As I have pointed out many times, a good deal of BS appears in the “news” media relating to health care. Few articles, however, reach the level of irresponsibility achieved yesterday in Slate:
Imagine you run a hospital. There are two competing sources for inpatient beds. The first source is patients who come in through direct and transfer […]
The primary difference between those who promote market-based health care reform and the people who prefer a government-imposed solution is their respective opinions of the customer’s intelligence.
The former believe that patients are capable of critical thinking while the latter think we are too dumb to know what’s good for us. An excellent example of the patients-are-dumb view can be found at Health Beat:
85 […]
Despite implausible claims by Barack Obama and his cadre of policy advisors, it’s pretty obvious that Obamacare will be VERY expensive. Here’s what the NYT says about the combination of tax credits and subsidies that Obama’s plan envisions:
The subsidies are expensive, estimated at well over $100 billion. Other components of the Obama plan also bear up-front costs, like a […]
I spent last week cycling along the Thames, visiting various towns upriver from London. The Brits were unfailingly pleasant. Wonderful people. Which is why this story from the BBC really pisses me off:
People with rheumatoid arthritis should have access to a particular class of drugs limited, NHS advisers say … The National Institute for Health and Clinical […]
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Posted 22 July 2008
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NHS BS
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For the next week or so, I’ll be on a cycling tour of a different continent, and I plan to spend zero time thinking about health care.
I’ll be back at it in about ten days.
As expected, the Senate has gutted Medicare Advantage, effectively killing the last hope of market-based Medicare reform. The “news” media, the AMA, and even some normally sensible medical bloggers are spinning this act of stupidity as a victory for beleaguered physicians over mean-spirited Republicans and insurance company robber barons.
But the physicians didn’t win a victory. All they got was a temporary stay of execution. The reimbursement cuts […]
Michael Cannon believes that advocates of universal coverage are driven less by serious policy considerations than by a species of religious conviction. He provides the following quote from Jonathan Cohn as proof:
To believe in universal health care is to believe that we can do more and do better, all at once — that it is possible to have hospitals full […]
John McCain has finally pointed out what should be obvious to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics:
Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and create more jobs … my opponent wants to make it harder by imposing a ‘pay or play’ health mandate […]
One has to grudgingly admire the skill with which the Democrats have bamboozled America’s docs into helping them kill Medicare Advantage. By attaching proposed MA cuts to the physician pay controversy, the Dems have forced the AMA to help them gut a successful free-market alternative to the soon-to-be-bankrupt traditional Medicare program.
This is not, by the way, the first time the Democrats have throttled […]
I have written here, here, and here about the British government’s cruel policy of refusing to pay for up-to-date cancer drugs because they are “too expensive.”
And what does the government of Perfidious Albion consider worthy of funding? MailOnline provides a chart showing expenses for which Brit taxpayers must reimburse members of Parliament:
My personal favorite is the last item: “Rent on one […]
