Today is Thursday, May 17, 2012

Single Payor

Mike Fallon, M.D., is a politician who knows how to explain why ObamaCare adds $500 billion to debt

Mike Fallon, M.D., Wednesday gave the one best talks on health care economics and policy that I've heard since 1976 when I started covering health care deform. He certainly showed that he knows more about health economics and policy than any Republican who's in the U.S. House of Representatives today. More with links after the jump:

How politicians mismanage health care costs; earmarks for them, cuts for you

Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are showing Americans how they would mismanage a public option health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

They are trying

 

Congress must set rules for selling health insurance across state lines, McInnis says

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis said in an interview Friday that he supports making it possible for health insurance across state lines, but the former Congressman and state legislator warned that Congress must pass health reforms that create uniform regulations in all of the states.

I asked:

 

Ponnuru on ‘The misguided quest for universal coverage’

The National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru says in a NYT op-ed piece that the health insurance markets should be reformed to make health insurance more affordable and portable rather than to provide free universal care.

Which is what I’ve been writing since 1976.

Ponnuru fails to make the point that the left is trying to destroy the private health insurance markets to take care of 6 to 8 million legitimately uninsured, not the 47 million widely hyped by universal health insurance advocates. Obama wants to destroy an admittedly flawed but still functioning private health insurance market to fix a small problem. He and Congressional Democrats are more interested in the power grab opportunity that “universal health insurance” offers than in fixing the problem.

Nor does Ponnuru point out in

Obama defends obsolete, socialistic, employer-based health insurance; he’s not for change

Sen. Barack Obama’s attack on health insurance reforms proposed by Sen. John McCain shows that Obama’s not for real change in health insurance.

Obama wants more government-sponsored health insurance schemes, like the VA Healthcare System, Medicare and the unaffordable Medicaid scheme that’s bankrupting the states and the Feds.

Obama wants to keep employers involved in the insurance markets, even though they limit consumer choice, increase costs for consumers and make their workers buy expensive policies they don’t want nor need.

Obama wants the tax laws to favor large employers who pay part of their workers’ health care bills while discriminating against individuals who have to use after-tax dollars to buy health insurance, making individual policies less price competitive for the same kinds of policies that large employers buy.

Obama’s clearly listening to the lobbyists from the American Medical Assn., American Hospital Assn. and large employers who want no change in health care insurance markets. He’s not listening to people who don’t want socialized, government-funded and mandated health insurance. He’s listening to unions and government workers who want power, not to consumers who want affordable health insurance.

McCain’s plan is pretty irrelevant because it won’t be enacted if he’s elected with a Congress controlled by Democrats.

But he’s on the right track even though he has some crazy ideas about high risk pools for the truly uninsured.

McCain and Palin are having a tough time articulating their principles and goals for the health insurance markets, showing they generally don’t know what they’re talking about and don’t really care about health insurance reform.

I’ve blogged on the McCain, Obama, Clinton and Bush health insurance schemes many times over the years. Click on the health insurance reform category below or in column one.

 

Canadian government backtracks on health care reforms

Canada’s socialized medical system will remain government funded, because the ruling Liberal Party wants to campaign on the theme that opposition Conservatives will introduce privately-funded programs that would allow some Canadians to pay out-of-pocket for better access and higher quality care.

Canada plans to modernize troubled health care system

Canada is trying to modernize its troubled health care system that requires patients to endure long waits for access to care. But the politics between the federal and provincial governments look pretty complex.