Healthcare

It’s Our Habits, Not Our Healthcare

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2010 |

Redington Jahncke explains why “skepticism turned out to be the correct impulse in the case of the WHO rankings” of nations’ healthcare systems, as well as in the case of a Commonwealth Fund study of the “health of nations.” It’s his conclusion, though, that points toward a new question about Obamacare: Indeed, lifestyle and behavioral…

Whitehouse Gets Things Backwards

By Justin Katz | January 6, 2010 |

Of all the letters that have appeared decrying or endorsing Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s recent screed against those who oppose Obamacare, one by Pamela Burdon, of Warwick, was especially poignant: The Nazis took my parents from their families when they were teenagers. My parents miraculously survived under impossible conditions. They then fled communism, coming here to…

Rights and Benefits

By Justin Katz | January 5, 2010 |

As Monique insisted, last night, healthcare is not an “inalienable right.” Because it requires other people (doctors, et al.) to provide services, it is actually a consumer good. It’s a vital one, to be sure, and one for which people will exchange significant percentages of their resources, but that doesn’t make it a right. It…

A Commission (a “Panel,” if You Will)… That’s the Ticket!

By Justin Katz | December 31, 2009 |

Thomas Sowell puts it pretty starkly: The appointment of White House “czars” to make policy across a wide spectrum of issues — unknown people who get around the Constitution’s requirement of Senate confirmation for cabinet members — is yet another sign of the mindset that sees the fundamental laws and values of this country as…

A Refreshingly Different Projo Voice on Healthcare Reform

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 29, 2009 |

I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that it’s not Edward Achorn who’s been the primary author of the Projo‘s recent series editorials on healthcare reform. The position of the Projo editorial board has been pass anything, it doesn’t matter if the legislation has been read or not, so long as it…

The Members’ Interests Are Not Primary

By Justin Katz | December 28, 2009 |

Mike, of Assigned Reading, noticed a strange omission of activism on the part of his and other teachers’ unions: Teachers enjoy some of the best benefits available. And as a result, we working class Americans will be subjected to a 40% premium tax, a punishment for having healthcare plans better than most Americans. One would…

Roland Benjamin: Health Care Calculations

By Engaged Citizen | December 28, 2009 |

For those following the health care debate, this will come as little surprise. Linking the massive reform bill to practical, everyday application has largely been ignored by our lawmakers. A recent non-partisan poll indicated that 91% of Americans with existing health coverage are at least somewhat satisfied with that coverage. The bill being debated in…

To Better Deceive the People: Hurry Up and Wait

By Justin Katz | December 26, 2009 |

All revved up for negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of economically destructive health “reform”? Well, you’re going to have to wait over a month, until after some soaring rhetoric from the Deceiver in Chief: The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first…

Mugged on Christmas Eve

By Justin Katz | December 24, 2009 |

Of all the aspects of the healthcare debate and legislation that are rightly making Americans shake their heads, I think the schedule is the most egregious and representative. Think about it: The major votes have all been held over the weekend, and the final vote came on the morning before Christmas. The profundity of that…

What Obamacare Does to the Middle Class Budget

By Marc Comtois | December 23, 2009 |

Terry Jeffrey helpfully boils down a key portion of the Congressional Budget Office’s take on the Senate health care bill: how it would affect an average middle-class family’s bottom line. How does another $15,000 in “fees” (or, taxes if you want to call ’em that!) sound? Here’s a summary of his summary Fact 1: You…