The Sunshine Report

Category Archive: Medicare

1. Congressman Ryan, Should Predatory Pricing Cartels Really Run Health Care?

   0 Post on May 22, 2011

   The med­ical insur­ance game is rigged. Med­ical insur­ance com­pa­nies have spe­cial legal pro­tec­tions that pro­mote anti-competitive behav­ior. Since 1944 they have been exempt from vir­tu­ally all the anti-trust laws that apply to other indus­tries and under­pin the foun­da­tion of our national economy.

   Under the terms of the insur­ance exemp­tion, health insur­ance com­pa­nies can col­lude with one another, fix prices, rig bids and form car­tels. Preda­tory pric­ing by health insur­ance com­pa­nies is OK. These prac­tices — nor­mally ille­gal under fed­eral anti-trust reg­u­la­tion— are pro­tected by law.

   Even worse, health insur­ance com­pa­nies don’t have to worry about being sued if they hurt some­one — they aren’t sub­ject to tort lia­bil­ity and as a prac­ti­cal mat­ter can’t be sued for mess­ing up a claim or deny­ing cov­er­age. [read full story]

   Posted in: economy, Finance, Fiscal Policy, Forbes, Medicare, Paul Ryan, Public Policy, REGULATION

2. Congressman Ryan, I Don’t Want To Be A Lab Rat

   0 Post on April 22, 2011

   Dear Con­gress­man Ryan,

   Please explain your Medicare plan to me and my wife. We are in our early fifties and are con­cerned about how your changes to Medicare will affect us. We know that Wash­ing­ton can seem dis­con­nected from the real world but, for peo­ple of our age, your plan to do away with Medicare is very real.

   Get­ting rid of Medicare feels like a free mar­kets exper­i­ment to us and nei­ther of us wants to be a “lab rat” for a social and eco­nomic exper­i­ment gone awry. Lab rats are usu­ally expend­able and we don’t want to be part of a dis­carded gen­er­a­tion. [read full story]

   Posted in: Finance, Fiscal Policy, Forbes, Medicare, Politics, Public Policy, REGULATION