Health Care
Commentary
Collective Neurosis in Maine: Big Government Bad, We Need Gargantuan Government
Unfortunately, Mr. Gardiner gives more than equal time for those who blame Maine’s failures not on government control, but a sick and poor population. Talk about blaming the victim! These folks also blame the fact that Maine has a single, dominant, health insurer – without recognizing the government policies that ...
Commentary
On the Grinding Pace of the Health-Care Take-Over: A Historical Perspective
The 1965 amendments actually proved very easy to legislate, with over 70 percent majorities in both chambers. President Johnson signed the bill on July 30. No disruptive town-hall meetings or tea parties that August! Although I’m pleased that the 2009 bill is taking a lot longer, I must confess surprise. ...
Commentary
PhRMA Is Shocked About GosHealth
The comedy highlight, of course, is the plaintive cry about “killing tens of thousands of jobs in our industry.” Did PhRMA believe that the $80 billion deal would have increased such employment? Did it not occur to them that the $80 billion inevitably would come to be an opening bid? ...
Commentary
Mission Remission
National Review Symposium, November 9, 2009 Now that we have lost the battle, how can we win the war? As the health-care debate moves to the Senate, Obamacare opponents should emphasize that the Senate bill is not remotely moderate. It would cost $1.7 trillion in its real first decade (2014–23), ...
Commentary
Enemies of the People
And so we have, yet again, a perfect illustration of the truism that socialism would work perfectly if only there were no people. Since we do have people, with all their self-interested motives and unwillingness to bend their inherent nature to ideological demands, socialism in practice encounters problems, known as ...
Commentary
On the ‘Sacredness’ of Government Health Care
There is no doubt that the political class believes the “system” to be sacred. This is not surprising: Any ruling faction needs an established religion to control the people, and health care is the most likely candidate in this secular age. After all, Henry VIII claimed to believe that the ...
Commentary
Mutiny in Scrutiny?
The House bill has passed — barely and belatedly — and it is now dead. Nothing like it will ever pass the Senate. The question now is whether anything will, now that the voters have spoken in New Jersey and Virginia — and now that the exceedingly narrow margin in ...
Commentary
What Would Yogi Say?
While the bill narrowly passed the House, it is not clear that Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.) will be able to get the 60 votes needed to pass his bill by the end of the year. In fact, Senator Reid has said recently that it looks like his bill will ...
Commentary
Security and Stability
If Speaker of the House Pelosi is able to muster the 218 votes needed for passage by the House and approval later this year or early next year, there is no question that the final outcome will be higher premiums for all Americans and more uninsured. The president focused in ...
Commentary
Stupak Amendment
The goal here—the only goal—is to stop health-care socialism. Period. Giving the pro-life Democrats a reason to vote for it—passage of the Stupak amendment—seems to me to be madness. And suppose that it passes and the Senate passes its own version of health care “reform,” after which Waxman and Pelosi ...
Collective Neurosis in Maine: Big Government Bad, We Need Gargantuan Government
Unfortunately, Mr. Gardiner gives more than equal time for those who blame Maine’s failures not on government control, but a sick and poor population. Talk about blaming the victim! These folks also blame the fact that Maine has a single, dominant, health insurer – without recognizing the government policies that ...
On the Grinding Pace of the Health-Care Take-Over: A Historical Perspective
The 1965 amendments actually proved very easy to legislate, with over 70 percent majorities in both chambers. President Johnson signed the bill on July 30. No disruptive town-hall meetings or tea parties that August! Although I’m pleased that the 2009 bill is taking a lot longer, I must confess surprise. ...
PhRMA Is Shocked About GosHealth
The comedy highlight, of course, is the plaintive cry about “killing tens of thousands of jobs in our industry.” Did PhRMA believe that the $80 billion deal would have increased such employment? Did it not occur to them that the $80 billion inevitably would come to be an opening bid? ...
Mission Remission
National Review Symposium, November 9, 2009 Now that we have lost the battle, how can we win the war? As the health-care debate moves to the Senate, Obamacare opponents should emphasize that the Senate bill is not remotely moderate. It would cost $1.7 trillion in its real first decade (2014–23), ...
Enemies of the People
And so we have, yet again, a perfect illustration of the truism that socialism would work perfectly if only there were no people. Since we do have people, with all their self-interested motives and unwillingness to bend their inherent nature to ideological demands, socialism in practice encounters problems, known as ...
On the ‘Sacredness’ of Government Health Care
There is no doubt that the political class believes the “system” to be sacred. This is not surprising: Any ruling faction needs an established religion to control the people, and health care is the most likely candidate in this secular age. After all, Henry VIII claimed to believe that the ...
Mutiny in Scrutiny?
The House bill has passed — barely and belatedly — and it is now dead. Nothing like it will ever pass the Senate. The question now is whether anything will, now that the voters have spoken in New Jersey and Virginia — and now that the exceedingly narrow margin in ...
What Would Yogi Say?
While the bill narrowly passed the House, it is not clear that Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.) will be able to get the 60 votes needed to pass his bill by the end of the year. In fact, Senator Reid has said recently that it looks like his bill will ...
Security and Stability
If Speaker of the House Pelosi is able to muster the 218 votes needed for passage by the House and approval later this year or early next year, there is no question that the final outcome will be higher premiums for all Americans and more uninsured. The president focused in ...
Stupak Amendment
The goal here—the only goal—is to stop health-care socialism. Period. Giving the pro-life Democrats a reason to vote for it—passage of the Stupak amendment—seems to me to be madness. And suppose that it passes and the Senate passes its own version of health care “reform,” after which Waxman and Pelosi ...
