John R. Graham
Health Care
The End of the “Individual Mandate” Is Not the End of Obamacare
Last month Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli successfully argued that the so-called individual mandate in Obamacare was outside congressional competence. Advocates of individual choice in health care cheered a significant victory, but this is not the final judicial word on Obamacare. U.S. District judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that the ...
Commentary
Pawlentycare Vs. Obamacare
There is no doubt that Governor Pawlenty executed some changes in the right direction — the Flexible Benefit Plan, for example, allowed employers more flexibility of health benefits. He’s also a champion of using prices, and allowing patients more control of how their health dollars are spent. Doing this for ...
Business & Economics
Where the Nanny Statists Begin, the Trial Lawyers Surely Follow
Of course, bad ideas migrate quickly through the political class, so San Francisco soon passed a similar law. In this case, the momentum was achieved with help from a bloated public-health department, gorged on freshly minted tax revenue. But two counties are not enough for the trial-lawyers lobby, so they’ve ...
Commentary
U.S. Health Care and U.S. Productivity: A Dissent
Indeed, while all Americans complain about health costs, the argument that our health “system” reduces our competitiveness versus other countries with “universal” health care is actually quite weak. Indeed, the percentage of all firms offering health benefits actually increased from 66 percent in 1999 to 69 percent in 2010, and ...
Commentary
Myth of the Massachusetts Health-Insurance Mandate
David Leonhardt asserts that: “…the law depends to a significant degree on the mandate. Without it, some healthy people will wait to buy coverage until they get sick — which, of course, is not an insurance system at all. It’s free-riding. Just look at Massachusetts. In 1996, it barred insurers ...
Commentary
If Obamacare is Unconstitutional, Why Aren’t Medicare & Medicaid?
Legally, the difference is that the latter two programs are government operations, whereas the individual mandate would have compelled people to buy a private product. Helvering v. Davis (1937) was the famous (or infamous) case wherein the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Social Security Act was constitutional. For a ...
Commentary
On Sebelius’ & Holder’s Defense of Obamacare
The economic argument for a mandate is unfounded. As a class, the uninsured pay their way, because there are enough high-earning uninsured who pay extra taxes (by taking cash remuneration instead of health benefits) to cover the cost of uncompensated care. If Congress eliminated the employer-based monopoly on health benefits, ...
Commentary
Blue-Sky Thinking on Health Reform: An Interstate Compact for Health Insurance
Key Points Health insurance is the only line of insurance regulated by the federal government, but federal control has created and deepened the health crisis. Obamacare attempts to conscript states to do the dirty work of limiting peoples choice of health benefits. States have ensured portability and competition in other ...
Commentary
More on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
The first example is a Bulgarian woman living in Greece, who is about to deliver a baby from an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian. The mother who raises the baby will be the Italian man’s infertile Italian wife. The man who brought it all together is a ...
Commentary
Reflections on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
Suppose that in 1965, the federal government observed that great advances were taking place in aircraft design and manufacturing. In order to ensure that Americans were able to take advantage of this, the government legislated “Aircare.” Flash forward to 2010: “Aircare” pays for our ariplane tickets. It pays the airlines ...
The End of the “Individual Mandate” Is Not the End of Obamacare
Last month Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli successfully argued that the so-called individual mandate in Obamacare was outside congressional competence. Advocates of individual choice in health care cheered a significant victory, but this is not the final judicial word on Obamacare. U.S. District judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that the ...
Pawlentycare Vs. Obamacare
There is no doubt that Governor Pawlenty executed some changes in the right direction — the Flexible Benefit Plan, for example, allowed employers more flexibility of health benefits. He’s also a champion of using prices, and allowing patients more control of how their health dollars are spent. Doing this for ...
Where the Nanny Statists Begin, the Trial Lawyers Surely Follow
Of course, bad ideas migrate quickly through the political class, so San Francisco soon passed a similar law. In this case, the momentum was achieved with help from a bloated public-health department, gorged on freshly minted tax revenue. But two counties are not enough for the trial-lawyers lobby, so they’ve ...
U.S. Health Care and U.S. Productivity: A Dissent
Indeed, while all Americans complain about health costs, the argument that our health “system” reduces our competitiveness versus other countries with “universal” health care is actually quite weak. Indeed, the percentage of all firms offering health benefits actually increased from 66 percent in 1999 to 69 percent in 2010, and ...
Myth of the Massachusetts Health-Insurance Mandate
David Leonhardt asserts that: “…the law depends to a significant degree on the mandate. Without it, some healthy people will wait to buy coverage until they get sick — which, of course, is not an insurance system at all. It’s free-riding. Just look at Massachusetts. In 1996, it barred insurers ...
If Obamacare is Unconstitutional, Why Aren’t Medicare & Medicaid?
Legally, the difference is that the latter two programs are government operations, whereas the individual mandate would have compelled people to buy a private product. Helvering v. Davis (1937) was the famous (or infamous) case wherein the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Social Security Act was constitutional. For a ...
On Sebelius’ & Holder’s Defense of Obamacare
The economic argument for a mandate is unfounded. As a class, the uninsured pay their way, because there are enough high-earning uninsured who pay extra taxes (by taking cash remuneration instead of health benefits) to cover the cost of uncompensated care. If Congress eliminated the employer-based monopoly on health benefits, ...
Blue-Sky Thinking on Health Reform: An Interstate Compact for Health Insurance
Key Points Health insurance is the only line of insurance regulated by the federal government, but federal control has created and deepened the health crisis. Obamacare attempts to conscript states to do the dirty work of limiting peoples choice of health benefits. States have ensured portability and competition in other ...
More on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
The first example is a Bulgarian woman living in Greece, who is about to deliver a baby from an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian. The mother who raises the baby will be the Italian man’s infertile Italian wife. The man who brought it all together is a ...
Reflections on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
Suppose that in 1965, the federal government observed that great advances were taking place in aircraft design and manufacturing. In order to ensure that Americans were able to take advantage of this, the government legislated “Aircare.” Flash forward to 2010: “Aircare” pays for our ariplane tickets. It pays the airlines ...
