Author: David Hogberg
Rosa Parks the “Epitome of a Heroine”
Rosa Parks — the woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and thus became a catalyst for powerful social change in America — is being honored with a statue in the U.S. Capitol’s National ...
What Can Be Learned From Senator Ted Cruz
Whether you agree that the shutdown was a good strategy or not, it is important to understand how one of the shutdown’s champions, Senator Ted Cruz, managed to animate enough of the Republican base to force such a battle. To ...
The Next Exodus: Primary-Care Physicians and Medicare
In late 2009 the highly respected Mayo Clinic grabbed national headlines when it announced that one of its primary-care centers was no longer accepting Medicare. Henceforth, Medicare patients visiting its family clinic in Glendale, Arizona would have to pay cash ...
“Medicare for All” Universal Health Care Would Not Solve the Problem of Rising Health Care Costs
In mid-2006, the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, succeeded in passing his health care reform through the Massachusetts legislature. This ignited a debate on health care policy in the U.S. that shows no signs of subsiding. From the governors, to ...
SCHIP Expansion: Socialized Medicine on the Installment Plan
INTRODUCTION The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created by Congress and President Bill Clinton as part of Balanced Budget Act of 1997. SCHIP was intended to give $24 billion in federal matching funds over ten years to state ...
Sweden’s Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations
Sweden is a country of about 9.1 million people on the Scandinavian Peninsula of Northern Europe. Geographically, it is slightly larger than California. It is by any measure a first world country, with a labor force working primarily in industry ...
Mental Health Parity Act Shifts Practice of Imposing Mandates from the States to the Federal Level; Likely to Raise Insurance Premiums, by David Hogberg, Ph.D. and Paul Gessing
Outside of the Iraq War, the debate over health care reform is one of the most contentious issues in politics today. With ongoing debate in Washington and a flurry of activity in the states, the need to make health care ...
The Teachers’ Lesson: How To Scam Social Security
How would you like to work for just one day and earn thousands of dollars for it afterwards? Perhaps that sounds like an infomercial on cable TV at three in the morning. Or maybe it sounds like another FOX TV ...
Letting Medicare “Negotiate” Drug Prices: Myths vs. Reality
The opening of the 110th Congress will witness the return of the debate over Medicare and prescription drugs. In 2003, Congress and President Bush enacted the "Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act," which established a prescription drug program for ...
Don’t Fall Prey to Propaganda: Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality are Unreliable Measures for Comparing the U.S. Health Care System to Others
How does the United States health care system fare when compared to the rest of the industrialized world? This is an important question. Accurately measuring our health care system relative to those of other nations can yield insight into the ...
