Peggy Noonan thinks that a ruling President Obama signed this week might prove to have cost him re-election.  I wouldn’t go that far, but it just might cost him the support of Roman Catholics from the right, left, and center, a big hit for a Democrat.  He signed off on a Health and Human Services […]

Not much more to say about what remains the worst bill ever, even without the public insurance option or public funding of abortions, at least until whatever health care reform passes from the Senate/House conference and is signed into law, but I cannot pass commentary on the travesty of the process by which the Democrats […]

Tom Friedman’s notion of what he calls “systemic misunderstanding” is a condition of debate or conflict between or among parties in disagreement wherein the conflict cannot be resolved with more facts or information.  With Thomas Sowell, among my favorite essayists, such a condition is even more deeply seated in what he has named “a conflict […]

After all that has been written and said about health care reform over the past six months, it is virtually impossible to offer much that is original.  Much of the editorial commentary in favor of the various concepts floated by the left reflect such an ignorance of the realities of economics, human nature, incentives, and […]

Get ready for the next major battle, and it will be at least as potentially divisive for the Republicans as the immigration divide. The issue is universal health care, and the forces of this “one size fits all” system are in full stealth mode, with the lead element being the massive expansion (to $75 billion […]

If the states are to serve as laboratory models with guidance on how to fix health care finance, there are already some models to avoid. One is in California, which is essentially proposing a plan to tax, spend, and regulate the state’s path to universal coverage, with an enormous additional subsidy from the Federal government. […]

Does anyone really believe that the American Association of Retired Persons would have supported the Medicare/Prescription Drug bill if it represented true market-based reform? The only reason for their support is that they know it is inevitable that the originally projected $400 billion cost will be greatly expanded, and they will be back with Tom […]

I was encouraged by a little noticed and under-reported ruling by the Internal Revenue Service that could have significant implications for the cost and availability of health insurance. The IRS in effect breached the 1996 cap on the number of Medical Savings Account policies that can be issued by ruling that employer funded out-of –pocket […]

As a follow up to my April report on the Texas Association of Business health care survey, I pass along the following, particularly for the benefit of those readers who took issue with my comments about the now outmoded and pernicious tradition of tying health care insurance to employment. Forbes magazine notes that government now […]

The debate in Congress on the Patients’ Bill of Rights legislation sent me back to my notes on a Rice University lecture series of several years ago on ethics in today’s society. The subject then was “Hillary Care”, but the questions remain. The most basic one is “is there a right to health care?” You […]