Has U.S. Health Care Spending Finally Stabilized? An Outlook for 2019 The official 2017 statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) are out, and there are some good news: The annual growth rate of health care spending is slowing down, and is the lowest since 2013 at 3.9%—it was 4.8% for …
Read More »Archive for the ‘Medicaid Expansion’ Category
Obamacare in the next few years
The Future of the Affordable Care Act: Unscathed by Attacks from the Right, Overtaken on its Left? Having survived years of attacks from Republicans, will the surviving ACA be rendered obsolete by Democrats’ local and state efforts towards universal health care? This could be an ironic twist of fate for Obamacare. Conceived out of the …
Read More »Why ACA Enrollment is Down This Year
Why ACA Enrollment is Down – and Why It Might Stay That Way Enrollment in Obamacare is down this year Enrollment in Obamacare is down this year. Halfway through the sign-up period for ACA health care insurance plans, which ends on December 15, the federal website Healthcare.gov reported early in December that enrollment was down …
Read More »The Midterms and U.S. Health Policy: What Changes?
The Midterms and U.S. Health Policy: What Changes? The Democrats have taken control of the House. And Utah, Nebraska and Idaho have approved Medicaid expansion. What does this portend for U.S. health policy? In a nutshell, four health care developments will take place or are likely to occur within the next two years: Medicaid expansion …
Read More »The November 6 Midterm Elections and Their Impact on Obamacare
The November 6 Midterm Elections and Their Impact on Obamacare A Q&A on the ACA and the upcoming elections What is the likelihood the ACA will be repealed? This straightforward question has a very simple answer: It depends on the results of the upcoming November 6 U.S. congressional elections. If the Republicans retain control …
Read More »Is Complexity in Healthcare Killing Us?
We spend almost $10,000 per year per capita in healthcare, about twice as much as the average developed economy. However, we get little for what we spend: in terms of major health outcomes, such as infant mortality or life expectancy, we rank below most other developed nations. Why? Among other reasons, complexity explains why we …
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