Health spending in the United States has risen dramatically over the past few decades, growing from about 5 percent of gross domestic product in 1960 to over 16 percent today. Leading experts argue that medical innovation is the principal driver of health spending growth, and studies based on the widely...

Medicaid finances care for 70 percent of all people in nursing homes and covers half of all the money spent for long-term care. The strain on state budgets is intense, and the National Governors Association has demanded federal relief. Private long-term care insurance could reduce some of those spending pressures,...

I was initially assigned the working title, "Pursuing Equality in Health Care for the Elderly Is Futile." I prefer to think of that particular dead end of health policy as one of listening to the wrong music for too long. Hence, this article revises the title song of the movie, Urban Cowboy, to "Looking for better health [rather than either "love" or "love of equality"] in all the wrong places.

A new study continues to rain on the political parade of claims that the uncompensated care costs of the uninsured are largely recycled into higher private insurance premiums.

Ballooning costs for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are leading the United States toward fiscal crisis.

Entitlements traditionally have paid generous benefits--financed by affordable taxes--to the rich and poor alike, because the ratio of workers to beneficiaries has been high; those days are long gone.