Download or read book Medicare Meets Mephistopheles written by David A. Hyman and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2009-09-25 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let’s say you’re the devil, and you want to corrupt the American republic. How would you go about it? According to David Hyman, you might create something like Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly. Hyman submits that Medicare may be the greatest trick the devil ever played. Medicare feeds on the avarice of doctors and other providers, turns seniors into health care gluttons, and makes regions of the United States green with envy over the dollars showered on other regions. The program exploits the sloth of government officials to increase the tax burden on workers and drag down the quality of care for seniors. Medicare makes Democrats lust for socialized medicine, while its imperviousness to reform makes Republicans angrier and angrier. Most of all, Medicare allows its ideological supporters to bleat and preen their way to the heights of moral vanity. In the style of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Hyman writes that Medicare has “freed the self-interest of these mortals from its natural restraints. As a result, the seven deadly sins have blossomed.” With epic political battles over Medicare and the future of limited government looming just over the horizon, Hyman uses satire to cast a critical eye on this mediocre government program.

Download or read book Medicare written by Robin Fretwell Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his deliciously funny book, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles (Cato 2006), Professor David Hyman argues that Medicare corrupts our most base impulses - urging us to grab for more than our fair share of benefits while offering providers "the prospect of staggering amounts of money - even as ... actuaries were promising Congress that the Medicare program would be easily affordable." Modeled on C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Professor Hyman's satirical examination of Medicare is sprinkled with political cartoons, absurd (but true) stories of Medicare's over-the-top fraud enforcement efforts, and a historical account of Medicare's genesis replete with Congressmen and strippers. Medicare Meets Mephistopheles gives us a well-researched and easy-to-read primer on the biggest pot of gold in medicine. While we are not as certain as Professor Hyman is that Medicare's limitations rise to the level of mortal sins, Medicare's tendency to encourage over-consumption, its thousands of pages of "guidance," miles of red tape, and insane enforcement scheme are not serving the American public well. It just doesn't make any sense. Medicare Meets Mephistopheles should be required reading for students in courses ranging from health law to nursing.

Download or read book Medicare Meets Mephistopheles written by Neil H. Buchanan and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essay is an edited version of my remarks during the first panel of the Mississippi College Law Review's symposium on health care reform, which was held on February 26, 2010, in Jackson, Mississippi. The essay integrates my prepared comments with my responses to comments and questions during the discussion period. I have also added some further thoughts on several of the issues that are relevant to the subject matter, especially in light of the subsequent passage of a major federal health reform bill. These remarks are necessarily brief, and they therefore can include only a hint of the issues that arise with respect to a subject as important as health care reform. These remarks do, however, provide an opportunity to describe some of the most important issues at stake in our continuing efforts to improve our health care system: the quality of care available, the number of people to whom care is provided, and the cost of providing that care. In future work, I will expand upon the ideas raised in this essay, focusing in particular on whether the 2010 health care law appears to be succeeding in reducing health care costs.

Download or read book Taming the Beloved Beast written by Daniel Callahan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-17 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why health care reform must tackle the escalating cost of medical technology Technological innovation is deeply woven into the fabric of American culture, and is no less a basic feature of American health care. Medical technology saves lives and relieves suffering, and is enormously popular with the public, profitable for doctors, and a source of great wealth for industry. Yet its costs are rising at a dangerously unsustainable rate. The control of technology costs poses a terrible ethical and policy dilemma. How can we deny people what they may need to live and flourish? Yet is it not also harmful to let rising costs strangle our health care system, eventually harming everyone? In Taming the Beloved Beast, esteemed medical ethicist Daniel Callahan confronts this dilemma head-on. He argues that we can't escape it by organizational changes alone. Nothing less than a fundamental transformation of our thinking about health care is needed to achieve lasting and economically sustainable reform. The technology bubble, he contends, is beginning to burst. Callahan weighs the ethical arguments for and against limiting the use of medical technologies, and he argues that reining in health care costs requires us to change entrenched values about progress and technological innovation. Taming the Beloved Beast shows that the cost crisis is as great as that of the uninsured. Only a government-regulated universal health care system can offer the hope of managing technology and making it affordable for all.

Download or read book The Affordable Care Act and Medicare in Comparative Context written by Eleanor D. Kinney and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-20 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive and approachable overview of Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. The author illustrates how the ACA addresses the long-term fiscal and demographic challenges facing Medicare, as well as the potential for Medicare to become a single-payer system.

Download or read book Reforming Medicare written by Henry Aaron and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone agrees on the need to reform Medicare but not on how to do it. Some argue the program is too comprehensive, others that it is not comprehensive enough. Some suggest it pays too much for health care, others, too little. Meanwhile, the financial stakes continue to mount. Medicare spending exceeded $400 billion in 2007, making it more expensive than the entire health systems of most other nations, as well as the largest national public program other than Social Security and national defense. In R eforming Medicare, Henry J. Aaron and Jeanne M. Lambrew deftly guide readers through this complex debate. They identify and analyze the three leading approaches to reform. Updated social insurance would retain the current system while rationalizing coverage and reducing bureaucracy. Premium support would replace the current system with a capped, per-person payment that beneficiaries could use to buy health insurance. Consumer-directed Medicare would have beneficiaries pay for care up to a high deductible from government- supported savings accounts and offer premium-support coverage above the deductible. In addition to rating each option on its ability to promote access to health care, improve the quality of care, and control costs, the authors evaluate each reform's political strengths and weaknesses. Given the heat generated by the Medicare debate, it is unlikely that any single approach will be implemented in full. Consequently, Aaron and Lambrew describe incremental strategies that blend elements of each plan. Their analysis provides essential insight into the types of hybrid policies that Congress will consider in coming years.

Download or read book A Republic No More written by Jay Cost and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” Franklin’s response: “A Republic—if you can keep it.” This book argues: we couldn’t keep it. A true republic privileges the common interest above the special interests. To do this, our Constitution established an elaborate system of checks and balances that disperses power among the branches of government, which it places in conflict with one another. The Framers believed that this would keep grasping, covetous factions from acquiring enough power to dominate government. Instead, only the people would rule. Proper institutional design is essential to this system. Each branch must manage responsibly the powers it is granted, as well as rebuke the other branches when they go astray. This is where subsequent generations have run into trouble: we have overloaded our government with more power than it can handle. The Constitution’s checks and balances have broken down because the institutions created in 1787 cannot exercise responsibly the powers of our sprawling, immense twenty-first-century government. The result is the triumph of special interests over the common interest. James Madison called this factionalism. We know it as political corruption. Corruption today is so widespread that our government is not really a republic, but rather a special interest democracy. Everybody may participate, yes, but the contours of public policy depend not so much on the common good, as on the push-and-pull of the various interest groups encamped in Washington, DC.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Health Services Research written by Ross M. Mullner and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 1457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, as never before, healthcare has the ability to enhance the quality and duration of life. At the same time, healthcare has become so costly that it can easily bankrupt governments and impoverish individuals and families. Health services research is a highly multidisciplinary field, including such areas as health administration, health economics, medical sociology, medicine, , political science, public health, and public policy. The Encyclopedia of Health Services Research is the first single reference source to capture the diversity and complexity of the field. With more than 400 entries, these two volumes investigate the relationship between the factors of cost, quality, and access to healthcare and their impact upon medical outcomes such as death, disability, disease, discomfort, and dissatisfaction with care. Key Features Examines the growing healthcare crisis facing the United States Encompasses the structure, process, and outcomes of healthcare Aims to improve the equity, efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of healthcare by influencing and developing public policies Describes healthcare systems and issues from around the globe Key Themes Access to Care Accreditation, Associations, Foundations, and Research Organizations Biographies of Current and Past Leaders Cost of Care, Economics, Finance, and Payment Mechanisms Disease, Disability, Health, and Health Behavior Government and International Healthcare Organizations Health Insurance Health Professionals and Healthcare Organizations Health Services Research Laws, Regulations, and Ethics Measurement; Data Sources and Coding; and Research Methods Outcomes of Care Policy Issues, Healthcare Reform, and International Comparisons Public Health Quality and Safety of Care Special and Vulnerable Groups The Encyclopedia is designed to be an introduction to the various topics of health services research for an audience including undergraduate students, graduate students, andgeneral readers seeking non-technical descriptions of the field and its practices. It is also useful for healthcare practitioners wishing to stay abreast of the changes and updates in the field.

Download or read book The Law of Health Care Finance and Regulation written by Mark A. Hall and published by Aspen Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 907 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Law of Health Care Finance and Regulation is based on Part III, “Institutions, Providers, and the State,” of parent book Health Care Law and Ethics and adds additional coverage of a variety of issues that have shaped health care finance law. Integrating public health, financial and ethical issues, this casebook uses compelling case law, clear notes and comprehensive background information to illuminate the complex and dynamic field of health care law. Key Features: Based on material in Part III of the popular parent book, “Institutions, Providers, and the State,” along with coverage of duty to treat, hospital liability, managed care liability, and regulating access to drugs. Includes cases and material not found in the parent book on: • Judicial and administrative review of Medicare decisions. Certificate of need laws. Review immunity. Integrates public health and ethics issues and features clear notes that provide context, smooth transitions between cases, and background information. Website provides background materials, updates of important events, additional relevant topics and links to other resources on the Internet.

Download or read book Between You and Your Doctor written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on Domestic Policy and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Downsizing Federal Government Spending written by Chris Edwards and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Downsizing Federal Government Spending is a clear and essential guide for policymakers and voters alike on reducing federal spending and on preventing a massive budget crisis that could crush the generations ahead. It provides a detailed series of comprehensive and concise policy strategies to reduce rampant government spending and the national deficit. Sectioned by topic – including Agriculture, Defense, Education (both K-12 and Higher Education), Healthcare, Foreign Policy, and Fiscal Policy - each chapter has been meticulously researched by Cato scholars. Consistent and informed critiques of federally-funded programs come with solid alternatives – identifying areas for needed spending cuts, state-based funding, privatization, termination, and more. Edited by Chris Edwards, this collection moves forward with the crucial task of evaluating federal spending, and reveals how spending changes and cuts would not only eliminate the deficit, but also strengthen the economy, enlarge personal freedom, and leave a positive fiscal legacy for the next generation.

Download or read book Cato Handbook For Policymakers written by David Boaz and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its seventh edition, the Cato Handbook for Policymakers sets the standard in Washington for reducing the power of the federal government and expanding freedom. The 63 chapters—each beginning with a list of major policy recommendations—offer issue-by-issue blueprints for promoting individual liberty, free markets, and peace. Providing both in-depth analysis and concrete recommendations, Cato's Handbook is an invaluable resource for policymakers and anyone else interested in securing liberty and limiting government.

Download or read book The American Political Economy written by Marc Allen Eisner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy debates are often grounded within the conceptual confines of a state-market dichotomy, as though the two existed in complete isolation. In this innovative text, Marc Allen Eisner portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of American political economy within a larger evolutionary-institutional framework that integrates perspectives in American political development and economic sociology. This volume provides a rich understanding of the complexity of U.S. economic policy, explaining how public policies become embedded in bureaucracy and reinforced by organized beneficiaries and public expectations. This path dependent layering process helps students better understand the underlying historical dynamics, which provide a clearer sense of the constraints faced by policymakers now and in the future. Thorough coverage of the entitlement crisis, globalization’s impact on the U.S. political economy, and the recent financial crisis in the final chapters demonstrate the importance of this historical institutionalist framework.

Download or read book Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage written by Jeffrey W. Stempel and published by Wolters Kluwer. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 3864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most other books in the field, which slant toward either policyholder or insurer counsel, Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage takes an even-handed nonexcess and umbrella aking it useful to attorneys from all sides. Moreover, it's designed for practitioners from all professional backgrounds and insurance experience. Written in clear, jargon-free language, it covers everything from the basic insurance concepts, principles, and structure of insurance policies to today's most complex issues and disputes. The authors, Jeffrey W. Stempel and Erik S. Knutsen, are well-known authorities on the law of insurance coverage, and this new Fourth Edition of Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage is completely up-to-date on every aspect of its subject. This one-stop resource provides both a sound historical, theoretical and doctrinal grounding in insurance, as well being practice-oriented and packed with practical guidance. After providing information about insurance policies and issues in general, it focuses on specific types of policies and coverage such as property coverage, liability coverage, automobile coverage, excess and umbrella coverage, and reinsurance, plus such vital areas as employment, defective construction, and terrorism claims...Dandamp;O liability...ERISA...bad faith litigation...and much more. Plus, you'll find extensive examination of the commercial general liability (CGL) policy, the type of insurance involved in most major coverage cases. Among the most important CGL issues covered in Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage are: Pollution-related coverage Trigger of coverage Apportionment of insurer and policyholder responsibility Business risk exclusions Coverage under the andquot;personal injuryandquot; section of the CGL Coverage under andquot;advertising injuryandquot; Nowhere else will you find so much valuable current information, in-depth analysis, sharp insight, authoritative commentary, significant case law, and practical guidance on this critically important area. With its clear explanations and thorough, even-handed coverage, Stempel and Knutsen on Insurance Coverage is unlike any other resource in its field.

Download or read book Medical Malpractice Litigation written by Bernard S. Black and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Drawing on an unusually rich trove of data, the authors have refuted more politically convenient myths in one book than most academics do in a lifetime." —Nicholas Bagley, professor of law, University of Michigan Law School "Synthesizing decades of their own and others’ research on medical liability, the authors unravel what we know and don’t know about our medical malpractice system, why neither patients nor doctors are being rightly served, and what economics can teach us about the path forward." —Anupam B. Jena, Harvard Medical School Over the past 50 years, the United States experienced three major medical malpractice crises, each marked by dramatic increases in the cost of malpractice liability insurance. These crises fostered a vigorous politicized debate about the causes of the premium spikes, and the impact on access to care and defensive medicine. State legislatures responded to the premium spikes by enacting damages caps on non-economic, punitive, or total damages and Congress has periodically debated the merits of a federal cap on damages. However, the intense political debate has been marked by a shortage of evidence, as well as misstatements and overclaiming. The public is confused about answers to some basic questions. What caused the premium spikes? What effect did tort reform actually have? Did tort reform reduce frivolous litigation? Did tort reform actually improve access to health care or reduce defensive medicine? Both sides in the debate have strong opinions about these matters, but their positions are mostly talking points or are based on anecdotes. Medical Malpractice Litigation provides factual answers to these and other questions about the performance of the med mal system. The authors, all experts in the field and from across the political spectrum, provide an accessible, fact-based response to the questions ordinary Americans and policymakers have about the performance of the med mal litigation system.

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism written by Ronald Hamowy and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a continuation of the older tradition of classical liberalism, libertarian thinking draws on a rich body of thought and scholarship. Contemporary libertarian scholars are continuing that tradition by making substantial contributions to such fields as philosophy, jurisprudence, economics, evolutionary psychology, political theory, and history, in both academia and politics. With more than 300 A-to-Z signed entries written by top scholars, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism is purposed to be a useful compilation of and introduction to libertarian scholarship. The Encyclopedia starts with an introductory essay offering an extensive historical and thematic overview of key thinkers, events, and publications in the development of libertarian thought. The Reader's Guide groups content for researchers and students alike, allowing them to study libertarianism topically, biographically, and by public policy issues. Key Features Entries conclude with bibliographies and references for further reading and cross-references to related entries. Each entry provides an introduction to a topic or policy question relevant to libertarianism or a biography of a person who has had an impact on libertarianism. Editors take special care to ensure entries clearly explain libertarian approaches to issues, do not take sides on disputed matters or engage in polemics, and represent the views of all sides fairly and accurately.

Download or read book Medicine and Social Justice written by Rosamond Rhodes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because medicine can preserve life, restore health and maintain the body's functions, it is widely acknowledged as a basic good that just societies should provide for their members. Yet, there is wide disagreement over the scope and content of what to provide, to whom, how, when, and why. In this unique and comprehensive volume, some of the best-known philosophers, physicians, legal scholars, political scientists, and economists writing on the subject discuss what social justice in medicine should be. Their contributions deepen our understanding of the theoretical and practical issues that run through the contemporary debate. The forty-two chapters in this reorganized second edition of Medicine and Social Justice update and expand upon the thirty-four chapters of the 2002 first edition. Eighteen chapters from the original volume are revised to address policy changes and challenging issues that have emerged in the intervening decade. Twenty-two of the chapters in this edition are entirely new. The treatment of foundational theory and conceptual issues related to access to health care and rationing medical resources have been expanded to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced discussion of the background concepts that underlie distributive justice debates, with global perspectives on health and well-being added. New additions to the section on health care justice for specific populations include chapters on health care for the chronically ill, soldiers, prisoners, the severely cognitively disabled, and the LGBT population. The section devoted to dilemmas and priorities addresses an array of topics that have recently become especially pressing because of new technologies or altered policies. New chapters address questions of justice related to genetics, medical malpractice, research on human subjects, pandemic and disaster planning, newborn screening, and justice for the brain dead and those with profound neurological injury. Reviews of the first edition: "This compilation brings a variety of perspectives, national settings, and disciplinary backgrounds to the topic and provides a unique survey of theoretical and applied thinking about the connections between health care and social justice... Physicians and others interested in this field will find this book an engaging introduction to the theoretical and practical challenges pertaining to social justice and health care." New England Journal of Medicine "Although much work in bioethics has focused on clinical encounters, there has been a current of discussion about questions of social justice for decades-at least since the allocation of access to dialysis was widely understood in the 1960s to be a matter of justice, not of medical judgment. This volume will facilitate heightened awareness and deeper discussion of such issues." JAMA "Impressively, the editors have chosen an array of essays that explore the philosophical and bioethical foundations of distributive justice; review the current practice of rationing and patients' access to care in a number of different countries; highlight the issues raised by various special needs groups; and then wrestle with some dilemmas in assessing priorities in distributing healthcare... This book is an excellent resource. " Doody's