Redstate

Posted at 9:58am on May 27, 2008 President Bush and Speaker Pelosi take a swipe at free market medicine

The Genetic Non-Discrimination Act misses the point of insurance

By Neil Stevens

Via Slashdot Science (so it's a week old), President Bush signed the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act into law on the 22nd. This bill would prevent the proper assessment of medical risk based on improving medical technology, increasing the costs of medical insurance for all Americans, which of course shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what insurance is.

To be fair, though, there was only one vote in the House against this bill, and none at all in the Senate, so this silliness extends beyond the Presidency and to our entire caucuses in the Congress.

Read on...

Posted in Health care | Medical Insurance | Missing the Point | Policy — Comments (80)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:00pm on Apr. 3, 2008 How the media helps Obama: The health care version

By Soren Dayton

This morning, the Boston Globe ran a story about John McCain's health care plan. It starts by summarizing a question from a reporter asking whether McCain is "sympathetic":

When Senator John McCain unveiled his health care proposal last fall, a journalist asked whether the Arizona senator's battle against skin cancer would make him sympathetic to the idea of requiring that insurance companies provide coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

The answer that we are supposed to understand is "no, John McCain is not sympathetic." It seems that the goal of the story is to attack McCain's health care plan. This is a news story, not an opinion piece. But the reporter, Michael Kranish, doesn't seem to understand the distinction. (for a more balanced review, try Fortune Magazine's, "Why McCain has the best health-care plan") Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Health care | John McCain | Media Bias — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:40pm on Mar. 6, 2008 Sen. Ron Wyden leads bi(tri?)partisan group of 5 Ds, 6 Rs, 1 I in fighting for same old government-controlled health care

Take a bow, Sens. Alexander, Grassley, Crapo, Bennett, Coleman, Gregg, Wyden, Carper, Landrieu, B. Nelson, Stabenow, and Lieberman

By Jeff Emanuel

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the primary sponsor of bipartisan Senate Bill 334 (the “Healthy Americans Act”), has spent the last few days on the stumping for his plan to “fix” America’s health care system.

Burdened with the mouthful of a title "A bill to provide affordable, guaranteed private health coverage that will make Americans healthier and can never be taken away,” S. 334 includes an ‘individual mandate,’ or legal requirement that every individual purchase at least a minimum amount of coverage, though enforcement is left up to the States, which are directed to come up with a means of ensuring that the uninsured are penalized.

Interestingly, Sen. Wyden uses this ‘individual mandate’ portion of the bill to present an olive branch (or a level of government-backed legitimacy) to practitioners and recipients of holistic and spiritual medicine, as S. 334 officially excuses people who are “opposed to health plan coverage for religious reasons, including an individual who declines health plan coverage due to a reliance on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone” from compliance with the mandate.

Individual states are also allowed to determine whether complying with this mandate would constitute a “hardship” for impoverished families and individuals, and to make allowance for them.

Read on.

Posted in bipartisanship | Government-run health care | Health care | Nanny-Statism | Policy | RINOs — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:08am on Mar. 6, 2008 Heading into the 2008 election and beyond, the GOP must lead on health care

By Jeff Emanuel

If the Republican Party is to repair and reclaim its tarnished brand as the party of individual rights and responsibility, of limited government, and of real solutions for the American people, one issue on which the GOP must lead is health care.

The mantra of “50 million (and growing) uninsured Americans,” has become part of every Democrat politician's standard rhetoric. The Left, and many members of the media, are treating so-called "universal health coverage" as though it is (a) the correct solution to the U.S.’s health care woes, (b) a foregone conclusion, and (c) simply a matter of timing an detail at this point. Further, several polls show that a significant portion of the American population views the current health care situation both as an important issue, and as one which should be further intervened in, and regulated by, government.

This trend toward support of the Democrat platform on health care means that Republicans must eschew sitting idly by in favor of coming up with coherent, workable response to the Left on health care -- lest, through their inaction, they allow the party of government intervention to permanently own the issue.

Read on.

Posted in Economics | Health care | Nanny-Statism | Policy | Republicans | strategery — Comments (63) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:55am on Mar. 3, 2008 "State guidelines lay framework for deliberately letting some people die."

By Jeff Emanuel

The title sounds worse than it is. What's really going on is that the state of California is writing a disaster preparedness (or -reaction) manual, outlining scenario after scenario and what will have to be done with the impaired logistics and limited resources available after a massive earthquake, pandemic outbreak, or other massive disaster.

From the SacBee:

It provides for scenarios in which patients could be herded into school gymnasiums for life-saving care or animal doctors could stitch up the human wounded and set their broken bones.

The 1,900-page document lays the practical – and ethical – groundwork for local and county health departments, hospitals, emergency responders and any able-bodied health care worker likely to be called upon in a catastrophe.

Striking in its specificity and its frank focus on the need to suspend or flex established laws and to ration health care, the plan is being hailed as a model for the rest of the nation.

"I don't know of any state that has taken it to this level of detail in outlining a surge plan for everyone who needs to respond to an emergency of this magnitude," said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit group that has criticized the nation's emergency preparedness. "It's exactly the kind of dialogue that has to happen."

The conversations emerging from the plan will be very painful, especially for professionals trained to save a life at almost any cost, said Betsey Lyman, deputy director for public health emergency preparedness at the state Department of Public Health.

It's pretty standard stuff, basically -- it just looks bad on paper, and is tough to think about. However, as the Boy Scouts always say (sorry to compare you to the eeevil Scouts, government of California! ;-), it's almost always better to Be Prepared.

Posted at 11:17am on Feb. 23, 2008 Medicare Part E

Noted Expert Michael Moore on the Future of Healthcare

By blackhedd

Both Democratic Presidential candidates have been attacked from the left, regarding their proposals for reforming healthcare in this country. The fire comes from the (substantial) person of Michael Moore, who by virtue of having made a tendentious movie on the subject, is now considered by many to be an important expert.

Not many people actually saw Moore's movie (it only grossed $24 million), but here's a hint for you: if you honestly believe that Cuba has the best healthcare in the world, you'll probably agree with Moore. (Believing the UN's surveys of healthcare around the world doesn't count, because they take the Cuban regime's statistics at face value.)

Moore wants you to know that both Clinton and Obama's health care proposals would be good for the hated health insurance industry. (Heaven forfend!) He intends to withhold his (undoubtedly valuable) endorsement of a Democratic contender until one or both of them change their policy prescriptions to suit him better.

So what might a healthcare proposal that hard-core Lefties could love actually look like? Thanks to Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, we don't need to guess.

Read on...

Posted in Economy | Health care | Health insurance | Hillary Clinton | Michael Moore | Obama — Comments (30)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:22am on Feb. 18, 2008 This sentence pretty much says it all.

Booooooo, Free Market! Yaaaaaaaay, government programs!

By Jeff Emanuel

From Georgia's Catoosa County News comes this very apt description of the difference between the two sides of the political aisle on health care reform (and on problem-solving as a whole):

Among the major proposals in front of lawmakers right now [to reform Georgia's health care system and help those in need of coverage to be better able to attain it] is a move by Gov. Sonny Perdue to embrace high-deductible health care plans and accompanying health savings accounts. Also getting attention is a pair of proposals from Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, one that would give a financial boost to free clinics and another that would provide more information to health-care consumers. Rounding out the bunch is a proposal by Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to force health insurance companies to get his approval before they can raise premiums.

Critics, though, question how valuable some of those free-market ideas might be and tend to focus on efforts to expand what they see as tried-and-true government programs, like the joint state-federal Medicaid health insurance plan for lower-income Georgians.

Read on.

Posted in Georgia | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | The difference between Democrats and Republicans — Comments (37)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:19pm on Feb. 17, 2008 Democrat Reps. Shays, Langevin come up with a *brand new* idea -- and it's as brilliant as it ever was

By Jeff Emanuel

Reps. Chris "Has Rafael Palmieri gotten his 300th hit yet?" Shays (Rumored to be "R"-CT) and Jim "I'm such a nobody that not even I've heard of me before" Langevin (D-RI) announced their new plan to solve America's health care problems last week. They're billing their new legislation, called the "American Health Benefits Program," as "the first bipartisan universal health care plan to originate in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Claiming that their plan (which won't be available to the public until later today or tomorrow at earliest) will "cure the health care system," Shays and Langevin want to play up "managed competition" and "shared responsibility" -- awesome, brand new ideas that mean "government control of the market" and "doctors need to take less and do more while taxpayers pay more for their countrymen's health care" -- to make health care "efficient and affordable."

Oh, and they would create yet another government bureaucracy, the Health Benefits Administration, to oversee this program, and to implement and enforce provider rate controls. But hey, don't let a couple simple little things like those turn you off; there's so much more to love about this plan!

Read on.

Posted in Economics | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | RINOs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:20pm on Feb. 15, 2008 Clinton favors employing wage theft to enforce "universal, voluntary" health care program

Even at this age, mutual exclusivity seems to be an ungraspable concept

By Jeff Emanuel

Update: The plot thickens, as the indispensible Grace-Marie Turner reminds us:

Hillary Clinton criticized an individual mandate in 1994, saying, "The individual mandate...makes it very difficult to determine and monitor who is in the system and who is out. It would require tracking individuals as they move in and out of jobs, as they move in and out of the insurance market. It would require, in our view, the IRS to engage in an enormous administrative oversight of our health care system."

***

Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has made “health care for all Americans” a major plank in her policy platform since the beginning of her run for President last year – though, as those who are familiar with the junior Senator from New York and former First Lady’s history will recall, radical changes to America’s health care system have been a cause dear to Mrs. Clinton’s heart for the better part of the last two decades at least.

The program Mrs. Clinton is currently touting as her solution to the problems in America’s health care system – particularly its high number of uninsured citizens – is officially called the “American Health Choices Plan,” though it is less-than-affectionately referred to by some as “HillaryCare II” in reference to her failed attempt to push a government health care system on the nation during the first years of her husband’s presidency.

Under this program, the government alone, with no input from the free market, is responsible for the regulation and management of health care. Oxymoronically, the plan whose formal title includes the term “choice” is built around what is known as an “individual mandate” – a government requirement that all Americans, regardless of income or choice, possess at least a (government-established) minimal level of health insurance.

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Economics | Government-run health care | Health care | Hillary! | oxymorons | Policy — Comments (21)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:41pm on Feb. 14, 2008 San Francisco health care tax appealed to Supreme Court

There are a whole lot of Democrat-led cities and states watching this case very, very closely

By Jeff Emanuel

An association of restaurant operators in San Francisco has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the city’s health insurance employer mandate law to go into effect. It will be best for all of San Francisco if the Court sides with the association on this one.

The association is seeking reinstatement of a federal judge’s ruling that the city’s Health Care Security Ordinance conflicts with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a longstanding federal law addressing government regulation of employee benefits.

Read on.

Posted in California | Economics | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | San Francisco | scotus — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:30am on Feb. 7, 2008 A quick note on health care and the Bush budget

By Jeff Emanuel

In his budget for Fiscal Year 2009, though at $3.1 trillion still far too large, President Bush made several steps in the right (government-limiting) direction. Overall, is this effort “too little, too late” for the nearly-lame-duck President?

Perhaps. There is still reason to be encouraged, though.

Read on.

Posted in FY2009 | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | President Bush | SCHIP — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:05pm on Feb. 6, 2008 Shirt? Check. Shoes? Check. Acceptable Body Mass Index? Ummm.....

By Jeff Emanuel

Update: For another entrant into the below-mentioned department of legislation, check out this oldie but goodie from 2006: a Democrat State Senator from Ohio filing legislation that would make it illegal for registered Republicans to adopt in that state.

From the department of "ridiculous legislation ostensibly submitted for the purpose of getting folks' attention" comes this gem from Mississippi.

Known by the stimulating and descriptive title of "House Bill No. 282," legislation has been introduced in the Mississippi state assembly that would prevent restaurants from...serving obese people.

Read on.

Posted in Health care | Mississippi | obesity | Policy | satire — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:02pm on Feb. 6, 2008 Will Washington state take Wisconsin's health care sloppy seconds?

By Jeff Emanuel

At the beginning of this legislative session, State Senator Karen Keiser (D-Kent) introduced legislation that would radically increase government control of health care in the state of Washington. The legislation was based almost entirely on a plan that had been considered – and rejected – a year before by a state halfway across the country.

Thanks to the efforts of pro-market legislators like Wisconsin State Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), who spent a great deal of time, resources, and political capital educating their fellow representatives, and the state’s voters, about what a poor policy decision it would be to enact the expensive and inefficient program, the 2007 attempt at government-run health care was removed from the state budget it had been inserted into, and was scrapped entirely.

Though Wisconsin managed to avert the debacle that the “Healthy Wisconsin” program would have caused in the state’s health care market, the program’s authors did not give up on their dream of subsuming the health care and health insurance markets entirely into a government-run framework. Instead, remaining true to government’s penchant for rehabilitating failed ideas and policies and presenting them – unchanged, but under slightly new names – as new solutions, they simply exported their idea to Washington, where Sen. Keiser was happy to adopt them and to present them as a "solution" to Washington’s health care woes.

Read on for more.

Posted in Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | The Nanny State | Washington | Wisconsin — Comments (45) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:20am on Feb. 4, 2008 The Latest Proposed Health Care Mandate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

One of the reasons why I am a member of the Anti-Universal Coverage Club is summed up by the manifesto of the club:

Universal coverage" could be achieved only by forcing everyone to buy health insurance or by having government provide health insurance to all, neither of which is desirable.

In a free society, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.

This kind of statement is a prerequisite to having and maintaining a free society. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton appears to disagree and she has announced the most draconian of measures to finance her plans for universal coverage:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."

Read on . . .

Posted in Health care | Hillary Clinton | Policy | Wage Garnishment — Comments (18)/ Email this page » / Read More »