James Oliphant’s August 20th Los Angeles Times article Healthcare co-ops emerging as viable alternative reports:

One of the six — Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota — is the leading Senate proponent of co-ops. He and others point to cooperatives in Seattle and Minnesota that employ doctors and own their own healthcare facilities, giving them more control over costs and the quality of care. Conrad says that under his plan, the federal government would play no role in managing the co-ops, but would only provide seed money to help them get started.

There are two things wrong with this paragraph. First, … Continue Reading

The New York Times’ Robert Pear and Gardiner Harris have a front page story in the August 18th New York Times on Sen. Kent Conrad’s (D-ND) proposal to increase health insurance competition through nonprofit health care cooperatives. Pear and Harris write:

Prof. Ann Hoyt, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has done extensive research on cooperatives in many industries, said they could serve a useful purpose in health care — just as credit unions compete effectively with banks, prompting them to offer higher interest rates on deposits and lower rates on loans.
…
In a study published in March and financed

… Continue Reading

In a otherwise fair July 6th article on Health co-ops, the New York Times Kevin Sack reports:

As Congress and the White House debate a national health care overhaul, many in Washington agree that one reason health premiums have grown at four times the rate of inflation this decade is a dearth of competition. In 40 of 42 states studied by the American Medical Association last year, the two largest health insurers claimed at least half of all enrollment.

Sack then goes on to explain how some Democrats believe government funded co-ops could provide needed competition. But Sack never explains why … Continue Reading