How does Medicare stand up against private, free-market coverage with similar benefits? Let’s examine drug coverage, since Congress just acted on Medicare’s prescription drug benefits.

Give seniors better access to plans that integrate pharmaceutical and medical coverage. Medicare is the only place in our health care system where plans that sell drug coverage are separate from plans that cover medical expenses.

Marriage tax makes matrimony unattractive, costing low- and middle-income earners the  equivalent of one-and-a-half to two years of income, on average. Economists, tax specialists and even ordinary people have long known that public...

Medicare Advantage is the only place in the entire health care system where health plans specialize in various chronic conditions and advertise to attract patients with those conditions.

A study of 28 expensive specialty drugs found that among Medicare enrollees covered by Part D drug insurance, the out-of-pocket spending by patients ranged from $2,622 to $16,551. And those are annual costs! 

Over the past two decades the American public has become increasingly polarized. So much so, that it’s hard to bring up a public policy topic that doesn’t immediately cause discord. Yet there is...

We have not one, but 50, health care systems, and they are not alike. Without any change in federal law, some states are making radical changes that are lowering costs, increasing quality, and making health care delivery more efficient.

"In economic terms, the flip side of a subsidy is a penalty. If you give a subsidy to people who make one choice, you are effectively imposing a cost on everyone who makes a different choice."

"One definition of a liberal is someone who sees the benefits in every progressive program but ignores the cost of all of them."

According to its supporters, a primary benefit of Obamacare is protecting people who enter the individual market with pre-existing conditions. Yet people who leave an employer plan and shop for insurance in the individual market today will face three unpleasant surprises: higher premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs, and more limited access to care than a typical employer plan provides.