Archive for the ‘Policy - National’ Category
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Will Obama's proposal for a nation-wide mandate for guaranteed issue insurance decimate insurance companies to the point that government will have to "save the day" with a single-payer monopoly that Obama really wants? Consider this from the Associated Press:
Barack Obama's campaign promise should prove irresistible to the millions of uninsured: ...
Posted in PPC, Policy - National, regulation, single payer | No Comments »
Friday, November 7th, 2008
There are several ways to respond to people who advocate socialized medicine or single-payer health care in the United States. You can start at fundamentals by point out that health care is not a right, and that governmnt-controlled health care violates the rights of physicians and patients. You can point out ...
Posted in PPC, Policy - National, regulation, single payer | No Comments »
Friday, October 24th, 2008
From the Wall Street Journal:
For someone running as the tribune of "change," Barack Obama showed again in last night's debatethat he sure is comfortable with the status quo on health care. He continued his recent assaults on John McCain's health reform even though it is precisely the kind of plan ...
Posted in PPC, Policy - National, insurance, tax code, HSAs | No Comments »
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Tim Carney explains McCain's health care plan and the politics behind it:
Barack Obama attacks John McCain's health care plan as spurring the "unraveling of the employer-based health care system." Big employers are siding with Obama.
Not surprisingly, employers want employees more dependent on them. Of course they don't want it to ...
Posted in PPC, Policy - National, insurance, tax code, HSAs | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 17th, 2008
Some good insight from the Rocky's editors in their Oct. 13 editorial. An excerpt:
In either case, you probably value some degree of choice. If that's a high priority, we'd recommend John McCain's plan. Barack Obama's plan extols choice, too, but over time leads in another direction.
McCain's health care proposal hinges ...
Posted in Policy - National | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
From a recent debate on universal coverage:
PAUL KRUGMAN:
Actually, can I just — I wanted to ask a question. And—
JOHN DONVAN:
Please—please do—
PAUL KRUGMAN:
—and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience. First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please raise your hands. [ONE PERSON APPLAUDS, LAUGHTER]
JOHN DONVAN:
We ...
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Thursday, September 18th, 2008
Some gems from Robert Samuelson's Washington Post column:
The central health-care problem is not improving coverage. It's controlling costs. In 1960, health care accounted for $1 of every $20 spent in the U.S. economy; now that's $1 of every $6, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that it could be $1 ...
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
On buying health insurance directly from an insurance company instead of through one's employer, ABC News Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson states:
The idea that individuals are going to have enough knowledge and enough savvy and enough insight and, frankly, enough guts to make choices all by themselves is pretty much ...
Posted in PPC, Policy - National, myths & fallacies | No Comments »
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
In his review of John E. Murray's Origins of American Health Insurance: A History of Industrial Sickness Funds, George C. Leef writes:
Murray points to an important subtext in the Progressive case. One reason Bismarck had worked so hard for his system of social insurance in Germany was to make people ...
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Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Apparently some people think that "managing the economy"* is a presidential responsibility. From Reuters/Zogby:
McCain now has a 9-point edge, 49 percent to 40 percent, over Obama on the critical question of who would be the best manager of the economy -- an issue nearly half of voters said was their top ...
Posted in Policy - National | 1 Comment »