Category Archives: Health Care

Employers Discontinuing Health Insurance Coverage Due To Obamacare

… seems not to be happening in real life. Gotta keep monitoring the issue, but this indicates that criticism of the ACA has been overblown: The health care law’s requirement that companies with at least 50 employees provide affordable health benefits is the … Continue reading

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Semantic Infiltration

Back in Poison Your Mind’s early days, I wrote about the way Republicans used poll-tested words to reframe political debates.  (Former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan aptly described this tactic as “semantic infiltration.”)  My target at the time was the word “entitlements”: … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Health Care, History, Politics | 4 Comments

How Media Bias Distorts The News: Obamacare Costs

There are a few headlines trumpeting Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions‘ take on a new GAO study on the Affordable Care Act. Sessions notes that the study shows that Obamacare adds a few kajillion dollars to the debt over the next … Continue reading

Posted in Health Care, Media analysis, News and Current Events, Politics | 1 Comment

The F Word (Updated)

NPR invited the CEO of Whole Foods on this morning to talk about Obamacare.  Here’s what he said: Technically speaking, it’s more like fascism. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn’t own … Continue reading

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Pres. Obama’s Mainstream Conservative Presidency

Libertarian-leaning Leon Hadar explains how the president is an old guard Republican: With the selection of Republican Hagel, an intellectual heir to the Baker-Scrowcroft Realpolitik tradition, Obama has taken a major step toward transforming his presidency into a replica of … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Foreign Policy, Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics, Taxes | 1 Comment

Our Health Care System Is Costly And Gets Poor Outcomes

To continue on the theme of health care reform, here is a conclusion from the RAND Corporation: We’re not getting our money’s worth. As we pointed out in our earlier paper, it is difficult to justify the relentless growth of U.S. … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics | 3 Comments

A Further Look At Our Terrible Health Care Outcomes

Yesterday, I posted a “Reminder: The US Has The Worst Health Outcomes Of All Wealthy Nations”. Aaron Carroll, a doctor and generally mild-mannered and wonkish health care expert, goes into more detail in posts helpfully entitled “What the hell is … Continue reading

Posted in Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics | 1 Comment

Reminder: The US Has The Worst Health Outcomes Of All Wealthy Nations

David Frum flags a New York Times story: Americans often say they have the best health care on earth. Maybe. But they also have the worst health results of any developed country. A New York Times report today underscores just how bad: Younger Americans … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics | 3 Comments

Missed Opportunities

Romney’s own advisor did more to undermine his debate performance in about 15 seconds then the President did in the entire 90 minutes: After the first presidential debate at the University of Denver in Colorado on Wednesday night, one of … Continue reading

Posted in 2012, Health Care | Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Plans

The Commonwealth Fund, a health care research foundation, has compared the ACA to Romney’s plan for healthcare, to the extent it can be deciphered.  First, here’s an excerpt on Obama’s ACA: When fully implemented, the Affordable Care Act is projected … Continue reading

Posted in 2012, Health Care | Leave a comment

Stating the Obvious

If you need further proof that Republican claims about the leftist radicalism of Obama’s health care reform were and are completely disingenuous, check out American Enterprise Institute’s J. D. Kleinke, in yesterday’s NY Times.  And remember, AEI is a right-wing … Continue reading

Posted in Health Care | 20 Comments

Why Fiscal Conservatives Support The ACA

We’ve talked a lot about how America’s long-term debt problem is largely health care costs. This new study concludes that 30% of our health care expenditures are waste: The costs of the system’s current inefficiency underscore the urgent need for … Continue reading

Posted in Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics | 6 Comments

Medicare And Medicaid Continue To Do A Better Job Controlling Costs Than Private Health Insurers

 New article in the New England Journal of Medicine: Over the past decade, spending growth per enrollee slowed in Medicare and Medicaid, and per-enrollee growth rates in the next decade are projected to be very close to the expected growth … Continue reading

Posted in Drugs, Economics, Health Care, News and Current Events, Politics | Leave a comment

This Reagan Reagan was Reaganed to You by Reagan Reagan Reagan (p.s. Reagan Reagan Reagan)

While not trying to pin some kind of scandal on Obama, Darrell Issa devotes the rest of his time to naming things after Ronald Reagan: Ronald  Reagan already serves as the namesake for an airport, two federal  courthouses, a state … Continue reading

Posted in Health Care, History | Tagged | Leave a comment

Real Life Events Vs. Glibertarian Talking Points

Aaron Carroll didn’t like Tyler Cowen’s op-ed: I get a bit annoyed when people claim that we can’t “afford” more government intervention or, god-forbid, single-payer. That kind of statement willfully ignores the fact that every country that has MORE government intervention spends … Continue reading

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Strike One

A few months ago, the Obama Administration announced a rule that will require contraception coverage in health care plans, including for employees of church-affiliated hospitals, schools and outreach programs (as many have noted, the rule is actually little different from … Continue reading

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Nothing for you, lots for me

Republicans in Congress (joined by a few cowardly Dems) want to repeal health insurance coverage for tens of millions of Americans, while simultaneously restoring the sweet insurance deal that congressmen used to get before the ACA was passed: When Congress passed the … Continue reading

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What Might Have Been

The New Yorker has a slide show of alternative cover art they were considering in the event that Obamacare got struck down. First, here’s the one they went with once the law was upheld:

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