Healthcare
(… in addition to the Constitutional issue – i.e., the legality of compelling everyone to purchase health insurance.) Much of the disagreement about whether the Democrats’ health care reform should proceed centers around its long term consequences. Supporters of the pending reform don’t see any problems long range if the bill passes. Opponents point to…
The Foundry helpfully breaks down President Obama’s latest bid for health care reform: President Barack Obama gave yet another speech this afternoon urging Congress to pass his health care reform plan. The President again claimed his plan lowers health care costs. It doesn’t. The President again claimed his plan would not give government bureaucrats or…
Heritage’s Ed Haislmaier sums up the fundamental issue on display at yesterday’s healthcare snoozefest: The overriding reality behind this summit is that both the public and the politicians come to the table divided not over the details but rather over the basic approach to health reform. In his comments, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) highlighted three…
It should surprise nobody that I see this as evidence that healthcare reform must move in the free-market direction, not the government takeover and dictation direction: “Something has been discouraging physicians from working the long hours they used to work,” [Douglas Staiger, an economics professor at Dartmouth College] said. The cause? Bureaucracy and limits to…
I certainly don’t want any of my family’s regular expenses going up. Indeed, if I were able to dictate terms to companies who provide me services, I’d lower my rates. But that’s not how the world works. Of course, one doesn’t get the impression that government officials comprehend such mundane observations of reality. Rhode Island’s…
As I’ve pointed out, one of the arguments made by the Healthcarism advocates was that we must pass something, anything and “the warts can be removed later.” Apparently, that attitude exists amongst global climate changistas, too (h/t): Some researchers have argued that it is unfair to attack the IPCC too strongly, pointing out that some…
1) The ProJo editors on global warming: Still, that a few scientists are accused of manipulating a bit of data from some climate research does not do away with the preponderance of evidence. The latest controversy revolves around the validity of the collection and use of data behind a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Rhode Island’s health insurance commissioner, Christopher Koller, has released a report showing huge disparities in what health insurers pay local hospitals for the very same procedures. The reason is that members of the Care New England hospital group offer services not elsewhere available, so insurers have no choice but to include them, and the hospitals…
Thanks to a caller to the Matt Allen Show, I was tipped off to something I’d never heard before. In an event at his Presidential Library (broadcast by C-SPAN on September 15, 2009), former President Carter explained that, back in 1979, he had bi-partisan support for a health care reform package that was completely financed…
On election day in Massachusetts, the desperate ProJo editors have resorted to listing a bunch of “what ifs?” should Scott Brown be elected and Obamacare not pass. Notwithstanding that a counter-argument can be made that passing this particular monstrosity called health care “reform” would make all of the items they identify even worse, the panicked…
