Remember the “doctor fix,” the multi-billion bribe for the American Medical Association that got voted down in the Senate last year? Well, it’s baaaaaaaack. The Dems have stashed it in the “jobs” bill:
On page 107, the program delays a scheduled reduction in doctors’ payments under Medicare.
As I wrote last October in the American Spectator, this is the AMA’s price for supporting Obamacare. […]
Health Care BS
Medicare BS —
Category Archives: Medicare BS
AMA BRIBE HIDDEN IN OBAMA’S “JOBS” BILL
REAGAN ON SOCIALIZED MEDICINE
On Ronald Reagan’s birthday, it seemed appropriate to post this 1960s audio of the Gipper’s warning against Medicare mission creep. Here’s the money quote:
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism, or socialism, on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.
He believed that, once the […]
55 BILLION REASONS TO JUST SAY NO
The Office of Management and Budget just issued a report proving (for anyone susceptible to objective data) that government-run health care is a monumentally bad idea:
Improper payments in the Medicare and Medicaid programs totaled $55 billion in fiscal 2009, according to documents provided by OMB.
Medicare and Medicaid, our progressive friends tell us, are the most […]
DUMBEST REFORM POST OF THE WEEK (I)
Timothy Noah wins this prize without serious competition. Responding to an analysis from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that contained inconvenient facts about the House “reform” bill, he reminds us that the author of the CMS report works for … er … CMS:
On the other hand, let’s not forget who it is Richard Foster works for … Foster works for the […]
MORE ON THE AMA’S QUISLING STRATEGY
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 […]
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 […]
MEDICARE’S PREGNANCY BENEFITS
Ezra Klein with a health care datum is like a toddler with a loaded pistol. Nonetheless, Arnold Kling braves this typically clueless post and comes out with a couple of useful insights:
The charts include comparisons between reimbursement rates of private plans and reimbursement rates from Medicare, with staggering results … For example, an MRI scan typically is […]
MEDICARE’S “EFFICIENCY” AND “LOW” COSTS
A much-beloved talking point of the Obamacare crowd, particularly those pushing the public option, is that Medicare (our proto-public option) is more efficient than the private insurance industry and that this efficiency reduces adminstrative costs. Jeffrey H. Anderson suggests a good response to this line of BS:
The next time someone alleges that government-run health care is cheaper […]
THE BILL FOR THE BAUCUS BILL
The CBO finally gave us the price tag for the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill, and it’s a mere $829 billion. But that’s not what you’ll hear from the “news” media. What you’ll be hearing them is that the Baucus bill is “budget neutral.” In fact, it will (guffaw) reduce the deficit:
According to CBO and JCT’s […]
“CHOICE” UNDER GOVT HEALTH CARE
One promise that the President consistently makes is that Americans will have “choice” when his brand of health reform is enacted. Well, I guess that depends on what the meaning of “choice” is.
It apparently doesn’t mean that seniors can spend their own money for their own health insurance without losing their Social Security benefits. Per […]
