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The Two Most Important Numbers in American Health Care

"The two most important numbers in American health care are 5 and 50. Five percent of people account for about 50 percent of the health system's spending. Given that health-care spending is almost one-fifth of our economy, that means the health problems of 15 million Americans are consuming almost one-tenth of our GDP -- around $1.5 trillion. The conclusion is clear: If you want to cut costs -- and relieve suffering -- you somehow need to help that 5 percent."

Obamacare's Employer Mandate Shouldn't Be Delayed -- It Should Be Repealed

"Delaying Obamacare's employer mandate is the right thing to do. Frankly, eliminating it -- or at least utterly overhauling it -- is probably the right thing to do. But the administration executing a regulatory end-run around Congress is not the right way to do it.... The irony is that the worker-based employer mandate got passed in part because employers preferred it to a payroll-based mandate ... Part of the reason is that the mandate, as written, affects relatively few employers."

The Memo That Could Have Saved Obamacare's Rollout

"David Cutler, a Harvard health economist and an advisor to President Obama's 2008 campaign, sent [a letter] in 2010 arguing that the White House had the wrong team in charge of health reform and they needed to completely overhaul their implementation strategy.... [T]he process the White House chose was clearly a failure. And it can't all be blamed on Republicans. It's not Speaker John Boehner's fault that the IT contractors were badly managed, the Web site badly built and inadequately tested, and the bad news on all these fronts kept from the White House. Those are problems of management, not political opposition."

29 States Want the Supreme Court to Weigh in on Another Obamacare Mandate

"Eleven attorneys general, along with the White House, want the court to review a lower-court opinion that found that the contraception mandate violates a business's freedom of religion. Eighteen other state attorneys general want the court to review another opinion, which found the opposite. Dozens of lawsuits on that mandate have been filed by nonprofits and corporations nationwide."

The White House's Obamacare Fix Is About to Create a Big Mess

"Under the change that the administration is announcing this morning, the hypothetical Americans with a policy that ends in June 2014 would have the option to renew that exact same plan for one more year -- if their insurance company decides to provide that option. Keep in mind, this change is not ordering insurers to offer their products for another year; health plans regularly take their offerings on and off the market. Instead, its a very nice ask on the part of the administration, to insurance carriers and regulators, to play ball on this one."

The Shocking Truth About Obamacare's Rate Shock

"Some people will find the new rules make insurance more expensive. That's in part because their health insurance was made cheap by turning away sick people. The new rules also won't allow for as much discrimination based on age or gender. The flip side of that, of course, is that many will suddenly find their health insurance is much cheaper, or they will find that, for the first time, they're not turned away when they try to buy health insurance."

The U.S. Ranks 26th for Life Expectancy, Right Behind Slovenia

"[T]he United States' average lifespan has fallen one year behind the international average, lower than Canada and Germany, more akin to the Czech Republic and Poland.... [A new OECD report] shows the United States as a country that is spending tons and tons on health care--but getting way less than other countries out of that investment. It exposes a country that's really great at buying fancy medical technologies, but not so fantastic at using those medical technologies to extend life. It is, in short, the story of why our health care system is so screwed up."

Is the U.S. Too Corrupt for Single-Payer Health Care?

"The key to a single-payer system is that the government sets prices. Usually, it empowers boards of independent experts who set those prices low. [Uwe] Reinhardt's argument is that in the United States, health industry interests have so much sway over Congress that the prices would end up being set by health-care interests.... Reinhardt's argument is a reminder that the simple fact that a policy worked in another country does not mean it will work in this country. His point about the importance of independence is particularly crucial."

The Fundamental Problem with Obamacare

"The problem with Obamacare is it's product driven and not market driven. They didn't ask the customer what they wanted. And I think that's the fundamental problem with Obamacare. It meets the needs of very poor people because you're giving them health insurance for free. But it doesn't really meet the needs of healthy people and middle-class people."

Obamacare Just Got Easier to Implement, Not Harder

"There were two noteworthy changes to Obamacare in the last seven days. The first is that the employer mandate, which tells businesses with more than 50 employees to provide affordable insurance or pay a per-employee penalty, won't be enforced until 2015. The second is that people applying for low-income subsidies in the exchanges will face fewer audits in 2014. Both changes make the same trade-off: They raise the law's first-year costs in order to reduce its first-year problems."