Commentaries
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August 31, 2010
“Americans were promised they would save money and that their jobs and health insurance would be more secure if health reform passed. But the promises already are being broken, and workers will pay the price for ObamaCare’s failures. Health costs will rise, taxes will go up, millions will lose the health insurance they have now, wages will flatten, and businesses will find it harder to create new jobs. This is not a prescription for a more prosperous future.
August 30, 2010
The Department of Health and Human Services recently released rules for creating electronic health records. These rules came days after HHS issued regulations to safeguard the privacy of medical records. This digital revolution could dramatically improve medical care. The RAND Corporation estimates America could save $77 billion a year with health information technology (HIT). But policymakers must remember the interests of doctors and patients. If they don't, HIT could increase costs, hurt medical care and infringe on the doctor-patient relationship.
August 28, 2010
“Health care reform is entitlement reform.” So said Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s first budget director, at a bipartisan fiscal responsibility summit called by the president in February 2009. President Obama had assumed office just a little over a month earlier, and he was signaling to the country and to those present at the White House that his top domestic priority during his first year in office — securing a health care law that covered all Americans with health insurance — was consistent with his commitment to impose renewed fiscal discipline.
August 26, 2010
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised millions of eyebrows in
early March when she told reporters, we have to pass the health reform
bill "so that you can find out what is in it." It goes without saying that few, if any, of the federal lawmakers who
voted to pass the legislation had any idea of what was lurking in its
2,801 pages.
August 25, 2010
If Republicans take control of one or both houses of Congress this fall, many will have been elected with a promise to "repeal and replace" ObamaCare. But what are their options, really? There likely will be an initial showdown, but President Obama will surely veto any challenge to the law, and it would be hard to imagine mustering the votes to overturn it.
August 24, 2010
The president’s much-touted high-risk pools so far are a flop. Kaiser Health News reports that “an unexpectedly small number of people” have signed up for the program designed to provide insurance for people with pre-existing conditions who were uninsured for at least six months. So far, a total of about 3,600 people have applied for state plans and 1,200 have been approved, with another 2,400 in the 22 state plans operated by the federal government.
August 24, 2010
Liberal advocates for Obamacare now have no choice but to admit that their messaging campaign has failed. In a conference call last week hosted by Families USA to share extensive polling data, advocates were told to stop saying that the law will reduce costs and lower the deficit. It’s not true and people don’t believe it. Instead, they advised liberals to focus on anecdotes about people who have been helped by the changes.
August 23, 2010
While there is broad agreement there are problems in our health sector that must be solved, the American people consistently have said they oppose government control. Yet many of the decisions now being made in the bowels of the bureaucracy could lead to a government system that people fear. The consequences of government involvement in health care have become more and more apparent as people have become informed about what the health overhaul law would do. No longer does the government seem to be a fairy godmother but rather a tough enforcer of an avalanche of new mandates, taxes and regulatory requirements.
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