News
Wake commissioners question Atrium-WakeMed merger
Wake County Commissioners heard from officials from WakeMed, Atrium Health and others on the proposed merger between the two hospital systems at a work session on Monday.
Opinion
Hospitals can’t win every policy battle
NC's hospitals — and their networks of physician practices, clinics, urgent cares, and other facilities they own or manage — are at the center of many policy disputes.
Opinion
Choke points limit economic success
While our state continues to best most others in economic performance, not all our households and communities are sharing in North Carolina’s prosperity. Some are struggling to replace lost jobs with new ones. Other folks are gainfully employed but see their real incomes being eroded by the rising costs of housing, health care, transportation, and...
Opinion
Frustration mounts as health-care costs soar: Time to repeal certificate of need laws
NC is on the brink of delivering long-overdue relief to patients and healthcare providers by advancing Senate Bill 370, a powerful reform that would eliminate many of the state’s outdated Certificate of Need (CON) laws. Lawmakers should move quickly.
Opinion
Expand options to ease health costs
Giving physician assistants more freedom to deliver care isn’t a new, untested idea. It’s already happening elsewhere. North Carolina should be next.
Opinion
We need more hospital competition
North Carolina’s hospital sector has undergone lots of mergers and acquisitions over the past decade. Now the pace of change is, if anything, accelerating. Guilford County’s largest hospital, Cone Memorial, has just been acquired by a charitable arm of Kaiser Permanente. Novant Health, also based in the Triad, operates hospitals in Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Wilmington, and...
Opinion
Dear politicians: stop ignoring economic laws
Economic laws are not subject to a vote. They can’t be wished away because you don’t like certain realities they reveal. They don’t bend to accommodate your feelings or the politician’s will. These harsh realities must be kept in mind when anticipating the results of public policy. For instance, there’s no surer way to make...
Opinion
Crisis hastened health-care reforms
Improving access to health care is about more than who pays the bill. It’s about the size of that bill, and who possesses the information and the incentives to make decisions about it.
Opinion
How government efforts to lower prices can increase costs
Programs like Medicare and Medicaid sold as making health care more “affordable” may dramatically lower the price of health care to enrollees, but very well may increase the costs to society of delivering care.
Opinion
Reduce health cost, not just price
In North Carolina, we make it far too difficult for new providers to enter the marketplace. We squash competition and innovation. As a result, we make health-care costs unnecessarily high.
Opinion
It’s time to rethink the employer-sponsored health insurance model
As our country looks to rebound from the coronavirus, it’s fair to say we may change things we considered normal. Office workspaces could gradually transition more into remote working, massive social gatherings could be subject to additional safety measures, and retail shopping could have a different look, to name a few. Another example of something familiar...
Opinion
Competition needed in health care
Planning is essential in a capital-intensive field such as health care. But it shouldn’t be centralized in a state agency and coupled with the power to shove people around.
