news on health

Obamacare levies an excise tax on medical devices that will reduce research & development investment by over $2 billion every year, beginning in 2013. This will have an impact on patients' health. An initial estimate figures that this will cause a loss of one million life-years annually.

Read this month's Health Policy Prescription, by Benjamin Zycher, at this link.

Many conservatives promote the idea of interstate purchase of health insurance as a solution to the health-insurance crisis. What exactly does this mean?

In fact, health insurers "sell across state lines" already. Generally speaking, large insurers either have separate subsidiaries in different states (e.g. WellPoint) or write policies from a balance sheet in the state in which they are domiciled (e.g CIGNA).

But interstate purchase as described by conservative activists is somewhat different. In a podcast produced by the Heartland Institute, I explain why it is an impractical solution.

Listen to it here.

The Benjamin Rush Society Presents The Arthur N. Rupe Debate Series:

University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine
Medical Education - Telemedicine (MET) Building, Auditorium 9500 Gilman Avenue, La Jolla, CA 92093-0618