Many in New Mexico, especially here in the southern part of the state, can probably relate to this story: This winter I resolved to fix all of this, even though I had no dental insurance. I was too cheap for a friend’s dentist in Philadelphia, who recommended gum surgery and four new veneers for $9,000, [...]

Via Kevin, here’s Andy Card: It is time to admit that the employer-based health care system is dead — a relic of the industrial economy. America cannot compete in the new global economy when we are the only industrialized nation on earth that puts the price of healthcare on the cost of our products. Think [...]

Ezra, who was optimistic about the President’s new plan yesterday, has reversed course, as new details about the proposal came out: What the early reports either didn’t make clear or didn’t know was that the plan’s changes to health care deductibility don’t set limits, they’re creating, instead, a standard deduction of $7,500 for individuals and [...]

Via Atrios comes this Murray Waas piece, which is more about journalism ethics than health care. Nonetheless, here’s Ezra’s take: Elsewhere, my friend Murray Waas’s rebuttal to Washington City Paper’s shameful attempts to turn his survival of cancer into some hack bit of pop-psychology is powerful and affecting. I’ll note that cancer drove Murray, then [...]

Ezra on Sen. Ron Wyden’s newly announced proposal for health care: The Healthy Americans Act of 2007 would begin by dissolving all employer-based insurance. Instead, it would mandate that every employer who had covered his employees in 2006 convert the total they spent on insurance into salary increases creating, in one day, the single largest [...]

I didn’t think the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit could get any worse. Turns out, I just didn’t wait long enough: Many prescription drug plans are changing benefits. Beneficiaries are changing from one plan to another. New plans are entering the market. Some beneficiaries will find they can no longer use the drugstores they have been [...]

Have you ever wanted to start your own business? Have you thought about health care: Once upon a time, Ms. Smith and Mr. Lueders had generous benefits from their employers and gave little thought to how medical care would be paid. But today, as owners of a consulting firm in Liberty, Mo., and a transmission [...]

Before I deleted the site yesterday, I had some commentary by Kevin Drum on Medicare negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs: But there’s a fairly simple solution to this, one that only the Wall Street Journal even bothers to mention: [An] approach Democrats could try would be requiring drug makers to give Medicare beneficiaries their [...]

From Anne McCormick, Grant County Democratic Chair: On Wednesday, Nov. 15, Charlotte Roybal, Executive Director of Health Action New Mexico, and a member of the Governor’s Health Coverage for all New Mexicans Committee, will address both national and state issues. On the state front, she will discuss the Governor’s five-point plan for covering all New [...]

I meant to blog on this yesterday, but other topics drove it out of my mind before Amanda’s post reminded me. Ezra had a great entry about the progress Mexico has made in recent years by working toward universal health care, with a focus on up-front, preventative treatment. Here’s the money quote from the first [...]

Just received this press release: Are you a business owner, manager, leader, or decision maker in your public or private organization? Is your organzation prepared to deal with a global outbreak of influenza? Listening to Communities invites you to participate in “Pandemic Flu and You,” an information-sharing and brainstorming session on Wednesday, October 4 at [...]

Ezra: Whatever the European social policy you may be advocating for, the almost inevitable, and usually instant, response from ill-disposed interlocutors is to bring up Europe’s apparent unemployment problem and wonder if that’s the future you’re securing for the United States. Well, let them. The latest round of OECD employment data shows (PDF) that Europe [...]