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…

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Last week, after the industry association America’s Health Insurance Plans released a study showing that premiums would rise 18 percent under the Senate Finance Committee’s reform proposal, top Democrats took to the airwaves to condemn the industry for standing in the way of health care reform.  President Obama used his Saturday radio address to accuse the industry of using “deceptive and dishonest” attacks to derail reform legislation.  And Obama and congressional Democrats threatened to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which exempts insurers from most…

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Health-care “reform” always costs more than predicted, as ObamaCare provisions have at the state level.  So the claim that the new, cheaper version of President Obama’s health care plan will cost only $829 billion, while not increasing the deficit, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admitted that the actual cost will be more like $2 trillion, and health-care experts have given it a similar price tag of more than $2 trillion.

The reason for the…

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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.

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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…

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When the Senate Finance Committee votes on President Obama’s health care plan, it won’t even have the text of the bill in existence.  It will just be voting on a summary of what the bill will supposedly contain. Senate Democrats voted down Republican proposals that the bill’s text be made available to Senators and the public 72 hours before the vote.

And the bill itself is likely to be changed by Senate leaders at the last minute, right before the Senate…

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The Senate Finance Committee, by a 15 to 8 vote, rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) to Committee Chairman Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care bill that would have added a government-run, or ”public,” health insurance option to the overhaul proposal.  Joining all ten of the committee’s Republicans in voting “no” were five Democrats, including Baucus himself, Bill Nelson (Fla.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), and Thomas Carper (Del.).  A second, and slightly less bad ”public option” amendment, sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)…

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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…

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The middle class is facing big tax increases thanks to Obama and liberal congressional leaders.

Even the trimmed-down version of Obama’s health-care plan recently announced by a ranking Senator contains lots of tax increases for the middle class (see below).

And the costly cap-and-trade energy legislation passed by the House and supported by Obama would lead to big tax increases in the name of fighting global warming, Administration officials privately have conceded, even though they publicly claim otherwise.  “Officials at the Treasury Department think…

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Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring back special guest co-host Jeremy Lott to create the work of art known as Episode 42. We start with the continuing buzz over the Supreme Court’s next member, President Obama’s trillion dollar healthcare plan, and an update on how Hugo Chávez is turning Venezuela’s petroleum reserves into his personal piggybank. We add good news from East Texas for beer drinkers, bad news from Europe for technophiles and sad news from Philly for basketball fans.

Listen to the episode HERE.

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