John R. Graham is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute.
Full biography and recent publications
Full biography and recent publications
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John R. Graham ArchiveMedicare, Medicaid and VA at High Risk for Waste, Fraud and Abuse, Says GAOBy John R. Graham • Tuesday February 21, 2017 at 1:45 PM PDT
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published its biennial update of federal programs “that it identifies as high risk due to their greater vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement...” Healthcare programs feature high on the list. Medicare, the entitlement program for seniors, and Medicaid, the joint state-federal welfare program for low-income households, are... Tags: cybersecurity, federal waste, fraud & abuse, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans Administration American Patients Can Access Far More New Cancer Drugs than Others CanBy John R. Graham • Monday February 13, 2017 at 12:46 PM PDT
New research by scholars at the University of Pittsburgh shows that American patients have significantly better access to new cancer medicines than their peers in other developed countries: Of 45 anticancer drug indications approved in the United States between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2013, 64% (29) were approved by the European Medicines... Capping Federal Medicaid Funding Would Save $110 Billion to $150 Billion in 5 YearsBy John R. Graham • Thursday February 9, 2017 at 9:49 AM PDT
Arguably more important than repealing and replacing Obamacare, a longstanding Republican proposal to change how Congress finances Medicaid would reduce the burden on taxpayers by $110 billion to $150 billion over five years, according to a new analysis by consultants at Avalere. Currently, state spending on Medicaid is out of control because Medicaid’s traditional... Tags: government spending, Medicaid, Obamacare American Health Insurance Is Upside DownBy John R. Graham • Monday February 6, 2017 at 10:58 AM PDT
Writing in The Week, Ryan Cooper shares a chilling story about an Obamacare Gold-level health insurance policy that let its beneficiary down when he needed it most: Stewart is 29 years old, and was pursuing his Ph.D in American history at Texas Christian University until ill health forced him to withdraw. He lives in... Tags: health insurance, liver disease, Medicaid, Obamacare Fixed-Dollar Tax Credits Would Reduce Individual Health Insurance PremiumsBy John R. Graham • Friday February 3, 2017 at 9:31 AM PDT
Sonia Jaffe and Mark Shepard of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) have written a new paper, which compares the effects of fixed-dollar subsidies for health insurance to subsidies that are linked to premiums. They conclude that fixed-dollar subsidies reduce taxpayers’ costs and improve access. Unfortunately, the structure of subsidies in U.S. health... Tags: health insurance, Obamacare, Romneycare Over a Decade Later, Tax Hikes Still Proposed to Pay for RomneycareBy John R. Graham • Wednesday February 1, 2017 at 2:25 PM PDT
Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts has proposed a tax of $2,000 per worker on businesses that do not offer health coverage to employees who become dependent on Medicaid. This makes him the second Republican governor of Massachusetts to buy into the notion that imposing taxes (or fines or penalties or fees) on individuals and... Tags: healthcare spending, Massachusetts, Obamacare, Romneycare Pre-Existing Conditions and High-Risk PoolsBy John R. Graham • Monday January 30, 2017 at 10:45 AM PDT
Obamacare’s most popular provision is its prohibition against health insurers charging higher premiums for pre-existing conditions. It is so popular that Republican politicians have promised to keep it! (Or, at least bring it back once they repeal and replace Obamacare.) Scholars at the Kaiser Family Foundation have estimated that 27 percent of American adults... Tags: Healthcare, high-risk pools, HIPAA, Obamacare, pre-existing conditions Senator Sanders, There Is No Right to Health Care in CanadaBy John R. Graham • Thursday January 19, 2017 at 2:19 PM PDT
On Wednesday, I watched the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee’s courtesy hearing for Representative Tom Price, MD, whom President-elect Trump has nominated to be the next United States Secretary of Health & Human Services. As a game of “gotcha,” the hearing played out predictably. However, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stood out... Tags: Canada, entitlements, Healthcare, rights Obamacare’s Bureaucracy: The Amazing Rise in Health Insurance JobsBy John R. Graham • at 8:34 AM PDT
As Congress and President-elect Trump debate how to repeal and replace Obamacare, the obsession with health insurance, rather than actual access to health care, has dominated the debate. It invites the question: How have jobs in health insurance fared before and after Obamacare? They have boomed! Before the Great Recession, nonfarm civilian employment peaked... Tags: ACA, health care, health insurance, Healthcare, jobs, Obamacare Obamacare’s Individual Mandate and Tax Credits Are Really, Really InefficientBy John R. Graham • Tuesday January 17, 2017 at 1:24 PM PDT
Obamacare’s least popular feature is the individual “mandate” to have health insurance. This requirement was the subject of the 2012 lawsuit asserting Obamacare was unconstitutional: Never before had the federal government forced any resident to buy a good or service from a private business. The people lost that argument. Nevertheless, whether we label the... Tags: individual mandate, IRS, Obamacare, tax credits
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