Health Care

Trump Can Improve Health Care Without Congress

Featured image At the moment, it appears that the Republican Congress will not be able to pass any meaningful health insurance reform legislation. I hope that assessment is too pessimistic, but in any event, President Trump doesn’t need to wait for Congress. There is a great deal he can do, administratively, to reverse the damage being caused by Obamacare and help to preserve private markets for health care. In response to a »

Millions of Liberal Brain Cells Have Died

Featured image I’ve commented before on the current Democratic talking point that “millions will die” if the Senate health care reform proposal is enacted, noting that I had missed this enormous mortality that must have been occurring just a few years ago before Obamacare was passed. There is actually fairly robust econometric literature that establishes the proposition that “wealthier is healthier,” and hence that economic growth is the best general policy for »

California Dreaming

Featured image Sadly for those of us hoping California would go full commie as an object lesson for the rest of the nation, the state legislature has shelved the proposed $400 billion single-payer health care bill. Democrats are naturally blaming Trump, because the scheme would require a bunch of waivers from the Administration to go into effect, but the real reason is that it’s a total lunatic idea, and there a just »

A single-payer test drive?

Featured image The Wall Street Journal editors ask: “If Democrats believe the lesson of ObamaCare is that the government should have even more control over health care, then why not show how it would work in the liberal paradise?” The question is prompted by the California Senate’s recent passage of a single-payer health care bill. The legislation guarantees free government-run health care for California’s 39 million residents — no co-pays, deductibles or »

The heart of Rod Carew

Featured image You may have heard that former baseball great Rod Carew needed a new heart after a massive heart attack in 2015. I was vaguely aware that he recently had a heart transplant. Listening to Rod talk in the booth during the broadcast of the Twins game against the Angels in Anaheim on Thursday night, I understood from Rod’s comments that the story behind the transplant had taken a few twists »

What Venezuela’s Medical Crisis Tells Us About Socialism

Featured image The Lancet is a renowned medical journal headquartered in England. The current issue includes an article on Venezuela, titled “Data reveal state of Venezuelan health system”. The data in question come from the Venezuelan government, after two years in which it released no reports. No doubt the picture the government paints is, if anything, optimistic. Still, the facts are grim: Maternal and infant mortality have skyrocketed in Venezuela in the »

The CBO’s Analysis of the GOP’s Health Care Bill Is Worthless

Featured image Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the current version of the House health care bill that was trumpeted by Democrats because it projected that 23 million people would “lose” their health insurance if the law went into effect. However, as Guy Benson points out, this claim is false, since “the large bulk of those who are said to be ‘losing’ coverage do not currently have coverage.” Further, »

Single-Payer Slayer

Featured image Out here in California the latest Progressive cause—after high speed rail and solving climate change all by ourselves—is a state-based single-payer health care system. There is a bill (SB 562) that has passed out of one state Senate committee already, along with talk of a ballot initiative, and if those fail, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a certain candidate for governor next year, is talking about universal single-payer health care as »

Miss USA to the Rescue [With Update by John]

Featured image I hate to intrude on John’s beat, but he’s missed an important development in not covering the just-completed Miss USA competition, won by Kara McCullough, a scientist working at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When asked if she thinks health care is a right or a privilege, she gets the right answer without hesitation: JOHN adds: I am late to the party here, but we should note that it wasn’t only »

Why Obamacare Repeal Will Help Republicans Politically

Featured image Democrats are pretending to be delighted that Obamacare appears on its way out, and the liberal media parrot their claim that Obamacare repeal will be a political disaster for Republicans. To take one of many instances, the Associated Press wrote last night: “Democrats see a winning issue in opposing GOP health bill.” Democrats aren’t happy about the House Republican health care bill, but they are upbeat about the prospect of »

House Votes to Repeal and Replace Obamacare; Democrats Lose Big and Spin Furiously [Updated]

Featured image Today House Republicans passed an Obamacare repeal and replacement bill that was considerably improved over the one that failed some weeks ago. CNN’s report on the vote, true to form, featured an interview with Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy by a hostile reporter whose questions were along the lines of, “Do you think Republicans will pay a terrible price when voters learn sick people are thrown out in the streets?” McCarthy »

Is Obamacare Repeal Back On the Front Burner?

Featured image Reports from Washington are frustratingly incomplete, but it appears that the Trump administration is renewing its effort to repeal Obamacare. Reuters strikes a remarkably optimistic note: The majority of House Freedom Caucus members will vote for a Republican healthcare bill if changes offered by the White House are included in the legislation, the head of the conservative group of House Republicans said on Thursday. U.S. Representative Mark Meadows said the »

Democrats’ Celebration Is Premature

Featured image Pretty much everyone thinks the House’s failure to pass the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill is a disaster for Republicans. The Democrats are giddy with glee, and Matt Drudge calls it a “catastrophe.” Perhaps they are right, but I doubt it. Obamacare is in a death spiral. It is rapidly collapsing, and steadily becoming more unpopular as it fails more and more Americans. Congress will now move on to other tasks, like »

House Leadership Pulls Health Care Bill

Featured image It became apparent this afternoon that the health care bill promoted by Republican leadership in the House did not have enough votes to pass, and the bill was pulled by Speaker Paul Ryan, despite President Trump’s earlier insistence that a vote be held. Based on the Washington Post’s account, it appears that Trump acquiesced in the decision. “‘We just pulled it,’ he said.” Inevitably, commentators will play the perceptions game: »

Will the House GOP Obamacare replacement accelerate the death spiral?

Featured image Sen. Tom Cotton says “I think we’re moving a little bit too quickly on health care reform.” He explains: This is a big issue. This is not like the latest spending bill that gets released on a Monday night, [passed] on Wednesday and everybody goes home for Christmas, and we live with it for nine months. We’re going to live with health care reform that we pass forever, or until »

Is GOP Health Care Bill a Disaster? No

Featured image Peter Nelson, my colleague at Center of the American Experiment, is one of the country’s leading experts on health care policy. On the Center’s web site, he urges conservatives to take a deep breath and understand the constraints that Congressional Republicans are working under. In particular, a full repeal of Obamacare must get through the Senate, which means it must get 60 votes. There are only 52 Republican senators. Therefore, »

House “repeal and replace” legislation gets Medicaid right

Featured image I found this analysis of the proposed House Obamacare repeal and replace legislation to be a useful starting point in understanding the proposal. The author is “Asclepius,” a sensible sounding guy. His verdict: The proposal contains sound and much needed Medicaid reforms; sensible but very modest insurance market reforms; and the entirely misguided creation of new subsidies, in the form of tax credits, for participants in the ACA exchanges. In »