The Democratic National Convention has produced a 51-page campaign platform that devotes five pages to health care. Leaving aside the promotion of abortion as a partisan wedge issue, the platform asserts the goal of “universal health care,” which is “a right, not a privilege.” The notion of health care as a “right” is now...
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The latest jobs report gave the stock market a boost and injected some optimism into public sentiment about our economic prospects. Unfortunately, there’s a problem with the current employment situation that few understand: Obamacare has likely led to too many jobs in health care, drawing labor from more productive functions. Dan Diamond of Politico...
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An eminent physician has tentatively proposed that published treatment guidelines be accompanied by dissenting expert opinions, much like U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Daniel Musher, MD, of Baylor College of Medicine, served on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which considered guidelines for a dual vaccine approach...
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The Obama Administration refuses to concede defeat in its struggle to save Obamacare’s exchanges. The exchanges lost one-quarter of their members in 2015. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has reported its insurance plans have enrolled people significantly sicker (and more expensive) than anticipated. Finally, UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer, will drop out...
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The Obama administration recently announced that 12.7 million people selected or were automatically enrolled in an Obamacare exchange plan at the end of the third open season – February 1. Except for special cases, anyone who missed that deadline cannot enroll in an Obamacare plan for 2016. That number is a few more people...
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Soon after Associate Justice Antonin Scalia passed away on February 13, Senate Republicans felt the need to declare that they would not even entertain the thought of holding confirmation hearings for any candidate President Obama might nominate to the Supreme Court in the last eleven months of his second term. Given the high drama...
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After a long and arduous fight, French politicians have approved a law abolishing patients’ upfront payments to physicians, which was a promise of President François Hollande’s Socialist Party. Currently, patients usually pay about £23 ($25) when they see a general practitioner. However, some of this fee is reimbursed by the national health scheme or...
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Last week’s third estimate of Gross Domestic Product for the second quarter confirms that growth in health spending might be moderating somewhat from its initial Obamacare-fueled rush. Unfortunately, it is not a clear break in the trend of health spending consuming an increasing share of our national income. Current GDP grew $264.4 billion, or 1.5 percent,...
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Obamacare’s best frenemy, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and his colleagues at the Center for American Progress, gave up on Obamacare last year. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, he and Topher Spiro emphasize that Accountable Care Organizations, which Obamacare established to co-ordinate care and lower costs in Medicare, are failing to achieve either goal: The Obama...
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I spent the weekend in Denver at the excellent Western Conservative Summit, where I spoke about health reform with Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner. Mr. Klein has written Overcoming Obamacare, in which he describes three schools of free-market reformers: The “reform school,” the “replace school,” and the “restart school.” (I belong to the...
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