Michael Tanner at Cato summarizes:
Congressional Democrats received another $68 million from unions in 2008, and $21 million more so far this year. And that doesn't count the value of "in kind" contributions like phone banks, poll volunteers and independent advertising.
Looks like the unions are getting their money's worth — with ...
Is the for-profit insurance industry a "predator" that "prevent[s] us from having a decent health care system"? Letter writer Bruce Robinson says so (Daily Camera, December 1). He's partially right. The real predators are politicians who inhibit needed health policy reform. But insurers are guilty for concealing how they benefit ...
John R. Graham of the Pacific Research Institute offers a great critique of Nicholas D. Kristof's recent New York Times column. Kristof relates a distressing story about a John Brodniak, who lost his job due to illness, exhausted his COBRA benefits, and ended up on Medicaid. Yet, Kristof reaches an ...
Some choice words from Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of Harvard's Medical School. Some excerpts from his Wall Street Journal article:
Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for ...
You often hear animosity for insurance companies from the Left. That is, those who want more government control of medical insurance. Yet, those who want less government should advocate repealing laws that coddle insurance companies at the expense of patients. As I wrote last week, insurance companies could gain so ...
Insurance companies are unpopular, so they don't get much sympathy when arguing that the "public option" is unfair competition. The insurance industry should come clean by admitting how much the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance coddles them, which gives them an unfair competitive advantage. It shields insurance companies from competition ...
From an op-ed in the Washington Post:
With union membership shrinking and wages strained, it might sound crazy to argue that labor should voluntarily give up a huge fringe benefit: tax-free health insurance provided by employers. But it should. In the long run, capping the amount of health insurance that employers ...
Direct-purchase insurance is when the patient buys it directly from the insurance company, rather than through an employer. How can this help bring down the cost of medical care? Linda Gorman explains in her latest article at the Library of Economics and Liberty:
Direct-purchase coverage is owned by an individual. Premiums ...
Insurance industry representative Karen Ignagni correctly fears that the "government-run insurance plan that Obama supports ... would put private insurers out of business." (Denver Post, May 24) This is why supporters of single-payer medicine like it -- it's an incremental step toward a government insurance monopoly.
But Ms. Ignagni's group has ...
Barack Obama says his health care reform "strengthens employer–based coverage." But the government's favoring employer-based coverage has had terrible consequences. Just ask Jason Furman, one of Obama's economic advisors. In an article published in Health Affairs he wrote:
The tax exclusion effectively reduces the price of employer-sponsored insurance relative to insurance ...
