Cannon, Michael F.

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Virginia, B.A.; George Mason University, M.A. and J.M.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001-5403; fax: 202-842-3490. E-mail—mcannon@cato.org.

CAREER:

Policy expert. U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, Washington, DC, domestic policy analyst; Cato Institute, Washington, DC, director of health policy studies.

WRITINGS:

(With Michael D. Tanner) Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, Cato Institute (Washington, DC), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Cato Journal, National Review, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics.

SIDELIGHTS:

Michael F. Cannon is a policy expert. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in American government studies from the University of Virginia and went on to earn a master of arts degree in economics and a juris master in law and economics from George Mason University. Cannon worked as a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee led by Idaho Senator Larry E. Craig. In this capacity, he advised the Senate Committee on education, labor, health, welfare, and the Second Amendment. Cannon then went on to serve as the director of health policy studies for the Washington-based Cato Institute.

Cannon has been interviewed by national media, including the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Cable News Network (CNN), Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio (NPR). He also contributes articles to a wide range of periodicals, including USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Cato Journal, National Review, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. Cannon also has contributed chapters to several books.

In 2005, the Cato Institute published Cannon's first book, Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, written with Michael D. Tanner. The book shows how market forces have the ability to work toward improving consumer welfare, citing numerous examples which show the arguments against it are inaccurate. The authors review the general economy of the American health industry and explain ways in which it can be improved.

Robert L. Ohsfeldt, writing in the Independent Review, observed that the authors "provide a concise and highly readable summary of the evidence refuting the case against market competition in health care." Ohsfeldt commented that "if Cannon and Tanner can be faulted at all, it is for failure to deal with many of the common criticisms of HSAs [health savings accounts]. The most common criticism is that health-care consumers do not have the capacity to determine ‘value’ and often make choices that health-care professionals consider ill-advised or irrational." Ohsfeldt concluded that "there are also ‘hybrid’ consumer-driven plans with deductibles and copayments reduced or waived for especially effective preventative care, though such plans quickly become complex and thus difficult to understand and burdensome to administer. Implicit in the Cannon and Tanner's discussion is that none of these limitations obviates the attractive features of HSAs relative to many other feasible health-policy reforms."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent Review, summer, 2006, Robert L. Ohsfeldt, review of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, p. 144.

New England Journal of Medicine, April 27, 2006, Deborah Haas-Wilson, review of Healthy Competition, p. 1861.

ONLINE

Cato Institute Web site,http://www.cato.org/ (March 11, 2008), author profile.