“Health economics” on The Daily Caller

Lakewood Regional Medical Center last week joined a small but growing number of Southern California hospitals that allow patients to make emergency room appointments online. In exchange for a fee, instead of sitting in a waiting room wondering how long they’ll have to wait, users can show up at the assigned time with the assurance they will be seen within 15 minutes or get their money back. (more)

If it wasn’t so sad, it would be funny. The brain trust at the Consumers Union doesn’t seem to be able to see the consequences of their actions. (more)

Americans have a love/hate affair with health insurers. We like that they provide coverage for expensive things like hospitalization and surgeries, but get annoyed when they deny coverage for medications or other services we think should be covered. We are sometimes annoyed with the high compensation level of their executives, but we like the fact that some 80+ percent of us have coverage through our employer, so we don’t have to spend time shopping in the individual market to make sense of complicated policies. Of course, getting coverage through group plans at work naturally limits the number of available options, so we tend to bitch and moan about this as well. Hence, our attitudes about health insurance companies are often contradictory and ambivalent. (more)

An early feature of the new health-care law that allows people who are already sick to get insurance to cover their medical costs isn’t attracting as many customers as expected. (more)

Calling Obamacare a government takeover of health care is the “lie of the year,” according to the self-proclaimed oracle of all things true and untrue in the political debate. That outrageous proclamation from PolitiFact shows that its editors need a Truth-O-Meter of their own. (more)

This week, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia declared that a central provision of the law in Obamacare requiring that individuals obtain health insurance by 2014 is unconstitutional. The judge determined that the health care law went too far and Congress must push forward to repeal Obamacare and replace it with common-sense — and constitutional — legislation that aims at lowering health care costs. (more)

District Court Judge Henry Hudson gave an early Christmas present to many conservatives this week, ruling that the individual mandate in the Democrats’ healthcare bill is unconstitutional. (more)

Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit. (more)

You’ve probably read about ObamaCare’s harm to Snooki and more traditional interest groups like seniors and doctors. But what has gone unnoticed is ObamaCare’s harm to our troops. (more)

The medical industry and the federal government would save billions of dollars every year and lower health care costs by changing the way hospitals buy medical supplies, according to a new study paid for by the Medical Device Manufacturers Association. (more)

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently issued its annual survey of employer-sponsored health benefits, declaring: “Family Health Premiums Rise 3 Percent to $13,770 in 2010, But Workers’ Share Jumps 14 Percent as Firms Shift Cost Burden.” That’s half-right — but the other half perpetuates a myth about employee health benefits that stands in the way of real health care reform. (more)

When President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the emphasis may have been on the short-nose sucker fish or the golden-cheeked warbler, but it is doubtful anyone contemplated the “Humanis doctoris.” (more)

Labor Day is almost here and Democrats are still waiting for the cavalry to arrive. An exhaustive scan of the horizon reveals no rescuers and none of the things Democrats badly need to save them from tough midterm election losses on Nov. 2. (more)

Few have read the 2,700 page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  Even if you have, it is difficult to absorb the full implications of the health reform bill.  Each week the Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and Treasury produce new regulations.  With so much happening so fast how can employers, insurance agents, consultants, lawyers, or insurance companies keep up with decisions to set strategies, make rational choices, and be legally compliant? (more)

If you were dying of cancer, how much money would be too much money to spend to extend your life? That’s a ridiculous question, of course, because there is no price tag that could be put on more time with loved ones, but that’s exactly what the government does every day when they decide whether or not to allow “off-label” use of certain drugs, which set the guidelines private insurance follows. (more)

Perhaps the only consistent thing about Britain’s socialized health care system is that it is in a perpetual state of flux, its structure constantly changing as governments search for the elusive formula that will deliver the best care for the cheapest price while costs and demand escalate. (more)

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan suggested Thursday the Democrats’ health-care law would fail even without legislative action. (more)

Even as the nation was debating whether to overhaul the health insurance market, people who were buying coverage on their own were experiencing sharp increases in the cost of their policies, according to a survey released Monday. (more)

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) damages both American health care and its human capital. For employers, health care is a maintenance contract for supporting optimal physical and mental functioning of their employees – their human capital. (more)

At the invitation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a dozen American “policy-wonks” from differing perspectives travelled to Germany in December 2009. The Foundation was interested in our observations of the German social health system. My interest was how consumerism and individual choice worked in Germany. (more)