The widespread indignation over the President’s broken C-SPAN promise, though entirely justified, has distracted our attention from a far more hypocritical and expensive whopper. During the 2008 campaign, he denounced John McCain for proposing a tax on health benefits, but now he’s ready to sign a “reform” bill that imposes just such a tax. In [...]
For a revealing look at the Orwellian perspective that Obamacare supporters bring to the reform debate, take a gander at Jonathan Gruber’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post: The Senate assessment on high-cost insurance plans doesn’t walk like a tax or talk like a tax — because it is not a tax. It is an innovative way of [...]
There are so many bad provisions in the Senate’s health care ”reform” legislation that it is difficult to choose which is the worst. However, because it will raise your health insurance premiums AND your taxes, a good candidate is the slacker mandate: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will require insurers to permit children to stay on family policies until [...]
This week, the competition for this coveted prize was absolutely ferocious. Indeed, a veritable blizzard of brainless reform posts poured forth from the “progressive” blogosphere.” But this post by Patrick Appel takes the biscuit on the basis of its breathtaking contempt for the voters. Responding to a post at Reason discussing the value of placing “individuals on equal tax footing as employers [...]
On health care reform, Ralph Nader is giving his fellow Lefties the “I told you so” treatment. He says concessions that Obama and his congressional allies have allegedly made to the insurance industry were a betrayal of the voters and that he predicted it. In an interview with Benjamin Sarlin, Nader said: This is what I meant a year ago [...]
President Oblarney’s blitz of the Sunday talk shows produced one interesting moment: his denial that a federal law requiring everyone to buy health insurance (or pay a fine) would be, in effect, a tax increase. For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s [...]
Andrew Sullivan raises an issue that many opponents of Obamacare have difficulty handling: the plight of patients with pre-existing conditions. He begins, however, with a paean to the U.S. health care system: Only 15 years ago, the retrovirus, HIV, was killing thousands in America … I was told in 1993 that I had a few years to live. I [...]
Last week, at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of John McCain’s health care advisors (Al Hubbard) pointed out the following: When a third-party pays for a service or product—we consume it as if it was free…It’s interesting, if you would think about, the employers rather than providing health [...]
As I pointed out last week, state-mandated insurance benefits are an important contributor to health care inflation. Such mandates have also increased the ranks of the uninsured. There is a glimmer of hope, however, in a piece of legislation introduced by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska. Today’s American Spectator contains my article on mandate madness and the Fortenberry [...]
It would appear that the purchase of health insurance isn’t “legal,” according to the tenets of Islam. The Economic Times reports: At a seminar to deliberate whether insuring health was permissible under Islamic law Shariat, the Islamic Fiqh Academy (India) decided that availing such policies was illegal. Why? Representatives from around 300 Madrasas, including Darul [...]
