Health Policy Program: Latest Articles

From President Bush on down, our leaders are finally getting serious about the risks of bioterrorism. But in all of their proposals -- for early detection, for stockpiling vaccines, for upgrading hospitals -- they continue to ignore one of the weakest links in our homeland defense: the armies of Americans without health insurance.

Health experts say the early detection of illness is one of the best ways to counteract bioterrorism. But how can we do that when nearly 40… more

In the summer of 1994, a surgeon named J. Bruce Moseley found himself engaged in an elaborate form of make-believe. Moseley had 10 patients scheduled for an operation intended to relieve the arthritis pain in their knees. The patients were men -- most of them middle-aged, all former military guys -- and they weren't ready to consign themselves to the rocking chair yet. So they had decided to take a risk and volunteer for a study that must have sounded,… more

The medically uninsured have always been with us. Yet, they have not always been a cause for civic alarm. As a national issue, their plight has drifted into view only episodically, rarely with tangible results. Many thought this would change when President Bill Clinton proposed his ambitious health plan in 1993. But within a year, his proposal had been crushed and the issue seemingly forgotten--the fate of… more