David Williams

The Affordable Care Act is injecting billions upon billions of dollars to provide Medicaid to previously uninsured people. More money should help healthcare providers' finances, not hurt them. So what's going on?

Medicaid beneficiaries deserve the same access to healthcare services and products as people with commercial insurance or Medicare. But since Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals 27 to 65 percent less than commercial health plans, it makes it awfully difficult for providers to be payer agnostic.

The Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide coverage for full-time employees, but not part-timers. That sounds like a straightforward and reasonable provision, but as usual the devil is in the details.

Ugly stories about waiting lists and poor care in VA facilities are coming out in the press. But in truth, there is not enough information to say whether the VA system is worse or better than the private system as a whole, or even to compare the VA with individual private sector hospitals.

Twenty-four states, including almost the whole South, took the stubborn path and have so far refused to expand Medicaid. That's a big reason rural hospitals are continuing to struggle.

Fee-for-service methodologies, especially relative-value units (RVUs), keep creeping back into alternative payment models like capitation. Maybe we should take the hint and adapt RVUs to the new environment rather than throwing them out the window.

Reference pricing is a great cost-saving idea and I'd like to see more of it. But it’s a pretty poor argument for the superiority of the free market in healthcare.

The Affordable Care Act cuts Medicare price growth. But if hospitals respond by increasing the amount of care provided, the potential cost savings from price restraint may be lost.

As a business owner I’m enthusiastic about the idea of government policies that promote economic growth. But I’m disappointed to hear the term “pro-growth” used as a label for policies that reduce taxes, restrict social programs, and reject the Affordable Care Act.

A Wall Street Journal article caught my eye, since it seemed to report that the Affordable Care Act was making it hard to raise money. But as I read further into it there seems to be nothing really there.