Allocation and Rationing

Republican Congressman-Elect: Obamacare Rationing Is Being Hidden From The Public
Over the holiday, when the nation was busy with friends, family and celebration, the Obama Administration quietly broke news of a new Regulation to implement a part of ObamaCare that Congress specifically did not authorize. Specifically, a provision that would have the government paying doctors to convince patients not to seek extraordinary end-of-life treatment. “The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it,” said Democrat Rep. Blumenauer from Oregon. Now Con...

Federal Government Manages Finances So Badly They Cant Be Audited
The U.S. Government Accountability Office said it could not render an opinion on the 2010 consolidated Financial Statements of the Federal Government, because of widespread material Internal Control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations. “Even though significant progress has been made since the enactment of key financial management reforms in the 1990s, our report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statement illustrates that much work remains to be...

Twitter roundup
BrendanNyhan Dec 28, 2010 at 1:01pm As predicted (https://j.mp/c9Fe3v), overemphasis on Obama staff as cause of/solution to structural political problems https://j.mp/gYxThi Blaming staff for structural problems - Brendan Nyhan Back in January, I predicted a rash of process-based explanations of President Obama's declining political fortunes in 2010: During the next eleven months, it will become increasingly obvious th... Obama's insular White House worries his allies - latimes.com Bren...

Democrats Seek Alternative to "ObamaCare"
According to Kaiser Health News, Democrats have reached Stage Eight of the Seven Stages of Legislative Grief: Rebranding. Because no matter how unpopular your Legislation is, it's nothing that can't be cured by coming up with a better name. Democratic pollsters concede that there is a problem. "We do need a common narrative that includes a name," said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners. "When Obama's job performance improves, it will be fine to call it ObamaCare. Now, it is polari...

The future of health care in the Tampa Bay Area
Beginning on January 1, 2011 the effects of the initial policy implementations of the Health Care Reform Act will be felt by both physicians and their patients. In speaking with family physicians, general practitioners and specialists in the Tampa Bay area, many have decided that they will retire or find another job prior to January 1, 2013, when they must begin to confer with the government in deciding your care or course of treatment. With over thirty million people being added to the health c...

Why Do People Oppose the Health-Care Law?
A CNN poll published Monday finds that the majority of those surveyed oppose the health-care overhaul passed by Congress this year -- but that only some of them do so because of an opposition to the government taking a greater role in regulating the market. Reports CNN: Overall, 54 percent oppose the law, down five points from March, with 43 percent in favor of the measure, up four points from earlier this year. But here's the critical fine print: roughly a quarter of those who oppose the new l...

Branstad criticizes free health coverage
The next Governor of Iowa suggests that one way the state can cut looming Deficits is sharing Health Care Insurance costs with more State Employees. Gov.-elect Terry Branstad says the state needs a "lifestyle change" in the way it provides salaries and benefits to its employees. At a Budget briefing Monday, Branstad said the 10,000 state employees who don't add family members to their health plans get that Insurance for free. He says that's too costly for Iowa and says "it's only fair and reason...

GCP Capital Partners Announces Investment in ClearView Risk Holdings, LLC
NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- GCP Capital Partners LLC ("GCP") announced today the completion of a $23 million investment to purchase a controlling interest in ClearView Risk Holdings, LLC, whose principal subsidiary is Southwest Risk, LP, a Dallas-based wholesale Insurance broker that specializes in certain property and casualty coverages, including Real Estate and construction risks.   Southwest Risk will change its name to ClearView Risk where Bryan Wilburn, founder and Chief E...

CNN Poll Finds Only 38% Support for Obamacare Mandate
If President Obama and Democrats could strip the Individual Mandate from ObamaCare, support for it would rise significantly. Of course, they can't do that without removing provisions of the bill that actually are popular. If you eliminate the mandate, you have to allow consideration of Pre-existing Conditions. Imagine how much automotive Insurance would cost if you weren't required to buy it, but could purchase it after a wreck and have your Insurance company pay the bills. The entire law is fat...

Its the Politicians: Microfinance in India Continues to Take an Unfair Beating
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India have been taking a serious beating recently. The threats and actions of politicians are so bad that they threaten the future of the industry in the country, and the primary reason is microfinance’s success. MFIs are working wonders to help people pull themselves out of Poverty. Foreign aid has a bad track record over the past decades of being largely unsuccessful in alleviating Poverty. MFIs have shown that there are alternatives to government-driven...

End-of-life counseling part of new Medicare policy
The New York Times reported over the weekend that a provision of Health Care reform Legislation that was abandoned after it became the focus of conservative outrage is making a return, this time as part of a new policy outlined in a Medicare Regulation. Voluntary counseling on end-of-life decisions was attacked by conservative pundits and politicians throughout the debate over Health Care reform, eventually labeled as “Death Panels.” The service would require Medicare to pay for end-...

North Carolina editorial roundup
If you're over 65 and want to consult with your doctor about which life-prolonging medical treatments you'd want or not want if you were incapacitated and dying, should Medicare pay your doctor for offering that medical advice? If you've ever watched a spouse, son or daughter struggle with decisions about what an aging, comatose or terminally ill patient would want — feeding tube? ventilator? resuscitation? — then you know the importance of the patient himself or herself thinking thr...

Today in Capitalism
Has anyone else noticed that every other ad on Cable Television these days is for Medicare Advantage plans? I guess “ObamaCare” didn’t kill Medicare Advantage after all. I also noticed a news story about a company called High Road Capital, which seems to be in the business of buying things, snapping up a whole lot of Health Care businesses. Private Equity firms have snapped up many companies that provide medical billing, coding and document processing this year in an effort ...

Top Ten Heritage Papers of 2010
Yesterday, we posted the Top Ten Heritage Charts of 2010. Today we bring you the Top Ten Heritage Papers of 2010. This list combines all non-multimedia publications including WebMemos, Backgrounders, Center for Data Analysis Reports, Legal Memorandums, and White Papers. The papers are sorted by pageviews with the 10th most popular chart on top, and the most popular chart at the bottom. 10. Why is America Exceptional? 9. Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the ...

Backdoor Death Panels?
When the Health Care overhaul was stumbling its way through Congress early this year, Sarah Palin was excoriated by Democrats for suggesting that the nascent law included “Death Panels” for the elderly in order to save costs of treating the oldest and Most Expensive patients. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Palin wrote that Obama had asked Congress to create an independent Medicare Advisory Council--an unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. She p...

Paul Krugman the Scrooge
Oh, there’s nothing better than the Syracuse Post Standard to spread a little Christmas cheer. This morning after the gifts were unwrapped I found myself with an hour or so to spare while the Children built their little Lego® houses. I settled down to relax and read the Christmas edition of the morning newspaper before cooking breakfast. The opinion section contained columns by Cal Thomas and Michael Gerson that were totally appropriate for this holy day. Ah, but we cannot enjoy Christm...

Sneaking end-of-life consultations into Obamacare
Jae C. Hon/AP Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made the term"Death Panels"famous during the debate over ObamaCare last year. A new Regulation has revived the debate. During the debate over ObamaCare last year, Controversy erupted over a Medicare provision related to end-of-life consultations with doctors. Following well-publicized criticism from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin concerning government "death panels," the provision was promptly dropped. But now the New York Times reports that it has be...

Obama Brings Back End of Life Counseling
When it was discovered that ObamaCare included funding for end of life counseling, Controversy erupted and that language had to be stripped from the bill Obama eventually signed. So, how is it that end of life counseling is now being funded by the Federal Government? Through Regulation, of course. The New York Times reported that this is the way President Obama will operate for the next two years. The final version of the Health Care Legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, a...

The public employe wage bubble
Image via Wikipedia IBD: A guest on Fox Business Network said last week that Public Employee Unions are bankrupting State Governments. Isn't it time that legislators outlaw Collective Bargaining for public-sector workers? Working for the government as a member of a union is an easy path to prosperity. On average, the yearly compensation for a Public Sector worker is, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data, $67,812. In the Private Sector, that average is $59,909. Put another way, when me...

The Mandate Is Obamacare's Achilles Heel
When the first challenges to the Health Care mandate were brought, the legal theories were dismissed as frivolous. Despite numbers showing a majority against the mandate, few believed the mandate could be overturned, and the numbers had stagnated. Then earlier this month a judge in Virginia held the mandate to be Unconstitutional. Despite two contrary decisions by other judges in other cases, the Virginia holding was monumental because for the first time people began to believe. And the numbers...

The Faults of Fractional-Reserve Banking
In a November 1, 2010, blog post titled "Could the World Go Back to the Gold Standard?," Martin Wolf, the Financial Times chief economics commentator, comes to the conclusion that "we cannot and will not go back to the gold standard." Among a number of mainstream-economics arguments leveled against the desirability and feasibility of the gold standard, Mr. Wolf puts forth a line of reasoning that can serve particularly well as a starting point for debating his position. Mr. Wolf writes, Econom...

Private Sector Building The Public Wifi Networks The Government Couldnt
A couple of years ago municipal wifi systems were all the rage with communities around the country considering implementing it as a sort of city utility. Those plans failed, no doubt because so many of America’s cities and states are bordering on Bankruptcy (and thank goodness as the government at any level has no business being an Internet service provider for a lot of excellent reasons), but I note with interest that just because the government isn’t building those networks doesn&#...

Doctor sex misconduct cases monitored in secrecy
A private program that has long kept secret watch over Illinois doctors receiving substance-abuse treatment is now monitoring Health Care professionals with sexual misconduct violations -- including some convicted of Crimes. Begun several decades ago by the state's doctors' lobby, the Illinois Professionals Health Program has drawn criticism for the off-the-books nature of its work and its lack of accountability. That it has expanded its reach to sex-offending health workers has heightened the...

60% oppose individual mandate
Public opinion has gone against ObamaCare for some time now, but a new survey shows almost two-thirds of Americans are opposed to the Individual Mandate, the centerpiece of the president’s Health Care “reform” law: As a crucial component of the nation’s new Health Care law requiring all Americans to buy Insurance faces an uncertain fate in Federal Courts, a new National Poll indicates that a majority of Americans oppose that provision in the bill Congress passed earlier t...

Tuesday Open Thread
Good Morning. As you go through your day, don’t forget JJP. Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too. And always, have a peaceful day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. House Republicans are turning to old friends on K Street to lead their legislative attempts to Repeal the new Health Care law. Three recently hired Republican aides — two set to work in senior position...