Healthcare
President Obama recently exhibited some clumsiness trying to play a shell game on illegal immigrants and health care reform: Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Mr. Obama said…
Steve Peoples’ article about this morning’s event focuses on Kennedy’s lamentation that heated protests may produce violence — of which (he stated) his family has seen too much. There’s an interesting juxtaposition if we play Peoples backwards, as it were (emphasis added): “Unfortunately, these town hall meetings have been hijacked by these Tea Party folks…
Inasmuch as the first 10-minute video clip from this morning’s forum on healthcare began attracting viewers almost as soon as I posted it, and the first has surpassed many clips from previous events that have been up for weeks, interest would seem to be high. Therefore, I’ve put the videos that the various computers involved…
The sales pitches for the Democrats’ healthcare reform are flying so furiously that it’s difficult to trace the intellectual threads that ought to be binding the various parts of the plan together. Consider: President Barack Obama has endorsed the proponents of the insurance tax. This says it would help lower health care costs by encouraging…
Quite a different event, Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s version of the healthcare forum. Whereas Congressman Langevin placed himself bare before a roiling theater setting and Senators Whitehouse and Reed rolled up their sleeves for a folksy round of after-dinner discussion (somewhat more controlled, but with agreement and disagreement), Kennedy is participating as a “special guest” in…
The Providence Journal reported the responses of health care experts around the state to President Obama’s speech on reform to Congress a few weeks ago: Five Rhode Islanders with expertise in health care were among the many who watched President Obama’s speech Wednesday night. A professor, a doctor, a hospital president, a businessman and a…
Periodically, I catch an episode of The Mentalist, in which a non-cop, always-right, psychiatrist-type character assists the police with their cases. One episode featured the actor who played Chip on Kate and Allie, who — if I may indulge in a spoiler — played a murderer who had spent years posing as a mentally handicapped…
This past weekend’s episode of Newsmakers, with AFL-CIO RI President George Nee, is worth a watch: Nee is among the more reasonable-sounding of the labor representatives, but that presentation only emphasizes the absence of space between how he responds to questions and how any given Democrat partisan would answer them. Sure, he’s the guy who…
Stephen Moses, Health Care Policy Fellow for the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, brings to light an easy to miss loss of state dollars: In 1993, the federal government made it mandatory for state Medicaid programs to recover the cost of benefits paid to older people with exempt (sheltered) assets out of their estates. In…