Health Care
July 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Abe Greenwald cites a report from the Miami Herald that “the first cholera outbreak in Cuba in a century has left at least 15 dead and sent hundreds to hospitals all but sealed off by security agents bent on keeping a lid on the news.” CastroCare is, Greenwald reminds us, Michael Moore’s model heathcare system. Cholera, which was supposed to have been wiped out in Cuba around 1900, is only
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May 21, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Today, as Scott Johnson noted in an earlier post, multiple Catholic Dioceses and organizations filed lawsuits in federal courts around the country challenging the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious organizations to provide coverage in their health care plans for drugs (contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs) and procedures (sterilization) that are in direct conflict with their religious beliefs. Twelve Archdioceses or Dioceses are participating, each in a
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April 10, 2012 — Steven Hayward
One of the historical judgments about the Supreme Court striking down many of FDR’s early New Deal measures—especially the National Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (in an opinion written by a Justice named Roberts!)—is that these Court rulings actually helped FDR because it gave him a quick escape hatch from semi-socialist economic policies that had no hope of working. At the time the Court struck down the NRA
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April 1, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We are just back from a fun vacation in California. We had a great time in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and parts in between. If I have time I will comment on my impressions of the Golden (but bankrupt) State. For now, here is a photo that I took in a rather scruffy part of Venice. If you have ever wondered how much medicine there is in medicinal marijuana,
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March 30, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Our pal Remy Munasifi explains the stupidity of how existing government mandates needlessly drive up the cost of health insurance. Video is about 2:30 long:
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March 29, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Some liberals have comforted themselves with the idea that if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional, it may speed the adoption of the liberals’ real goal, socialized medicine, on the theory that “single payer” will then be the only alternative to the status quo. Such thinking is understandable, as it has generally been assumed that whether or not socialized medicine is a good idea, if Congress were to adopt it, it would
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March 26, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Obamacare today, which makes the timing ideal to consider this news story from the cradle of socialized medicine, the United Kingdom. The article is titled “Elderly dying due to ‘despicable age discrimination in NHS.'” Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because “despicable” age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. A lack of treatment
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March 11, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Nature dictates that young people incur little in the way of medical expense, on the average, while old people incur a great deal. Thus every government scheme that strives to supplant the obvious, fair alternative–everyone pays for his own medical care, with the aid of whatever insurance he may have purchased–attempts to do two things: 1) force young people to contribute far beyond their own medical costs, and 2) limit
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March 1, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The Senate defeated the Blunt amendment today on a 51-48 vote that was almost entirely along party lines. Democrats Joe Manchin, Bob Casey and Ben Nelson voted for the amendment–Manchin and Casey must face the voters in November–and Republican Olympia Snowe, having announced that she will not seek re-election in the fall, felt free to vote with the Democrats. As usual, the Democrats characterized the issue posed by the amendment
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February 11, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Last night Brian Ward and I taped the latest episode of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience, which will be available for download later in the day. One of our Loon of the Week candidates was Barbara Boxer, talking about the Obama administration’s decree that all employers, including religious institutions, must provide health insurance benefits that include contraception and certain abortion services, for free. Congressional Democrats, including Ms. Boxer, turned out in force
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February 10, 2012 — John Hinderaker
After his plan to force religious institutions to provide free birth control and abortion to employees drew howls of protest, the president announced a climb-down today, in the form of a “compromise.” Frankly, however, I can’t figure out what it is. The New York Post reports: Under the new approach, insurance companies, rather than religious organizations, will be obligated to offer contraception for free to the institutions’ employees. “The result
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December 29, 2011 — Scott Johnson
You probably don’t need to be told. You probably have figured it out on your own. Yet the answer to the question is profoundly important. It opens the door to the question of limited versus unlimited government, freedom versus tyranny, man versus the state. A certain prominent GOP presidential candidate reminds me, however, on something like a daily basis that he needs instruction in the answer to the question. It’s
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December 19, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Way back on the Federal Page of today’s Washington Post is an article that ought to be on the front page above the fold, and its deep placement on the boutique page of the bureaucracy shows how the Post, like most everyone else, doesn’t understand what a big story it is. And it is a clinical study of Hayek’s “knowledge problem”—the impossibility of centralizing fundamentally dispersed knowledge in a timely
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November 23, 2011 — John Hinderaker
…is not that it will cost too much, or even that it will worsen our medical care, although both of those things are true. The real problem with socialized medicine–the eventual establishment of which is the purpose of Obamacare, according to Barack Obama–is that it will destroy our freedom. Mark Steyn has written that government medicine alters forever the relationship between state and citizen: once you are dependent on the
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November 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson
The Federalist Society — are you now or have you ever been a member? — held its 2011 National Lawyers Convention last week. One of the (many) highlights of the convention must have been the debate on the constitutionalilty of Obamacare between Harvard’s Carl M. Loeb University Professor Laurence Tribe and former United States Solicitor General Paul D. Clement of Bancroft PLLC. This is an excellent debate, must watching straight
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November 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Well, it’s happened again: NPR slipped up and ran a mostly positive story on Hayek, today on Morning Sedition Edition. Yes, I was in my car again, driving to the Columbus airport after last night’s Ashland University political economy class, where our reading for the week was chapter 19 of The Constitution of Liberty, entitled “Social Security,” though the chapter applies to Obamacare—and the general fiscal outlook brought about by
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November 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Between now and whenever the Supreme Court issues its decision on Obamacare (I predict the last day of the term in late June next year), there will be endless reading of the tea leaves, textual analyses of the briefs, the dynamic of the oral argument, and so forth. (Will the Court limit the number of amicus briefs it will take on this case? America’s forests ought to be very worried
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