To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: New Cato Study Advocates Eliminating Medical Licensing
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:50:56 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Healthy Competition
September 25, 2008
New Cato Study Advocates Eliminating Medical Licensing
Health-care professionals sell medical licensing to Americans as a vital public
health safeguard. But could it really be protecting private interest groups at
the expense of everyone else?
In the Cato Institutes newest health policy analysis, Medical Licensing: An
Obstacle to Affordable, Quality Care, adjunct scholar Shirley Svorny takes a
critical look at
the institution of medical licensing in the United States. What she finds is
alarming: medical licensing significantly reduces access and does little if
anything to improve health-care quality.
Cato Scholar Wins Intelligence Squared Debate
On Tuesday September 16, 2008 Cato Institute director of health policy studies
Michael F. Cannon engaged in a public, Oxford-style debate in New York City on
the motion Universal health coverage should be the federal governments
responsibility. The debate was sponsored by Intelligence Squared.
Alongside Emmy Award-winning ABC News reporter John Stossel and Pacific
Research Institute president Sally Pipes, Cannon argued against the motion.
Arguing for the motion were New York Times columnist and Princeton economics
professor Paul Krugman, Emory Medical School
professor Arthur Kellerman, and independent health policy expert Michael
Rachlis.
The contest was intense and well-performed by all participants. According to
Cannon: People should have the right to choose their doctor, they should have
the right to choose their health plan, and those things are often lost in a
system of universal coverage, almost uniformly
You can have a
health care sector that guarantees universal coverage, or you can have a health
care sector that continuously makes medical care better, cheaper, and safer
You
cannot have both.
The results of pre- and post-debate polling are as follows:
Before the debate, 49 percent of the audience was pro-universal coverage, 24
percent anti-, and 27 percent undecided.
After the debate, 58 percent of the audience was pro-, 34 percent anti-, and 8
percent undecided.
Cannon, Stossel, and Pipes won a greater share of the undecided votes, giving
the team against the motion an important victory.
To watch, hear, or read the full debate find video at YouTube.com, audio at
NPR.org, or a transcript at IntelligenceSquaredUS.org.
Cato Scholars and Research Quoted on Health Reform
Cato scholars and research were recently quoted on health reform in the
following media:
American Spectator (Online): There is also considerable debate over whether
increasing the number of people with insurance is the best way to improve
health outcomes. Michael Cannon, director of health policy
studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said, There is no evidence that
health insurance will deliver better outcomes than spending money on other
things.
National Review (Online): Around the world, single-payer systems keep costs
down by rationing care. A Cato Institute study found that
Norwegians commonly
travel abroad to avoid long
waits. Approximately 280,000 Norwegians are estimated to be waiting for care
on any given day
MedPageToday.com: "People believe that they don't need to buy long-term care
insurance because Medicaid will bail them out, said Michael Tanner, a senior
fellow at the CATO Institute
Tanner said the
middle class should go out and buy long-term care insurance and leave
government aid to those who truly need it.
American Medical News: Steady increases in insurance premiums are leading more
employers to stop covering workers
These increases are driven partly by people
using more health care than they otherwise would if
they controlled the money spent on it, [the Cato Institutes Michael Cannon]
said.
AISHealth.com: In the current issue of the online journal Forum for Health
Economics & Policy, Cannon describes how his proposal for large health savings
accounts would overcome the shortcomings of current account-based
CDH and create tax neutrality for health care
For more Cato research on international health systems, rising insurance
premiums, Large HSAs, and long-term care see
Michael D. Tanner, The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health
Care Systems Around The World, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 613, March
18, 2008;
Michael F. Cannon, Fix Health Care By Making Americans Care About Costs,
USAToday, September 7, 2007;
Michael F. Cannon, Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step Toward Tax Neutrality
for Health Care, Forum for Health Economics & Policy, Vol. 11, No. 2; and
Stephen A. Moses, Aging Americas Achilles Heel: Medicaid Long-Term Care,
Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 549, September 1, 2005.
Healthy Competition is a periodic newsletter produced by
the Cato Institute. It features news and commentary on current health policy
issues from a free-market perspective. If you wish to subscribe to this free
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