high deductible health plans

It will escape no one's attention that 2006 is an election year. Many hopeful Democrats are looking at the rough 2005 "enjoyed" by the Bush administration and have decided that 2006 is shaping up to be the reverse of 1994 all over again. While it's hard to imagine the news for Republicans staying as bad as it's been, there are at least three areas where healthcare will play into politics this year. The most obvious is the roll out of Medicare Part D's drug coverage, about which there has …

There were early signs that trouble lay ahead for the Bush administration's attempt to enact the most sweeping changes to the Medicare system in a generation. So far, the road has been rocky with criticism of the program's design (even the experts generally find it confusing) and reports of glitches with Medicare's Web-based system for participants. Fiscal conservatives on the left and right have been critical of the huge price tag. Supporters beg to differ, arguing that the private …

This week there is confirmation that employer-based health insurance is withering on the vine. Kaiser FF reports that only 60% of Americans received insurance from an employer, down from 69% just five years ago at the height of the boom. Most of those who've lost coverage are in smaller firms, but of course most people work for small firms, and even large firms are pushing more costs …

A new survey from The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Education Trust confirms that the number of people with employer-based health insurance is falling rapidly. Sixty percent of firms offered coverage to workers in 2005, down significantly from 69 percent in 2000 and 66 percent in 2003. The drop stems almost entirely from fewer small businesses offering health benefits, as nearly all businesses with 200 or more workers offer such benefits. This survey confirms a …

> HIT: A recent study published in the journal Medicine, which relied on data gathered exclusively over the Internet, demonstrates the increasing acceptance of the medium in the mainstream scientific community. Story

> The Houston Chronicle reports that closing arguments are scheduled to begin today in Ernst v. Merck, the first civil …

A new poll conducted by Harris Interactive looks at the attitudes of American workers toward their health coverage and finds that if forced to make a choice, most would forego a raise rather than lose access to employer-provided benefits. Sixty-one percent of respondents with employer-provided insurance said they would "choose to have no pay increase but maintain their current health insurance benefit." Forty-two percent said their benefits have "gotten worse over the last two or …