Free Markets Are Good Medicine
By Richard E. Ralston
November 21, 2011
There is an unstated context behind the health care debate. Those who prefer government management of medicine have a wider agenda: they hate the idea of a free market in medicine, because they hate the idea of free markets in anything. . . . [ full article ]
Pinning Down Cost Shifting in Health Care
By Jason Sagall
October 17, 2011
On August 18, the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found the Affordable Care Act's mandatory insurance provision unconstitutional by a vote of 2-1. The dissenting judge, Stanley Marcus, while maintaining that the mandate for Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty is constitutional, went further to commend Congress for addressing the "substantial economic problem" of "cost shifting." . . . [ full article ]
Uncle Sam wants You! . . . To Inform on Your Doctor
By Richard E. Ralston
September 12, 2011
There was a bit of an uproar recently when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced, then withdrew, a plan to hire your fellow citizens to pose as patients seeking appointments with thousands of medical practices, using a script of false symptoms-alternately pretending to have private insurance and Medicare. . . . [ full article ]
Big Government or Death
By Richard E. Ralston
August 8, 2011
On many levels, Medicare is a fraud and a hoax. So it is no surprise that the current debate, and the way the debate is reported, is not about whether Medicare delivers medical care at all, let alone its availability or quality. Many politicians value Medicare exclusively as a weapon to be used to keep them in office. . . . [ full article ]
Equal Misery for All
By Richard E. Ralston
May 25, 2011
Americans benefit from the freest and most accessible medical care in the world. Gradually over the last fifty years, however, that care has become increasingly hampered by government controls. The last traces of free-market medicine could soon be gone — replaced by the brutal intrusion of arbitrary government power at both the state and federal levels. . . . [ full article ]
Why Illess Has Become a Crime
By Richard E. Ralston
April 26, 2011
Recently, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer received a lot of media attention when she proposed fines and other financial punishment for overweight citizens and smokers on Medicaid. Others targeted by such programs include diabetics who fail to follow instructions from their physicians on treatment of their diseases. Other states are headed in the same direction. . . . [ full article ]
A Waste of Good Medicine
By Richard E. Ralston
March 28, 2011
The movement to repeal President Obama's signature health care law rightly criticizes the accounting trickery in the legislation's understated costs and overstated savings. In fact, when in the last two centuries has the U.S. Congress been able to reduce, control or slow the growth of any government program? . . . [ full article ]
Repeal the Rights-Destroying Health Care Law
By Jason Sagall
February 28, 2011
The notion of a "right to health care" is the boldest and most fundamental claim offered in defense of Obamacare. Indeed, the law should be judged by whether it is consistent with the protection of rights. If the law cannot pass that test, the debate over it should end -- and it must be repealed as an unjust means of striving to satisfy other social, economic or political agendas. The House's "job-destroying" condemnations, or other specious arguments from consequences on either side of the debate, neither refute nor redeem the basis for the law. . . . [ full article ]
The War on the Constitution
By Richard E. Ralston
February 8, 2011
Challenges in court to the constitutionality of Obamacare have exposed the broader agenda of those who are committed to the permanent expansion of government power which that legislation represents. The specific legal issues are almost irrelevant because Obamacare is so clearly outside the scope of limited, constitutional government. This has made it necessary for the advocates of unrestrained government power to either attack the U.S. Constitution itself or the very concept of constitutional limits on the tyranny of the majority or of a ruthless minority elite. . . . [ full article ]
Obamacare: Worst of Intentions
By Jason Sagall
January 27, 2011
Democrats in the Senate warned in a recent letter to Speaker John Boehner that a repeal of Obamacare would have "unintended consequences."
Incomparably worse than unintended consequences of repealing the 2,600-page health care scheme will be the law's intended consequences, if it is allowed to stand. . . . [ full article ]
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