June 2010 Blog Posts (29)

PRICE TRANSPARENCY IN HEALTH CARE: WILL IT BEND THE COST CURVE?

Lack of transparency regarding pricing of medical services has often been attributed as one of the factors contributing to skyrocketing spending in the health care system. However, the bigger problem is that patients are completely disconnected from the cost of their medical bills because of the growing role of third party payers, says Kathryn Nix, a research assistant for the Heritage Foundation's Center for Health…

SUPREME COURT EXPANDS GUN RIGHTS

In a landmark, but not surprising, decision, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday struck down Chicago's ban on private ownership of handguns, saying the Second Amendment applies to states and municipalities as well as the federal government.

The ruling finalizes the debate over whether individual states, or even individual towns, cities, or municipalities, have the authority to ban possession of firearms, says the Examiner.com.

• Two years…

Why the Government

Cannot Control Medical Costs







By: Alieta Eck, MD

From the patients…

A BROKEN IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM

We all know how bad the federal government is at controlling our border, but we face the same problem in the system set up to handle immigration cases. Many people do not realize that illegal aliens who are caught end up in immigration courts that are part of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). These courts are presided over by administrative judges; they are not Article III federal courts, says Hans A. von…

BAM'S CLIMATE RX: ALL PAIN, NO GAIN

The cap-and-trade bill that the House passed last summer aims to force Americans to reduce carbon emissions by 83 percent in less than four decades -- to the same per-capita level as 1867. Yet, the bill would do nothing to stop global warming, and simply drives up the price of fossil-fuel based energy so high that the nation will have to somehow get along with only 17 percent of the gasoline and fossil-fuel-powered electricity that it uses today,…

OBAMA'S MORATORIUM, DRILLED

As legal rebukes go, it's hard to get more comprehensive than the one federal judge Martin Feldman delivered yesterday in overturning the Obama Administration's six-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, says the Wall Street Journal.

In a remarkably pointed 22-page ruling, the judge made clear that even presidents aren't allowed to impose an edict that isn't justified by science or safety.

Oil-services companies…

PAINFUL HEALTH CARE LESSONS FROM MASSACHUSETTS: HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES

How did health care costs in Massachusetts get so big? A major reason is that health care exchanges reward people for working less and earning less, says Shawn Tully, a senior editor-at-large with CNN.money.

Data is lacking on how damaging these perverse incentives are in practice. But it's clear in Massachusetts that low-to medium-earning families often suffer financially if they get a raise, work…

FORGET THE POPULIST RHETORIC -- WE ALL PAY FOR BIG GOVERNMENT

Taxes levied on business tend to find their way to costumers, workers and anyone with a 401(k). In other words, you will be the one paying taxes that are supposed to hit Wall Street, says Carrie Lukas, vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women's Forum.

In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a helpful analysis of this dynamic when evaluating a proposed tax on banks with…

We the people that belong to a TEA Party already know that…

RETIREMENTS BY BABY BOOMER DOCTORS, NURSES COULD STRAIN OVERHAUL

Since the passage of the health care law in March, much has been said about the coming swarm of millions of retiring baby boomers (the 66 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964) and the strain they will put on the nation's health care system. That is only half the problem, says the Washington Post.

Overlooked in the conversation are doctors and nurses who are itching to call it quits. Health care…

June 14, 2010

NEW POVERTY MEASURE DOESN'T ADD UP

The new Obama poverty measure fails. It flunks the test of political neutrality and is based on misleading statistics that not one American in 100,000 could possibly understand, says columnist Robert J. Samuelson.

That's because the new calculation would measure poverty on a sliding scale. Thus, if the average income of families in the United States increases so too does the poverty threshold. Talk about keeping up with the Jones. This new…