De facto death panels: all four pieces in place
All 4 pieces are in place for gov’t to deny life-saving medicine: Health Info. Technology to track doctors, comparative effectiveness research to decide what works, Accountable Care Orgs. to control doctors’ practice, & end-of-life counseling to inform patients. Greg Scandlen explains.
Joan Henneberry & Colorado’s health insurance exchange
John Hickenlooper has appointed Joan Henneberry to head the creation of Colorado’s health insurance exchange. Gregg Girvan of the Heritage Foundation has spoken highly of Utah’s apparently market-friendly exchange. But John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute warns against this: “If Obamacare persists, exchanges will become bloated administrative nightmares.”
Feds reward Colorado Medicaid for increasing gov’t dependency
The federal gov’t gave the CO state gov’t $14 million in tax dollars for expanding eligibility for its state-run health plan for kids. This health plan encourages parents to drop private insurance & punishes their career advancement.
3 Colorado health orgs spread mandate misinformation
The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative joins the Colorado Medical Society and the Colorado Trust in spreading what’s effectively the “big lie” in support of mandatory insurance: the cost-shift from the uninsured.
Health Insurance Rate Hikes: Unreasonable if Excessive, Excessive if Unreasonable
New insurance premium regulations by the Department of Health & Human Services would prohibit “unreasonable” price increases. An increase is “unreasonable” if it’s “excessive,” while “excessive” means it’s “unreasonably high.” Imagine if speed limit laws worked this way.
Mandatory insurance & Counterfeit ‘Responsibility’
The White House’s “individual responsibility” rhetoric masks its drive to subvert individual freedom. “Forcing people to act in a certain way inverts the very notion of responsibility …[which] arises from the fact that humans have free will, and can thus choose to act in ways that benefit — or harm — themselves.
“Government takeover of health care”: Lie of the year?
PolitiFact has chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. But the health care bill is a dramatic increase in government control of medicine. These add up to a good case for the bill’s being a government takeover.
Mandatory insurance vs. personal responsibility
Mandatory insurance is not about “personal responsibility.” It’s about forcing you to pay for others’ medical care by making you to buy more insurance than you’d like. If those who use the “responsibility” argument were honest, they’d want to repeal Medicaid & other government programs that force one person to finance the medical care of others.
Should Colorado ask for a Medicaid block grant?
Rhode Island was granted a waiver to receive its Medicaid funding as a block grant rather than a federal match for Medicaid spending. The result: The state saved $150 million in the first 18 months. Should Colorado do the same?
Kopel & Natelson discuss Virginia v. Sebelius
A Virginia judge just ruled against ObamaCare’s individual mandate [HR 3590], saying that the Constitution’s Commerce Power does not justify Congress regulating economic inactivity. Professor Rob Natelson & Research Director Dave Kopel comment on the court’s ruling & what that means for AG Suther’s case.
Prepare for the ObamaCare doctor shortage
David Catron at Health Care BS cites three surveys of doctors that each conclude that many will retire or stop practicing in response to ObamaCare (HR 3590) or other similar authoritarian “reform” measures.
Pro-liberty reactions to Virginia health care lawsuit (Cuccinelli-v-Sebelius)
A federal judge has ruled mandatory insurance to be unconstitutional. Pro-liberty reactions including the Independence Institute’s Dave Kopel, scholars from the Cato Institute, Reason magazine journalists, bloggers from the Volokh Conspiracy, & National Review’s health care blog.
