Donald Berwick’s Five-Year Plan v. the iPhone

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Paul Howard and David Gratzer, MD write Last month, Apple released its new iPhone, a faster and more powerful version of its ever popular computer-phone. It's a remarkable device - particularly remarkable given that its machine ancestors were large and expensive, often filling whole buildings yet able to ...

Obama appoints Donald Berwick: Health Care Rationer-in-Chief

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

From Grace-Marie Turner at National Review (July 7): President Obama is making a huge end-run around the American people with his recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick. “This recess appointment is an insult to the American people,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), a physician and leading Berwick opponent. ...

Medicare & the government debt ball & chain

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Mothers Against Debt has a memorable video on how the U.S. government's debt shackles future generations: The health control legislation (HR 3590) will also increase the deficit. Here's a chart from the recent article by Veronique de Rugy in Reason magazine, Our Unsustainable Debt:

How much is Medicare costing taxpayers?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Keith Hennessey reviews the disagreement between Paul Krugman (on one side) and Rep. Paul Ryan, New Gingrich, and John Goodman (on the other) about how to change Medicare so it does not bankrupt the country.  How much is Medicare spending? Consider what Hennessey points out: The policy reality is that if ...

Obama Care: prohibit buying what you want, mandate what you don’t want

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Dr. Paul Hsieh points out some scary aspects of the House health bill (HR 3962) and the Senate health bill (HR 3590): Under ObamaCare, patients will be forced to pay for certain kinds of medical care whether they want it or not — thus raising their health care costs. And patients ...

Medicare “buy in”: more deficits, higher premiums, & step toward single-payer

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

A Wall Street Journal editorial summarizes: [Harry Reid] is claiming that a Medicare "buy-in" for people from ages 55 to 64 has overcome the liberal-moderate impasse over the "public option." But if anything, this gambit is an even faster road to government-run health care. ... Mr. Reid's buy-in simply cuts out the ...

Reid’s Senate Bill: contact your Senator

Friday, November 20th, 2009

The Institute for Health Freedom advises you to contact your Senator today about tomorrow's vote "on a motion to proceed" on Harry Reid's health care bill (Sat. Nov 21).  There are many reasons not to like this bill.  The Institute summarizes: The bill would (among many other provisions): require nearly every ...

Medicare: unfair, inefficient, fraudulant, costly

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons describes key problems with Medicare.  But of course any kind of "Medicare for All," or Medicare Part E (E for everyone, get it?!) will have these problems. Of course not. It is structured as a Ponzi scheme. Its low administrative costs are a mirage. It is ...

Denial of claims: Medicare does it most

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Critics of non-government insurance complain that such companies deny claims, and imply that this would never happen with government-run insurance such as Medicare.  In a previous post I pointed out that in Massachusetts, Medicaid denies a higher percentage of claims than non-government insurers. According to the American Medical Association's 2008 Health ...

Obama Care and America’s Entitlement Kids

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security cost each U.S. household the cost of raising two children.  ObamaCare adds one-third of a "government kid." (Via Paul Gessing at StateHouseCall.)