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Kidney Dialysis: The Price of Government Monopoly
By: John R. Graham
8.27.2009
USA Today has run an article describing the relatively dire state of kidney dialysis in America today. Kidney dialysis is difficult enough, but it's also just plain inconvenient because patients have had to travel to dialysis centers at inconvenient times. Although it's possible to dialyze at home, 92% of patients are "treated in centers . . . not because it's optimal but because that is the way it has been done for nearly four decades."
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Even When Krugman's Right, He's Wrong
By: Carol Aregger
8.27.2009
Prashanth Perumal insisted that I comment on this Krugman blog post from January. The reason I didn't comment on it at the time was that my views here are rather nuanced. It's one of those tricky situations where I agree with Krugman that his opponents are wrong, but I deny that Krugman is therefore right.
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Surprise! Waxman Is Wrong!
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.26.2009
Dog Bites Man. Baby Cries. Water Flows Downhill. And Henry Waxman is a hard statist. The august NY Times reports today that Waxman "is on a crusade to save Medicare billions of dollars." And just how will Waxman do that? Easy: He'll take from the evil (John McCain's adjective, not mine) drug producers, who have received a purported "windfall" from the new Medicare Part D program for subsidized drugs for Medicare beneficiaries.
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The NY Times Reports: The People Are Irrational
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.25.2009
The New York Times "reports" today that fears of rationing under government health coverage are "unfounded." After all, some "expert" says that "our culture is not going to allow that," and — let's be honest with ourselves — if there is anything that management consultants know, it is American culture. And the news story goes on to report that "few health policy experts see the likelihood of lawmakers' adopting some sort of new system in which government bureaucrats decide whether someone's grandfather can get his hip replaced or a wife can have her cancer treatment paid for."
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California Health Insurance Rescissions: Doctors Dissatisfied
By: John R. Graham
8.21.2009
Physicians struggle to get paid after health plans' rescind policies.
The long saga of "rescissions" of individual health policies in California shows no sign of ending. The California Medical Association and the Los Angeles County Medical Association have filed an amicus curiae brief in the case of Anthem Blue Cross, which settled allegations of illegal rescissions with the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) in return for contacting the rescinded policy-holders and allowing them to "voluntarily" re-enroll without underwriting and pay any out-of-pocket expenses that they had incurred.
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Mickey Kaus and Realism
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.21.2009
Mickey Kaus does not understand why the choice between health-care rationing and other forms of cost containment "has to be Euro-style rationing . . . if we're willing to make the alternative hard choice of raising taxes (or cutting other spending) to pay for avoiding it."
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'Bonding' or 'Fining' the Uninsured Is a Tax Hike
By: John R. Graham
8.20.2009
Imagine my distress upon reading the letters page of the latest print edition of National Review (Aug. 24, 2009), which contains an exchange of letters by Robert E. Moffit of the Heritage Foundation and Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. Mr. Moffit takes issue with Mr. Cannon's criticism of the Heritage Foundation's support of Governor Romney's health reform in Massachusetts, which included requiring those who choose not to buy health insurance to post a "bond" in case they end up at the ER and can't pay their hospital bills. John McClaughry has also recommended this approach to paying for uncompensated care, which Mr. Cannon describes as an "individual mandate" by another name.
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Co-op Confusion
By: John R. Graham
8.19.2009
Given the relative success of farmers' co-ops, a reasonable person is led to conclude that the "co-ops" floated by the president's faction are simply a way of clothing a wolf (the "public option") in sheep's clothing. The goal would be to bait Senator Grassley of Iowa, and other farm-state legislators. Indeed, the health-care co-op in Green Bay, Wisc., that the president has visited and praised was seeded with federal money (via earmarks won by two Wisconsin Democrats), so their support of his "reform" is neither objective nor disinterested.
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"Fishy" Rumors About New York Health Insurance
By: John R. Graham
8.15.2009
Many folks are now aware that we have a civic duty to report "fishy" rumors and unfounded gossip about the government’s take-over of our access to medical services. This is an important duty. Through the miracle of the Internet, all kinds of nonsense can get through. So, if you make the mistake of actually reading the text of HR 3200 online, you might be disturbed.
Thankfully, the White House has posted some short, snappy, interviews with some of the Administration’s operatives to dispel any crazy ideas you might have got from wading through all that legal mumbo-jumbo. Come on, why should you waste your valuable time reading a bill that none of the politicians who vote for it will?
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Santa Is a Hoosier
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.6.2009
You’d better not pout. You’d better not cry. The real Santa Claus knows if you’ve been bad or good, but when Barack Claus comes to town, he doesn’t care about the past. His eye is on 2010 and 2012 as he steers the reindeer hither and yon, dropping cash (and other things) upon those who promise to be good. And if he shows them the money, they’ll be as good as he wants.
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Obama vs. Pelosi on Health Care
By: John R. Graham
8.6.2009
As a San Franciscan with a distinct lack of "San Francisco values", I'm sometimes put on the hot seat by the local media when the Court of the Red Queen returns from its sojourn in the fabled city of the East (i.e. when the House recesses). This clip, from the local CBS affiliate, quotes President Obama, his health-care policy spokesman Linda Douglass, Speaker Pelosi (at the San Francisco General Hospital), and yours truly.
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Prescribing Higher Health-Care Costs
By: Sally C. Pipes
8.5.2009
Today’s LA Times features a trenchant critique of the latest fashion among Washington health-care reformers: Try to squeeze pharmaceutical companies to cut costs. President Obama has already gotten drug makers to commit to pony up $80 billion and perhaps even more to help close the donut hole for seniors getting pharmaceuticals through Medicare Part D — the prescription-drug program that was implemented in January 2006.
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Clunker Cash and Me
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.4.2009
Let’s face it: After 17 years and 232,522 miles of faithful service, my Jeep’s best days were long past. Time for some new wheels — but money’s a bit tight these days, for me as for so many others.
But, as good fortune would have it, not for the federal government: They’re willing to pay me $4,500 — $4,500! — to turn that clunker in for a new car satisfying the combined demands of political correctitude and the auto-dealer lobby. Alas, the rules specify that the big, powerful, safe truck that I want does not qualify.
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