Healthcare
It’s all very hush-hush, at this point, but our nation’s brightest minds — those in the U.S. Senate, of course — are set to point their considerable intellectual prowess in the direction of universal healthcare. Currently, three general plans are on the table: _Create a plan that resembles Medicare, administered by the Health and Human…
It’s difficult to know how to react to the swine flu news blitz. Cases around the globe are broadly scattered, but not extensive. The death rate in Mexico, while certainly concerning and, moreover, tragic for those who’ve lost loved ones, doesn’t seem all that high. Yet, the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its warning…
Our state is in dire financial trouble based on structural deficits, is on the wrong end of just about every state-by-state comparative list, and is losing its “productive class” by the thousands every year, but the matter of concern for a special legislative commission is, in the words of its Co-chairman Sen. James Doyle (D.,…
Throw in environmentalism, too, because William Tucker’s thoughts on windmilled energy bring some possibilities to mind: The major limitation, of course, is wind’s intermittency — its lack of “dispatchability.” Quite simply, you can never count on it. You can’t even predict it from hour to hour with 100 percent accuracy and the windiest sites can…
In the abstract, there’s a dollar amount at which our healthcare system would hum along, factoring in how much employees would demand to do their jobs, how much supplies and operations cost, the expectations and requirements of consumers, their willingess to conserve, and so on. The more we drift from that ideal, the more we’ll…
The other day, a coworker and I had a discussion — while we worked, of course — about the many ways the law seems intended to lash us to our employers, in turn providing them with a measure of protection from competition. If they go out on their own, carpenters in Rhode Island must register…
In a healthy political state, a legislator would be scared for her political life to propose such policies in a high tax state during a painful downturn: Legislation introduced by Representative Coderre, (2009-H5519), would extend the reach of the RIte Track program, and establish a new “All Kids Health Insurance Program” to provide access to…
My dermatologist dumped me this past Monday. I was fairly new to her practice. Due to too many sunburns as a youngster, I need to see a dermatologist every three months. My previous dermatologist of many years had left the state, leaving me scrambling to find a doc who could take me right away. Many…
On Obama: A ditch, not a summit. More on Obama’s support for socialized medicine. The Healthcare Trojan Horse in the Porkulus Bill. From general election. On healthcare policy issues: On importing drugs. How government created the problem in the first place. More on drug costs and government allocation of healthcare services. So drug costs –…
What takes up 10% of my weekly paycheck? Family health care, that’s what. And that’s just my share. My employer kicks in some, too. Like so many other employees of small businesses, my company had to health-plan shop again this year to find a way of keeping costs down. In our case, the health care…