In recent years, Congress has faced mounting public pressure to “do something” about the rapidly rising prices of prescription drugs and to rein in what are believed to be excessive industry profits. Although prescription drug spending comprises just 10 percent of overall health care costs, it has been one of the fastest growing components of overall health care spending during the past two decades—rising by an average of 11 percent annually during the 1990s and by 9 percent in 2006, compared to just 6 percent for spending on physician services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Over the past century, American consumers have benefited from thousands of new pharmaceuticals and medical devices to help them combat disease, alleviate the symptoms of illness and infirmity, and improve their well-being. However, the public often demands that such treatments meet a near-perfect level of safety at bargain basement prices. In turn, Congress and the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have steadily raised the regulatory hurdles that medical products manufacturers must clear before marketing a new treatment. Read more on health at CEI.org.
Medicare is speeding toward insolvency , and only major fundamental changes can save it. But beware the “tweakers” — those who say that little things can add up to a lot. (See inset.) Usually what they’re pushing is of little benefit to Medicare, but of much benefit to them.
As I write at Forbes. com, we see that in a new study, paid for by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists and seemingly applauded without dissent in the media — maybe…
“Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama’s administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.” The referendum passed easily by a 3-to-1 margin, with nearly 73 percent of the vote.
On Monday, a federal judge let Virginia’s attorney general challenge ObamaCare as unconstitutional, refusing to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its mandate to buy health insurance. The Obama Administration says it can force…
A federal judge in Virginia has allowed the state’s lawsuit challenging the federal individual health care mandate to proceed: “A judge on Monday refused to dismiss the state of Virginia’s challenge to President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law, a setback that will force his administration to mount a lengthy legal defense of the overhaul effort.” The judge’s ruling is here.
Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, who filed a brief in support of Virginia that was joined by constitutional law professor Randy Barnett and…
One of the worst parts of the current health care system is its sheer complexity. Because most of the payments are made by third parties, the paperwork burden is enormous. Co-pays, deductibles, ever-shifting networks, and so on.
Unfortunately, that complexity is about to get a lot worse because of this year’s health care bill. Check out this flow chart (right) of what the health care system will look like once Obamacare is implemented. You can also download a PDF version of the chart…
ObamaCare is so unpopular in West Virginia that veteran Democratic Congressman Alan Mollohan lost reelection in yesterday’s Democratic primary to a state senator who opposes the health care legislation backed by President Obama. Mollohan lost by a decisive 56-to-44 percent margin to Mike Oliverio, “a conservative Democrat,” amidst record turnout for a primary. In November, Oliverio will face the Republican nominee, David McKinley, who called Mollohan’s defeat a referendum on President Barack Obama. Mollohan had easily won reelection in past races ever since being…
“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of” them to pay for ObamaCare. They will have to spend countless hours to “gather information,” such as about the person they buy a used car from, and the mom-and-pop landlords who lease space to them, even if the small business has to spend more money gathering the information than the…
“Economic experts from President Obama’s own Health and Human Services Department have released a devastating report noting that Obamacare ‘will increase national health care spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019,’ according to the Associated Press. Even worse, ‘Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15 percent of hospitals into the red and ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors.’” This contradicts Obama’s claims that the health care law would “bend the cost curve down” and cut the cost of health…
Reason’s Ron Bailey, in an “I told you so” article today, points out that Senate Democrats are poised to support a bill that would give the federal government the power to regulate insurance rates. He was referring to a NYT article - buried on page A12 — that said that Senator Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate health committee, was going to push for a bill, possibly one introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, that would give the Secretary of Health and Human…
A dying patient in the UK’s NHS made the news after nurses refused to bring him a glass of water, despite his repeated begging. He died soon after of pneumonia. It really is a terrible story.
Had that poor soul lived in Arizona, he might not have had that problem. In that fine state, it is against the law to refuse someone a glass of water if you have any to spare.
As the U.S. slowly but surely hands its health care sector…
The current issue of Washingtonian magazine features a long, fairly in-depth interview with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern, whom author Chris Lehmann describes as an unlikely “Washington insider,” who “is very much in the thick of power politics today.” Lehmann describes the controversies for which Stern has become notorious, including his access to the White House and conflicts with other labor leaders.
What makes this interview especially worth reading, however, is its account of Stern’s and SEIU’s role…
There’s a great op-ed by Shelby Steele in today’s Wall Street Journal, called “Barack the Good”. The primary theme of the piece is that “The old fashioned, big government liberalism that Mr. Obama uses to make himself history-making also alienates him in the center-right America of today. It makes him the most divisive president in memory—a president who elicits narcissistic identification on the one hand and an enraged tea party movement on the other.”
But I find the more insightful passage…
In a pretty remarkable move, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday held that genes can not be patented merely because they have been isolated and purified out of their surrounding DNA. Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cordozo Law School’s Public Patent Foundation, working on behalf of the Association for Molecular Pathology, challenged the validity of patents held by Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes…
Two million seniors are expected to be dumped onto Medicare from company prescription medication plans, thanks to a poorly-vetted provision of the new health care law signed by the president this week. It will cost the taxpayers billions in higher Medicare costs, and the companies hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax deductions.
It’s one of many penny-wise, pound-foolish provisions in the new health care law. It spends money on frills like “cultural competency,” while cutting spending on crucial things…
Shortly after the House approved the massive, historic health-care legislation and sent it to President Obama for his signature, the president declared the vote “proved that this government - a government of the people and by the people - still works for the people.”
In fact, according to Pollster.com, which tracks surveys, eight non-partisan polls surveyed Americans about attitudes towards the legislation just before the vote. None showed a majority of support. In fact, Obama’s “the people” is closer to a…
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and a dozen other attorneys general have filed lawsuits challenging the new health care law signed by President Obama. Cuccinelli rightly argues that Congress lacks the power to force people to buy health insurance under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which only gives it the power to regulate interstate commerce, not to force people to buy products they don’t want.
As a news story notes, in Supreme Court rulings issued in 1995 and 2000, “the high court said…
As would be expected in the face of recently passed health care legislation this sweeping and controversial, pro-liberty citizens have been stepping out to oppose the bill. One of the unusual tactics they have used is to turn to their state legislatures for what they see as protection from the encroachments on their liberties from the federal government. Legislation declaring a state’s opposition in one way or another to items in the federal health reform has been introduced in 37 states. Many…
On the heels of the health insurance takeover staged by the House of Representatives this week, a handful of state attorneys general have filed lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.
This is amazing, because normally one hears from state AGs when they’re doing something horrid, like shaking down businesses, re-regulating industries (cigarettes, accounting firms - remember?), and, on occasion, illegally engaging ladies of the night. So, it’s especially heartening to see some attorneys general doing something good, for a change.
“The Constitution nowhere authorizes the…
Rarely, if ever, does Congress ever undo bad legislation, which makes the future of health care look rather grim. However, there is at one positive precedent. In 1989, Congress repealed the the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act because of protests by angry senior citizens. Check out this YouTube video of a righteous crowd of senior citizens following then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski into his car protesting that law. David Hyman notes on the Volokh Conspiracy noted back in August:
Representative Rostenkowski got…
“They won’t be so opposed to it once they see what’s in it.” That’s the rationalization House leaders have given skittish Democrats to get them to walk the plank on Obamacare Sunday night.
But one of the first things millions of Americans will “see” is an effective 40 percent tax hike on the over-the-counter medicines - from an antihistamine such as Claritin for allergies, pain relief medicine such as Tylenol or Excedrin, Pedialyte to prevent their kids from becoming dehydrated when…
I have repeatedly defended Obama against what I’ve considered unfair attacks from the right. I believe his actions for the most part have not been nearly as “liberal” as some have claimed. It’s wrong to use his middle name of “Hussein” used against him, as if he could have chosen it in any case. And I don’t care for the conspiracy theories such as his alleged foreign birth.
But one of my objections to all this is it weakens legitimate arguments…
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