Government-run health care
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 6:17pm on Feb. 20, 2008 Dying From Universal Health Insurance
The Health Care Policy Was A Success But The Patient Died
By Dan McLaughlin
One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the roughly £60,000, or $116,000, cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment.
By December, she had raised £10,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Hirst heard the news from her doctor.
"He looked at me and said, 'I'm so sorry, Debbie. I've had my wrists slapped from the people upstairs, and I can no longer offer you that service,' " Hirst said.
"I said, 'Where does that leave me?' He said, 'If you pay for Avastin, you'll have to pay for everything' " - in other words, for all her cancer treatment, far more than she could afford.
Officials said that allowing Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.
Patients "cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the NHS and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs," Health Secretary Alan Johnson told Parliament. "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the NHS."
But Hirst, who is 57 and was first diagnosed with cancer in 1999, went to the news media, and so did other patients in similar situations. And it became clear that theirs were not isolated cases.
In fact, it is widely acknowledged by patients, doctors and officials across the health care system that patients suffering from every imaginable complaint regularly pay for some parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free.
Read On...
Posted in Government-run health care | Policy — Comments (5)/ 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 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 6:29pm on Jan. 19, 2008 Remember SCHIP?
By Jeff Emanuel
More specifically, remember the $35 billion S-CHIP expansion package that President Bush vetoed twice in 2007? Though the House's Democrat leadership clearly signaled their acceptance of the fact that they won't be able to override the second veto any more than they could the first by passing a simple extension of the current program by a 411-3 margin, the vote on whether to override or sustain the second veto will still take place, as planned, on Jan. 23 (this coming Wednesday).
Word on the street is that the timing was specifically chosen to make children's health insurance a public-eye issue just in time for the President's Jan. 28 State of the Union Address.
Posted at 7:56pm on Jan. 9, 2008 The Governator needs to listen (and live up) to his own promises
By Jeff Emanuel
We should all applaud Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stark honesty about the disastrous condition of California’s finances in his State of the State address Tuesday. The budget deficit currently being run by the state is $14 billion and, with the recent revelation that another $118 billion will have to be found over the next 30 years to cover guaranteed health benefits for retirees, this number is only poised to increase for the foreseeable future. The Governator is expected to declare the state to be in a state of Fiscal Emergency later this week, and has already proposed dealing with the economic disaster by releasing tens of thousands of prisoners early.
In his State of the State address, Schwarzenegger commendably spoke of responsibly reacting to the budget crisis by committing “to permanently rein in spending” and “not to raise taxes."
Unfortunately, his continued pursuit of the poorly-titled "Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act" gives the lie to those promises.
Read on.
Posted in California | Economy | Fiscal Discipline | Government-run health care | Health care — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:18am on Jan. 8, 2008 San Francisco “play or pay” health care mandate will negatively affect economy, health coverage for residents
By Jeff Emanuel
The day after Christmas, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that San Francisco’s attempt to expand its public health care initiative violated a federal law regarding government regulation of employee benefit plans. Judge White’s ruling halted the implementation of a mandate, scheduled to go into effect on New Year’s Day, that would have required employers to offer their employees health coverage or pay to support “Healthy San Francisco,” the city’s health care program.
The mandate struck down by Judge would have required every business in the city with between 20 and 99 workers to spend $1.17 per employee per hour for health care benefits, and those with more than 100 to spend $1.76 per hour, either on their own plans or in payments to the city.
Read on for more.
Posted in California | Economics | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy | San Francisco | taxes — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 7:23pm on Jan. 6, 2008 Michigan government’s attempt to micromanage health insurance market will hurt quality and limit consumer choice
By Jeff Emanuel
In late 2007, after a single perfunctory committee meeting, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a series of four bills which, if approved by the Senate and signed into law by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, will have a very negative effect on the health insurance market in the state.
House Bills (HBs) 5282 through 5285 regulate in insurance market in several ways, including by implementing mandates on how private insurance companies allocate the money they earn in policyholder premiums. Should these bills be passed, private health insurance carriers will be required by law to spend no less than 70% of premium income on health benefits. If a smaller percentage is used to fund health care for policyholders, state law would require carriers to issue refunds to their customers of such an amount as t o reduce the amount of capital use on anything other than health care to 30% of premium income or less.
Read on to see why this is such a bad idea -- and what else these bills would do.
Posted in Economics | Government-run health care | Health care | Michigan | Policy — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:14am on Dec. 26, 2007 This is one heck of a promise to be making
By Jeff Emanuel
Listen to this amazing claim about Delaware SB 177, known as the "Single-Payer Health Security Act":
This Act will provide every Delaware citizen comprehensive health care coverage from conception until ones last breath is taken without a cent from out-of-pocket expense for extra health insurance, co-payments or deductibles.
Wow. That is quite a claim to be making, indeed. The quote above comes from an information sheet on the bill, written by a Dr. Floyd McDowell, who is apparently the "Act's contact resource Issue Area Facilitator.
Read on.
Posted in Delaware | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy — Comments (28) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:08pm on Dec. 21, 2007 Take not from Me, but from Thee to pay for that other Thee's health care
By Jeff Emanuel
According to a just-released Field Poll, the proposed $14B California government health insurance expansion, which would be built on the backs of smokers ($1.50 to $2.00 a pack increase), business owners in the state (1% to 6% payroll tax increase), and hospitals ($2.3B in additional state taxes) is overwhelmingly supported by California voters -- including Republicans.
Read on.
Posted in California | Economy | Government-run health care | Health care | Schwarzenegger — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:07am on Dec. 21, 2007 Bipartisan California health insurance plan would *cause* the state more problems than it would *solve*
By Jeff Emanuel
Last Friday, after nearly a year of tense negotiations, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D) jointly announced that they had reached a compromise on a plan to add 3.6 million of California’s 5 million uninsured citizens to the rolls of the insured by 2010. Called “an incredible plan” by Speaker Nunez, the proposal – which, if passed by the State Legislature, will appear on the California ballot in November – includes a mandate requiring that nearly all Californians either acquire private health insurance or enroll in a government program which will be expanded to meet the additional demand. Further, the measure would prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because of existing medical ailments, and would require them to spend at least 85% of premiums exclusively on medical care
Expected to cost $14 Billion annually, the compromise plan agreed upon by Schwarzenegger and Nunez will, if approved by voters, receive funding from four separate sources: a $2.3 Billion tax on hospitals, a new payroll tax of 1% to 6% on businesses in the state, an additional $1.50 to $2.00 per pack tax on cigarettes sold in the state, and $2.3 Billion more in funding from the federal government.
Read on.
Posted in California | Economy | Government-run health care | Health care | Schwarzenegger — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Read More »
