healthcare costs

Let's take the politics out of the debate over public sector unions and their benefits, and look strictly at the figures. When you strip away the rhetoric, you can chart two macroeconomic trends and two patterns of fiscally foolish assumptions that have put both states and unions into this mess.

Whistleblowing firm Ven-A-Care has recovered $2 billion for taxpayers by suing drug companies that overcharge the government and create windfalls for participating pharmacies. It also has made $380 million for itself. What's the problem with that?

For the fifth time this year, Congress has voted to postpone steep Medicare pay cuts for doctors. The latest vote gives doctors a year's reprieve from the 25% pay cut, which some have said would keep them from accepting new Medicare patients.

The seemingly impossible is happening in health care. A cost is going down, not up. The government today announced that lucky beneficiaries of the decline are Medicare recipients who take additional coverage from private insurers. The cost for that coverage will decline 1% in 2011. Even better,...

As reports about record payouts for Wall Street and record deficits trade off on the front page, millions of Americans are wondering what's going on with their economy and their political system. Many of the nearly 200 reader comments made in response to my recent piece, Middle class squeeze: The...

Employees who have a choice in employer-sponsored health insurance embark on an annual ritual at this time of year -- weighing whether to stay with the same plan or move to another, perhaps less costly one. For many, however, the process, known as open enrollment, has turned into an effort in...