Back last month, House Minority Leader John Boehner made the following comment about government-run health care options: “Listen, if you like going to the DMV and you think they do a great job, or you like going to the post office and think it’s the most efficient thing you’ve run into, then you’ll love the government-run health care system that they’re proposing because that’s basically | Read More »
On Tuesday night, be given a health care bill the size of Delaware that nobody in your office had a chance to read (over 1,000 pages, in this case). On Wednesday, watch it be jammed through various committees. On Thursday, find out from that the nonpartisan oversight group that’s supposed to be regulating this sort of thing hasn’t been able to read it, either. Note | Read More »
If that title doesn’t frighten you, nothing will. You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much? I’ll save you the trouble of reading: his answer | Read More »
The Washington Post has come out against the progressive tax raises proposed by Congress to pay for health care. It does so reluctantly – it’s not against the principle of progressive taxes generally – but apparently they feel that the combination of Medicare cuts and wider-than-expected targets for the surcharge are just unacceptable. …in principle, higher taxes for the well-heeled could make sense — as | Read More »
Fine. Sign yourselves up for it. Freshman GOP Rep John Fleming of Louisiana recently called for the Democrat-ruled Congress to live by the rules that they want to saddle on the rest of us: Over the past few weeks, members of Congress and the American people have come to know the details of the Administration’s proposed health care plan. Call it whatever you like, this | Read More »
For some bizarre reason, Rep. Keith Ellison thought that it was a good idea to get Rep. McDermott’s opinions on the public option on the public record. Who am I to pass up such an opportunity? Yes, he really is advocating a policy that, to quote a colleague, “prevents insurers from calculating rates or willingness to insure based on risk; all must be served, and | Read More »
Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly. [Update: I’m reminded that | Read More »
He’s got those sixty votes, you see. And he’s impatient. Impatient of the way that people are still getting in the way of his shepherding of a health care plan that neither him nor his will ever have to use. Schumer: With Franken Seated No Need To Compromise On Public Option One of the leading Senate Democrats in the health care reform battle said that | Read More »
AoSHQ linked to this piece mostly to highlight the Warren Buffet quote on cap and trade: “it’s a huge tax and there’s no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. So it — and it’s a fairly regressive tax.” – Real quickly, Mr. Buffet: how did you vote in the last election, again? – …but I wanted to actually highlight the | Read More »
Turning to domestic news for the moment (and as a distraction from my worries, frankly), I see via @mkhammer that a value-added tax is on the Democrats’ horizon, the better to pay for free health care*: Unlike a sales tax that applies only to the point of purchase, a VAT taxes the value added at each stage of production. Thus, if the VAT rate is | Read More »
Why not? It’s not like this would affect them any. WASHINGTON – The Senate’s top tax writer said Tuesday he is considering limits on the tax-free status of job-based health insurance to help pay for President Barack Obama’s plan to cover all Americans. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., described his idea as senators began to grapple with how to pay for the costs of | Read More »
While in the process of idly mentioning that the deficit’s going to be worse than originally indicated, Senator Conrad (D-Countrywide) says something very, very interesting: Conrad also said he did not plan to include any instructions in the budget plan he is crafting for health care or the greenhouse gas initiatives. Such instructions written into the budget would give it a privileged status and make | Read More »
He’ll show them all. This is one time where excerpting isn’t going to cut it: let me summarize this article (“Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey*“) (H/T: AoSHQ) and then you can go read both it and the soon-to-be-federal law (here is the original, and here is the Nelson/Collins amendment). Essentially, McCaughey argues that the bill contains stealth provisions within it | Read More »
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