Francisco to levy a punitive tax on businesses to fund its public-health bureaucracy.

I’ve previously challenged research produced at UC Berkeley, which concluded that the ordinance did not cost jobs. Plus, I’ve noted the job-killing effects of the Healthy San Francisco program in a series of blog-entries (here, here, and here).

The GGRA had argued that the city ordinance violated ERISA, the federal law that regulates job-based benefits. But that is all water under the bridge. Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services has formed a (small and exclusive) mutual admiration society for government-run health care with Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, so this decision will surely be welcomed by her and all ObamaCare-backers.

Does this judicial failure to overturn a mandate in San Francisco allow us to handicap the success of the lawsuits against ObamaCare’s national mandate? Unlikely: The San Francisco lawsuit relied on a federal law, ERISA, whereas the anti-ObamaCare lawsuits rely on the U.S. Constitution.

Plus, ERISA is not really a very effective law, as I’ve written about previously. Strategically, it’s a weak foundation to rely upon, for those who advocate individual choice in health care.

The Bipartisan Medicare "Doc Fix"

Is a short-term fudge that harms medicine and reveals Republicans' inability to take risks on health reform, as I write at John Goodman Health Blog.

How is the Senate's "Doc Fix" Paid For?

By hiking taxes and raiding hospitals, as I write at National Review Online. Hardly a good start for Republicans who want to repeal ObamaCare.