Health Care

Cato's health policy work is designed to show that the only way to make health care of ever-increasing quality available to an ever-increasing number of consumers is to put consumers in charge of their health care dollars and decisions. With that in mind, Cato has worked to familiarize the public, media and policymakers with the free-market alternative to managed care and single-payer plans—health savings accounts (HSAs).

A comprehensive market-based approach to controlling health care costs was first developed by Cato’s scholars in the 1980s and set forth in a book in 1992 called Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis. The condensed version of Patient Power sold 300,000 copies and is credited with playing a pivotal role in the defeat of the Clinton administration's plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system. Cato scholars took the initiative to outline the health care reform debate before the Clinton administration issued its proposal, thus helping to avert a national policy disaster.

Other Cato publications have focused on the right and wrong ways to reform Medicare, tax treatment of employer-provided health insurance, and prescription drug costs. In particular, Cato has been a longtime advocate of deregulating the health care industry so that consumers can afford the health care insurance and treatment of their choice. Various Cato publications have documented the heavy costs associated with government regulation of insurance, drugs and medical devices, health care professionals, hospitals and clinics, and the medical malpractice system. A recent Cato Policy Analysis, "Health Care Regulation: A $169 Billion Hidden Tax," by Duke University professor Christopher J. Conover found that the costs of health care regulation outweigh the benefits by two-to-one and make health insurance unaffordable for roughly 7.5 million Americans.

• Deregulation of Health Care
• FDA and Prescription Drugs
• Health Care Regulation and Tax Treatment
• Health Savings Accounts

• Insurance
• Medicaid
• Medicare

Healthy Competition, an E-Newsletter

A Health Care Reading List, prepared by Michael Cannon.

Michael F. Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies

Mike Tanner, Director of Health & Welfare Studies, Director of Cato's Project on Social Security Choice

Jagadeesh Gokhale, Senior Fellow

Richard A. Epstein, Adjunct Fellow

David A. Hyman, Adjunct Fellow