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Health Care BLOG |
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Jesse Jackson on Health Reform!
By: John R. Graham
9.16.2009
For those who have been straddling the fence, weighing the arguments for and against the president's health-care agenda: You can put your minds to rest. The noted health economist, Jesse Jackson, has declared that the "reform" will be unequivocally beneficial.
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Paving the Road with Moderation
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
9.15.2009
It is absolutely essential that no health-care legislation pass Congress this year, in that any "compromise" that actually could get enough Democratic votes would lead inexorably toward socialized medicine. (If someone else has made this rather obvious point, I apologize.) An individual mandate is deemed necessary because of the perverse incentives inherent in guaranteed issue/community rating "reforms." I am a bit surprised that the Left does not recognize — yet — that the individual mandate moves legislation away from their ultimate goal, the destruction of private insurance and the massive movement of the citizenry (and noncitizenry) into dependence upon the federal government.
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Another Reason to Make Health Insurance the Property of the People
By: John R. Graham
9.14.2009
In any competition, there's nothing worse than having your own allies make unforced errors (or "own goals", in soccer-speak). So, President Obama's faction must be getting pretty frustrated with some recent New York Times articles.
Today, readers learned how ineffective Medicare is at covering patients needing kidney dialysis or transplant (over which it has exercised a monopoly since 1972.) Medicare stops paying for drugs that prevent the body's immune system from rejecting the transplant after three years. The article suggests that employer-based group-health insurance pays for the drug as long as the patient needs them. Unfortunately, for very sick patients who can't hold down a job, loss of employment results in an automatic sentence to Medicare's limited benefits.
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Interesting Moments from the President's Speech
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D
9.11.2009
There is much to be said — and much has already been said — about the president's health-care speech to the joint-session of Congress.
It was interesting that he began by reminding people of the economic downturn that his “stimulus” was supposed to reverse. His claim that things have already improved likely didn't ring true to those who actually live in this economy and don't merely have to rely on the president's rhetorical accounting. And it likely didn't inspire confidence to trust other elements of his big-government, “trust-me” agenda. So, it was a curious choice of beginnings.
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Union Power and Medical Waiting Times
By: John R. Graham
9.11.2009
I recently wrote a column describing one of the major (unstated) goals of the federal take-over of Americans' access to medical services: giving union bosses control of hospitals and other health-care providers.
The media will not figure this out, but a couple of stories the last few days suggest that this is already happening, and describe a negative relationship between union power in medical services and access to care.
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Medical-Malpractice Reform: Will Republicans Take the Bait?
By: John R. Graham
9.10.2009
The only new thing in the president's speech was his death-bed conversion to medical-malpractice reform, an opportunity which he neglected in his speech to the American Medical Association on June 15. Whether this is merely an attempt to pull either Senator Snowe or Senator Collins onside, or a good-faith effort to rope a significant number of Republicans into a "bipartisan" federal take-over of Americans' access to medical services, history will tell. Certainly, otherwise grumpy Republican legislators thrust themselves up onto their hind legs to applaud the president's statement.
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Review of the Obama Speech
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
9.10.2009
"If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out." Let us take President Obama at his word. Indeed, let us expand the principle of non-misrepresentation to include not only "what's in the plan," but also the arguments and premises used in support of it. Accordingly:
1. There is no "plan." There is only a group of incomplete bills in Congress, and a set of principles set forth by President Obama for greatly expanded federal meddling in the health-care sector, some of which clearly are firmer than others.
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Unreality Reigns Supreme
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
9.9.2009
Will he make a public option a necessary condition, or won't he? Will Harry and Louise, oops, Nancy deliver the votes or not? Will the blue dogs roll over to get their tummies scratched, and if so, by whom precisely? Can the Washington Post editorial board find enough flowery prose in its thesaurus to entice the fair Olympia to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of government knowledge? When this 58th effort by The One fails to move the public, how many hours will it be before we are confronted with the sob stories, with the screaming rhetoric about the evil profiteers, about the moral equivalent of war, and the usual slobbering by the press?
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Obama in Fantasyland
By: Jeffrey H. Anderson, Ph.D
9.3.2009
Increasingly, the Obama administration and congressional leaders are claiming that the proposed Democratic health-care overhaul won’t cause taxpayers an extra dime. Yesterday, for example, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer asserted that the House health-care bill — which, according to the CBO, would raise taxes by $50 billion a year and deficits by $65 billion a year — won’t raise taxes or deficits. Rather, it will be paid for with “savings” from Medicare.
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Krugman Speaks!
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
9.2.2009
Why is it that health-care socialism — oops, reform — has proven so difficult to enact through Congress? Fear not, dear readers, the ineffable Paul Krugman has solved this particular puzzle by invoking the ghost of Richard Nixon, directly I might add, and not through the use of ouija boards and other similar tools needed by such amateurs and mere mortals as my good friend Michael Ledeen. Professor Krugman is on the case and he has solved it: This looming failure is the preferred outcome of "the right-wing fringe," "crazy [as] a pre-existing condition" (whatever that means), that has taken over the Republican party. Moreover, there is the "vast expansion of corporate influence" as illustrated by the "huge army of lobbyists permanently camped in the corridors of power," with their "misleading ads" and "fake grass-roots protests."
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Health Care
