Some consumers and businesses might see a little extra cash this summer as a result of the 2010 health care law. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates will be delivered from health insurers who spent more than the law allotted on administrative expenses and profits.

For all the talk about the Affordable Care Act's mandate to purchase insurance, you might think that the mandate is the linchpin of the entire law. It isn't, at least from the standpoint of whether the insurance market will collapse without it. 

Health care policy and health care reform are back in the news in a big way. The Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the 2010 health care overhaul. The Obama administration has just released guidelines for the operation of the state-based insurance exchanges that are the backbone of the law.

Joesph Antos' statement on premium support for Medicare before the House Committee on Ways and Means' Subcommittee on Health

To better understand the determinants of health spending, it is important to distinguish spending on chronic health conditions from spending on patients with chronic health conditions.

Ezekiel Emanuel reminded New York Times readers last week of something health economists have known for eight decades. Health expenditures are highly concentrated, with just 10 percent of the population accounting for nearly two-thirds of annual health spending.

How out-of-pocket health spending added 10 million people to the ranks of the poor.

Alan D. Viard, a resident scholar at AEI, reviews the budget outlook, the need for tax reform and the benefits of moving to a progressive consumption tax. He also discusses his forthcoming book, Progressive Consumption Taxation: The X Tax Revisited, which he coauthored with Robert Carroll of Ernst & Young. The book will be published by AEI Press in the Spring.