Reason Foundation

Recent Research and Commentary

Obama's Hidden Fees

When the president does it, it's not a tax

November 4, 2009

Jacob Sullum

If Obama can deny that a charge is a tax even when it’s collected by the IRS and identified as a “tax” in the legislation creating it, he surely sees nothing tax-like in the money people are required to spend if they want to avoid that charge. Yet forcing people to buy insurance they do not want so their premiums can subsidize other people’s health care looks a lot like a tax-funded welfare program, even if the money does not flow through the public treasury.

Masterfleece Theater

The Democrats say their health care bill will provide real competition. It won't.

October 30, 2009

David Harsanyi

Real competition, as far as anyone can tell, is antithetical to the authors of this bill. Remember, you can purchase oranges from Florida and whiskey from Kentucky, yet you're prohibited from buying health insurance from anywhere outside your state; so sayeth Nancy Pelosi. Instead of the creation of a new market with interstate trade, what we would get is the institution of the pleasant-sounding "Health Insurance Exchange," which would exist, it seems, only to accommodate a noncompetitive, government-run insurance option.

The Unhealthy 'Public Option'

Using government-run health insurance to fix the status quo is like using a brick to improve a window

October 29, 2009

Steve Chapman

If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations, and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money—even though it pays such low fees that many doctors refuse to take Medicare patients. Meanwhile, Medicare fraud costs taxpayers some $60 billion a year, according to a report by CBS's 60 Minutes, making it among the most profitable fields for felons. That's our experience with government-run health insurance for the elderly. So what do congressional Democrats propose to do? Offer government-run health insurance to everyone else.

Mandatory Savings?

Requiring people to buy medical insurance will fuel health care inflation

October 28, 2009

Jacob Sullum

It’s obvious why the insurers like this idea. What industry wouldn’t welcome a law that forces everyone to buy its product?  But the insurers also argue that a mandate will help control costs, and the president agrees. Judging from the experience in Massachusetts, which imposed its own insurance requirement in 2006, they’re both wrong.

Health Care Delusions, Left and Right

How both sides are misleading the American people

October 26, 2009

Steve Chapman

What left and right have in common is the delusion that when it comes to medicine, nothing succeeds like excess. But no health care measure can alter the fact that our resources are not unlimited. We may not want to hear it, but no matter what kind of insurance system you have, sometimes someone has to say "no."

In Health Care, Nobody Knows Anything

Two new industry studies reignite the debate about what makes health care so expensive

October 20, 2009

Ronald Bailey

 

There is one thing that everybody should know when it comes to health care: Competition in markets tends to lower prices and improve quality over time. It can do so in health care markets as well.

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