Health Care
Commentary
‘Reform’ still stinks
Yesterday, the Senate’s Democratic leadership blinked first in its showdown with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). Desperate for the crucial 60th vote needed to pass their health-reform package, Senate leaders capitulated to Lieberman’s demands that the bill drop both the public option and a provision to let those aged 55 to ...
Commentary
Obama’s forgotten health-care promises
The Baltimore Sun, December 16, 2009 The more details that emerge from health care reform plans coalescing and colliding on Capitol Hill, the more one wonders how President Barack Obama could possibly justify supporting any of them – much less signing one into law. Congressional Democrats are threatening to serve ...
Education
New Study Finds that Medicare Advantage Relieves the “Hidden Tax” On Privately Insured Americans
San Francisco The Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, today released its new report, Medicare Advantage or Medicare Monopoly: Protecting Seniors Choices and Taxpayers Wallets in the Federal Governments Largest Entitlement Program, by Health Care Studies Director John R. Graham. The report examines the ...
Commentary
What Really Happened in 1994
When seeking reelection, the more conservative Democrats usually fare far worse than other Democrats, for the simple reason that they generally run against legitimate Republican opposition in states or districts that can, and do, swing either way. In stark contrast, over the last 20 years, the most liberal third of ...
Commentary
Obamacare’s Winners and Losers
So, let’s tally the results: Winners: the federal government (more control) and health insurers (more government-mandated business, in exchange for losing most of their autonomy and ceasing to be private businesses in any meaningful sense), the minority of low-to-middle income Americans who don’t have employer-provided insurance and would henceforth receive ...
Commentary
The Loneliest Voice in the Wilderness: The Council of Economic Advisers
Yesterday’s report trucks out, yet again, claims which few find credible anymore. There’s the ever-present argument that the government can shave off some dollars by focusing on “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Okay: What’s stopping them from doing that right now? Health-information technology comes in for a boost, even though recent ...
Commentary
How Much Will Health Reform Cost?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR In Can We Afford It? (editorial, Dec. 13), you remark that Republican critics oppose the currently proposed health care reform on the grounds that the nation cannot afford to add this new trillion-dollar entitlement in tough economic times. Here we should recall that in 2003, barely ...
Commentary
The Real Lessons of 1994
Voters punished Democrats for Hillarycare. They’ll do the same for Obamacare. Democratic senators and congressmen have been trying to convince each other, particularly their more conservative colleagues, that they’ll all be better off in the 2010 elections–and will avoid a repeat of their 1994 debacle–if they pass Obama-care. Bill Clinton, ...
Agriculture
The Wages of Hubris
The latest gambit was the “compromise” between the moderate Left and the hard Left to expand Medicaid upward from the bottom and Medicare downward from the top, squeezing the private-sector middle almost out of existence. Much ballyhooed a week ago, it appears that this plan will collapse of its own ...
Commentary
Not Dead Yet
Expanding Medicare is an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) told the Chicago Tribune. Its the mother of all public options. Weve taken something people know and expanded it. . . . Never mind the camels nose, weve got his head and neck under ...
‘Reform’ still stinks
Yesterday, the Senate’s Democratic leadership blinked first in its showdown with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). Desperate for the crucial 60th vote needed to pass their health-reform package, Senate leaders capitulated to Lieberman’s demands that the bill drop both the public option and a provision to let those aged 55 to ...
Obama’s forgotten health-care promises
The Baltimore Sun, December 16, 2009 The more details that emerge from health care reform plans coalescing and colliding on Capitol Hill, the more one wonders how President Barack Obama could possibly justify supporting any of them – much less signing one into law. Congressional Democrats are threatening to serve ...
New Study Finds that Medicare Advantage Relieves the “Hidden Tax” On Privately Insured Americans
San Francisco The Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, today released its new report, Medicare Advantage or Medicare Monopoly: Protecting Seniors Choices and Taxpayers Wallets in the Federal Governments Largest Entitlement Program, by Health Care Studies Director John R. Graham. The report examines the ...
What Really Happened in 1994
When seeking reelection, the more conservative Democrats usually fare far worse than other Democrats, for the simple reason that they generally run against legitimate Republican opposition in states or districts that can, and do, swing either way. In stark contrast, over the last 20 years, the most liberal third of ...
Obamacare’s Winners and Losers
So, let’s tally the results: Winners: the federal government (more control) and health insurers (more government-mandated business, in exchange for losing most of their autonomy and ceasing to be private businesses in any meaningful sense), the minority of low-to-middle income Americans who don’t have employer-provided insurance and would henceforth receive ...
The Loneliest Voice in the Wilderness: The Council of Economic Advisers
Yesterday’s report trucks out, yet again, claims which few find credible anymore. There’s the ever-present argument that the government can shave off some dollars by focusing on “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Okay: What’s stopping them from doing that right now? Health-information technology comes in for a boost, even though recent ...
How Much Will Health Reform Cost?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR In Can We Afford It? (editorial, Dec. 13), you remark that Republican critics oppose the currently proposed health care reform on the grounds that the nation cannot afford to add this new trillion-dollar entitlement in tough economic times. Here we should recall that in 2003, barely ...
The Real Lessons of 1994
Voters punished Democrats for Hillarycare. They’ll do the same for Obamacare. Democratic senators and congressmen have been trying to convince each other, particularly their more conservative colleagues, that they’ll all be better off in the 2010 elections–and will avoid a repeat of their 1994 debacle–if they pass Obama-care. Bill Clinton, ...
The Wages of Hubris
The latest gambit was the “compromise” between the moderate Left and the hard Left to expand Medicaid upward from the bottom and Medicare downward from the top, squeezing the private-sector middle almost out of existence. Much ballyhooed a week ago, it appears that this plan will collapse of its own ...
Not Dead Yet
Expanding Medicare is an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) told the Chicago Tribune. Its the mother of all public options. Weve taken something people know and expanded it. . . . Never mind the camels nose, weve got his head and neck under ...
