Everything you need to know, right here. And the best part is, it’s only 1,990 pages long! Print it out and read it during a coffee break.
Seriously, with a document this long do you think anyone really knows what’s in it? Doesn’t that thought spook you?
In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills is just a gimmick: “It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn’t.” Steve Chapman wrote earlier about the “‘Public Option’ Health Care Scam.”
In other news, a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that the provisions in the Senate health care “reform” bill sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would add $1,700 a year…
With Democratic support coalescing around Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care reform proposal, passage of a comprehensive overhaul now appears more likely than ever. Opponents had their summer of protests. But, Democrats have shown a renewed sense of energy since discrediting Sarah Palin’s “death panels” and Sen. Charles Grassley’s claim that ObamaCare would “pull the plug on grandma.” Still, while those charges may have been a little overwrought, there is plenty to be concerned about with the Democratic health reform…
Rep. Diana DeGette is, without any apparent cognitive dissonance or trace of irony, proposing:
1) Require, by law, that people buy health insurance.
2) Remove health insurers’ antitrust exemption. But only after legally requiring everyone to buy their product.
You figure it out. Insurers are set to receive one of the largest coroporate welfare grants in history. No wonder so many firms are salivating over this year’s health care legislation. But they may pay an antitrust price for their legally mandated windfall.
Perhaps this…
Some of the consequences of increasing government’s role in health care are easy to predict. One is that cutting costs requires cutting the amount of care. That means rationing. People judged not deserving of care would be denied it.
Another is that if government uses its increased bargaining power to lower drug prices, there will be less money for R&D. That means less innovation. That could well mean the end of increasing life expectancies.
Some people see these consequences and oppose more…
Your host Richard Morrison and guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Ryan Young conspire to bring you Episode 64 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the big vote on health care legislation, squeezing more energy from the ground and the warming that wasn’t there. We continue with the British expense scandal, and the Obama administration’s love for new rules and regulations.
Earlier today, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) announced that she would vote in favor of the health care reform bill authored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). And, just about 30 minutes ago, the Finance Committee reported the bill out to the full Senate by a 14 to 9 vote, with all the Democrats and Snowe voting in favor.
As I wrote two weeks ago, however, Snowe may be getting more (or less) than she bargained for. Once a bill is…
Democrats are cheering a Congressional Budget Office decision to “score” the Senate Finance Committee’s version of ObamaCare as not increasing the federal budget deficit. But it pays for some of ObamaCare’s massive cost by expanding state Medicaid programs, shifting its cost to the states. That will radically increase state budget deficits. Moreover, this version of ObamaCare, while cheaper than the four other versions, still relies on mythical cost savings and massive cuts to Medicare that are likely to be canceled…
Those pushing the Senate health care bill were ecstatic when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the bill “would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period.” But it’s more budgetary legerdemain, as Cato’s Michael Tanner pointed out today. Tanner notes that new health care taxes are the revenue-raising tools:
The bill imposes a 40 percent excise tax on health-insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000 for an individual plan and $21,000 for…
While Obama ally ACORN attempts to gag whistleblowers who exposed its role in a recent scandal, the Obama administration is trying to gag critics of its health-care plan, which the Congressional Budget Office says could wipe out many Medicare Advantage programs relied on by the elderly. (”The Obama Administration wants to seriously curtail or end Medicare Advantage.”)
It has issued a gag order to Humana, a health insurer that provides Medicare Advantage services, ordering it not to tell customers about how Obamacare could reduce the availability of…
The National Journal had an interesting article this week describing the difficulty Democrats have been having getting young adults interested in the health care debate. Two-thirds of voters 18 to 29 pulled the lever for Barack Obama last November, and over 40 percent of the uninsured are young adults age 18 to 34. So, the Dems assumed they would be big proponents of the Obama agenda, including his hallmark proposal on health reform. It turns out, though, that America’s youth were…
ACORN is now suing the whistleblowers who allegedly filmed it promoting illegal sexual activities for $2 million! And not just them, but also the conservative web site that made the video public! ACORN seeks an injunction to silence them — a classic example of an unconstitutional prior restraint.
That’s a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, but the lawsuit was filed in state court in Baltimore, where the judges are very liberal, so who knows if ACORN’s lawsuit will be dismissed. Even if it…
Slate’s William Saletan has had it with the growing overreach of the food police, a reaction which he acknowledges puts him in unusual company.
For a long time, the only discernible libertarian around here was Jack Shafer, a man unable to wean himself from speech, guns, and other annoying constitutional amendments. But lately, other folks seem to be getting a bit Ayn Randy. On Saturday, Jacob Weisberg blew the whistle on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for trying to ban outdoor…
Congress recently voted to cut off federal housing funds to controversial group ACORN. But since most federal money goes to ACORN-related entities and affiliates, not ACORN itself, Congress’s action is expected to have little practical effect. ACORN’s chief defender in Congress, House Banking Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.), claims that the cut-off is unconstitutional. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggests that Congress’s action was purely symbolic, and not expected to have any effect on ACORN.
Indeed, ACORN’s empire is likely to expand thanks…
The Associated Press is now chiding President Obama for falsely claiming that his proposed tax on uninsured people is not a tax. It is a tax increase, the AP says, and it would be enforced by the IRS: “Memo to President Barack Obama: It’s a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance - and fining them if they don’t - isn’t the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic…
Obama’s health care plan uses imaginary savings to finance massive new spending. His claim that it will not increase the deficit is based on the notion that he can squeeze $2 trillion in savings out of the current health care system to finance his plan’s huge costs.
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who once practiced medicine, points out in his column that these savings aren’t real, and that politicians falsely promise to pay for new programs through imaginary savings all the time:
“Obama said…
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen (D) is criticizing Obama’s health-care plan as “the mother of all unfunded mandates,” saying it will force states to spend so much that they will have to either massively raise taxes or run large budget deficits that violate state constitutions. Earlier, Martin Feldstein, one of Obama’s economic advisors said his health-care plan would explode the federal budget deficit and lead to “crippling deficits,” as well as “higher taxes, debt payments, and interest rates” that would cut America’s…
Much of the hullabaloo over President Obama’s health care speech to Congress last week focused on his endorsement of a “public option” — that is, a government-run, not merely government regulated health insurance plan for the non-elderly middle class. Throughout the August congressional recess, it appeared as though the White House was ready to abandon the public option, since that was a major source of contention among congressional Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, and a sizeable portion of the American public. In…
Host Richard Morrison and co-host Jeremy Lott welcome special guests Lee Doren and Greg Conko to Episode 60 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with a recap of the 9/12 D.C. Tax Protest, look into union rules that hurt minority contractors and consider the alleged ethics violations of former California Assemblyman Mike Duvall. We then turn to Greg Conko for his thoughts on free market healthcare reform and finish with a tribute to The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, Norman…
In his health-care speech last night, President Obama promised the world, but didn’t explain how he would pay for it. It was all sizzle, no substance. Even media that often cheerlead for Obama found his claims hard to swallow.
Obama claimed that his proposals won’t add “one dime to the deficit now or in the future.” But as the Associated Press noted, his proposals “would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.” The Washington Post, which endorsed Obama and hasn’t…
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