There is cause for concern regarding the viability and health of many state unemployment insurance trust funds, and federal policies to promote job creation are the single most important determinant of solvency.

In going along in May 2010 with the European charade that Greece did not have a solvency problem, was the IMF really standing for the proposition that the laws of economics do not and will not give way to political considerations?

Better-designed provider-level measurement can make the cost containment tools of differential reimbursement, high-performance tiered networks, valuebased benefit design, clinical re-engineering, and the responsible choices they offer more visible and effective.

Can we be spared a Lehman-style crisis when Greece’s hard default occurs?

These days, billions of dollars is spoken of as pocket change. A by-product of massive government debt burdens and decades of cheap cash from central banks is the notion that, while solvency might be important, liquidity should be easy to find. Particularly for financial institutions, the official state position appears...

Medicare is facing a fiscal calamity: how can the growth of Medicare spending be limited while ensuring that beneficiaries continue to have access to affordable health care?

Far from Greece's currently high interest rates being the result of herd behaviour, it would seem to be reflecting the market's accurate assessment that Greece has a fundamental solvency problem. To pretend otherwise only delays finding a solution to Greece's very difficult economic problems.

The main problem with the recent IMF programmes to countries such as Greece and Portugal has not been one of size or duration but rather one of policy misdiagnosis.