Commentary
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
Air Quality Board’s Plan for Car Windows Unrealistic
The California Air Resources Board has proposed a new mandate to require car companies to install metallic reflective windows, which CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols describes as “a common-sense and cost-effective measure that will help cool the cars we drive and fight global warning.” CARB claims that reflective windows will reduce ...
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 ...
Agriculture
Pork, water policy don’t mix
SACRAMENTO – Advocates for government “solutions” for everything from health care to education argue that some aspects of life are just so darn complicated that only a centralized authority with taxing and spending power can handle such matters. Yet whenever we look at those areas of life dominated by the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Air Quality Board’s Plan for Car Windows Unrealistic
The California Air Resources Board has proposed a new mandate to require car companies to install metallic reflective windows, which CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols describes as “a common-sense and cost-effective measure that will help cool the cars we drive and fight global warning.” CARB claims that reflective windows will reduce ...
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 ...
Pork, water policy don’t mix
SACRAMENTO – Advocates for government “solutions” for everything from health care to education argue that some aspects of life are just so darn complicated that only a centralized authority with taxing and spending power can handle such matters. Yet whenever we look at those areas of life dominated by the ...
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 ...
