healthcare reform

A year after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, many Americans are still struggling to get their insurance to cover basic medical treatments. And now, they are increasingly exploring less expensive alternatives to traditional Western medicine -- like acupuncture.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data that found that almost half of all Americans took at least one prescription drug per month in 2008, up from 43.5% a decade ago.

The new law promises cost savings in the billions of dollars over many years. But it does little to reduce the cartel-like power of the heath care industry, whose influence may make those cost savings difficult if not impossible to achieve.

When you hear cable news people talking about why the Democrats ought to pass health care reform -- and fast -- it's generally all about political calculations. The president, they say, will suffer the same fate as Bill Clinton in 1994 if he doesn't pass health care. The congressional election will...

It's assumed that expanding health coverage is the same thing as improving Americans' health. Not true. If Congress were serious about improving health, then some of the $1 trillion for health reform could go toward fitness programs, including rebates for being fit.

The Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown was widely seen as a referendum on health care reform. But while Brown's victory means the current plans for reform may not pass, it doesn't mean that the system is any less in need of major change.

The Senate had originally planned to levy a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery procedures as part of a plan to pay for expanded health care. But after intense lobbying from the America Medical Association, that proposal was scrapped in favor of a 10% tax on indoor tanning. The tanning tax is...

As we watch the healthcare debate rage on in Congress, it's helpful noting that wholesale change of a flawed-but-longstanding system has happened in the past, despite the odds against it. A good example from the history books: Boss Tweed. "Everything will fall apart if we change it." "The...

I'm one of those 30 million people without health insurance. I don't have it, my wife doesn't have it, my daughter doesn't have it. The short version of the story goes like this. A couple of years ago, I received a note from my insurer that they were going to be tripling the monthly premium for my...

On Monday, Thomson Reuters released "Where Can $700 Billion in Waste Be Cut Annually from the U.S. Healthcare System," a white paper exploring American health-care costs. The report identified six factors -- administrative inefficiency, provider inefficiency, lack of care coordination, unwarranted...