Healthcare

The Healthcare Trojan Horse in the Porkulus Bill

By Donald B. Hawthorne | February 10, 2009 |

Betsy McCaughey writes: …Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department. Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health.…

A Taste of the Healthcare Future

By Justin Katz | January 23, 2009 |

Quite apart from the question of whether Governor Carcieri’s Medicaid waver plan is the right move for Rhode Island at this time, it certainly provides evidence of the future of government-funded healthcare: To save $200,000 in the 5 1/2 months remaining in this budget year, the Department of Human Services intends to seek bids to…

Just So Will Healthcare Fall

By Justin Katz | January 21, 2009 |

It amazes me that we can watch these things, which should have been entirely foreseeable, and never return to our initial premises: Some of the big-name Boston teaching hospitals that have managed to extract higher insurance payments include Children’s Hospital and the members of Partners HealthCare, a group including Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s.…

When Sin Trumps Conscience

By Justin Katz | January 18, 2009 |

Rhode Island is one of seven states that would prefer that citizens with moral reservations about procreation-related procedures and drugs have fewer rights: Seven states sued the federal government Thursday over a new rule that expands protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other medical procedures because…

The Benefit of a Word

By Justin Katz | January 16, 2009 |

It’s may be a small thing, but it always bothers me when the word “benefit” is used to describe welfare-type payments and services, as in: “This is to make the system better,” [Governor Carcieri] said yesterday, noting that nursing home residents could more easily use Medicaid funds to live with family or friends under the…

When Doctors Define Health

By Justin Katz | December 21, 2008 |

Such arguments become deep precipitously, but there remains something disconcerting about the method by which society determines the behaviors that are considered within the bounds of normality and those that justify treatment: The book is at least three years away from publication, but it is already stirring bitter debates over a new set of possible…

Wagner v. Taylor

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 18, 2008 |

Michael Barone of U.S News and World Report has an interesting capsule history of how labor/management relations through the 20th Century have brought the U.S. auto industry to where it is today…Mickey Kaus, pretty much alone among the commentators I’ve been reading, indicts “Wagner Act unionism” for the decline and fall of the U.S. auto…

Healthcare Shouldn’t Work This Way

By Justin Katz | December 7, 2008 |

Tied to employment, that is: As jobless numbers reach levels not seen in 25 years, another crisis is unfolding for millions of people who lost their health insurance along with their jobs, joining the ranks of the uninsured. … About 10.3 million Americans were unemployed in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The…

Why Should Their Moral Rights Be Trampled?

By Justin Katz | December 2, 2008 |

The Bush administration is entirely right to permit healthcare providers to refuse tasks that they find objectionable: The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new “right of conscience” rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion…

Common Ground: I Don’t Want David Cicilline Making Decisions About My Healthcare Either

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 30, 2008 |

To the members of the six Providence municipal unions who, in the words of Philip Marcelo of the Projo, “[oppose] the city’s decision to change its health care benefits manager”, let me one more time pitch the most obvious solution to your dilemma…Your health insurance should be separated from any direct employer involvement; David Cicilline…