Author Archives

Gail Wilensky, PhD, is an economist and Senior Fellow at Project HOPE, an international health foundation.

• JAMA Forum: With a Bumpier Rollout Than Expected, Better Transparency Needed on Health Insurance Exchanges

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on October 30, 2013

  

  As we all now know, the start-up of the federally run insurance exchange websites and the first few weeks that the exchanges have been operating have been extremely bumpy—certainly bumpier than anyone (including me) had been predicting. The experience of… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum: How Serious Are the ACA Delays?

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on August 23, 2013

  

  Once again, the Obama Administration has needed to announce the delay of a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The provision that limited out-of-pocket costs to $6350 for individuals and $12700 for families has been delayed for a year… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum: The Slowdown in Health Care Spending Persists and Intrigues

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on May 31, 2013

  

  Last August, I wrote a JAMA Forum post about the slowdown in health care spending and speculated about whether the slow growth is likely to continue. The release of 3 new studies on this issue enables us to revisit the… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum: Missed Opportunities Abound as Congress Wrangles Over Fiscal Challenges

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on March 13, 2013

  

  In my “Poised on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff” blog post of December 18, 2012, I bemoaned the fact that 13 days before the end of the year, Congress had yet to decide what to do about the upcoming… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum: Poised on Edge of the Fiscal Cliff

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on December 18, 2012

  

  It is the third week of December, and all of Washington is focused on whether the country will fall off the “fiscal cliff” it has built for itself. That metaphor, which is quickly becoming a cliché, refers to the combined… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum — A Sea Change for Medicare: The Debate We’ve Never Had

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on October 26, 2012

  

  In what has been a great surprise, Medicare is moving—without any discussion or public fanfare—from being an “open-ended entitlement program” to a program that, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will be allowed to grow only slightly faster than the… Read More ›

• JAMA Forum: The Slowdown in Health Care Spending

  By Gail Wilensky, PhD on August 15, 2012

  

  Health care spending has been growing unusually slowly for the last several years, prompting occasional speculation that something unusual is afoot. According to the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), total health expenditures… Read More ›