A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece for AmSpec about the AMA’s cynical endorsement of Obamacare. Byron York (via GruntDoc) provides the latest chapter of this tawdry tale:
Something unusual and largely unnoticed happened last week as Democrats pushed the national health care bill through the House. In a complicated, late-night maneuver, on a party-line […]
Health Care BS
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Monthly Archives November 2009
MORE ON THE AMA’S QUISLING STRATEGY
THE ODD LIBELS OF ANDREW SULLIVAN
Sarah Palin’s book isn’t out yet, but its impending release is provoking a new outbreak of Saraphobia. The usual suspects are recycling old cheap shots about her intelligence, campaign behavior, etc.
The weirdest of the Sarahphobes is, of course, Andrew Sullivan. Normally reasonable (or at least sane) on most issues, Sullivan nurses an obsession with Palin and her family that is nothing less than pathological.
The latest symptom of Sullivan’s pathology is […]
A TAX BILL DISGUISED AS A HEALTH BILL
Driving home the point of this post, the WSJ reports that the recently passed “health reform” bill is chock full of new taxes, including a gigantic increase in the capital gains tax:
This thing has economic booby traps everywhere, such as favors for the tort bar and the largest capital gains tax increase in at least a half-century […]
RUBE GOLDBERG HEALTH REFORM
The White House and Congress have been laboring for nearly a year on what they insist on calling “reform,” and the fruit of their labor is captured perfectly by Arnold Kling:
The result is a Rube Goldberg scheme of penalties and inducements, creating a system that is ripe for gaming.
Yep. If the great minds at White House and their […]
SHOULD YOU GO TO JAIL FOR NOT BUYING INSURANCE?
Nancy Pelosi thinks so. Her recently passed health care “reform” bill contains a provision mandating jail time for people who choose not to buy insurance and also fail to pay a fine for that choice.
Today, she was asked “Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?” She cooly answered, […]
WHY OBAMACARE IS LOSING GROUND
Mark Blumenthal, at Pollster.com, puzzles over why the following chart clearly shows a steady increase in the number of people opposed to Obamacare:
The answer isn’t that elusive for those of us still grounded in reality. It’s because Americans don’t want a health care system that does this to people (via We Stand Firm):
REALLY WANNA CONTROL HEALTH CARE COSTS?
Arnold Kling says the answer is health care vouchers. He and several other experts, some of whom don’t seem to know much about economics (health care or otherwise), provide their ideas to the NYT. Kling explains his as follows:
The key to containing health care costs is to reduce spending on medical procedures that have high costs and low benefits. […]
OBAMA FAILS TO CLOSE THE SALE ON REFORM (& WHY)
With Congress, the “news” media, and elite opinion on his side, the President has been unable to convince the public that the Democrat vision of health care reform will improve the current system very much. Americans are particularly doubtful that Obamacare will help them personally.
Here’s how respondents recently answered when Gallup’s pollsters asked the following question: “If a new health care bill becomes law, do you […]
NYT ILLITERACY ON THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTH CARE
The NYT demonstrates, once again, that journalists should be required to take basic economics before being allowed near a keyboard. Here is Sheryl Gay Stolberg, in a piece about Democrat angst over the cost of health care “reform,” providing what she imagines is a list of cost control alternatives:
There are a variety of ideas for attacking cost increases more aggressively, including […]
BRIBES FOR THE AMA AND AARP
I’ve written about this before, but the behavior of the AMA and AARP has been so cynical that the tawdry tale bears repeating. Dick Morris does a good job of summing up the blatent bribery that led to their endorsements of the fraudulent House “reform” bill that passed this weekend:
The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in […]