Roundup of healthcare news and view

Panel sees race bias in health care bill: "The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says some little-noticed provisions in the House health care bill are racially discriminatory, and it intends to ask President Obama and Congress to rewrite sections that factor in race when awarding billions in contracts, scholarships and grants. The commission also fears the programs, which are designed to improve health care in underserved areas, will not be effective. In a draft of a letter the commission approved Friday, the group raises constitutional questions about giving preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships, and about favoring medical schools and organizations that have a record of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services."

Donk Congressmen in hiding: "Stung by howling protesters and losing ground in the public relations battle over health care, members of Congress this summer are ditching traditional town-hall meetings and using less confrontational methods of meeting constituents as they try to persuade a wary public to back the Democrats' overhaul plans. For Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Democrat, that meant holding court outside the King Soopers grocery store here Saturday behind a 6-foot wall of bottled water, blocked from view of roughly 400 voters in a parking lot. "He's in there hiding," said John Frantum of Denver, who opposes the proposed expansion of government-provided health care. "He should have been out here with a bullhorn once he saw the writing on the wall."

Healthcare crisis solved (with vouchers): “Democratic proposals to reform the American healthcare industry require too much faith in government while Republican proposals don’t solve the problem of the uninsured. The best known hybrid proposal, the Wyden-Bennett plan, overhauls the current insurance industry and solves the uninsured problem by mandating coverage. But as we have learned from Massachusetts’ experience, enforcing mandated coverage is very difficult. Americans deserve reform that deals with the three most important problems with American healthcare: (1) many people are uninsured, (2) those who have insurance worry that if they lose their job they might become locked out of the system because of a pre-existing condition, and (3) many people are frustrated with increasingly intrusive insurance companies that treat patients more like criminals than customers. … Any plan that doesn’t address these three problems is inadequate. Any plan that requires nationalizing healthcare is excessive and prone to failure.”

The market doesn’t ration health care: “When a person buys five apples in a grocery store rather than ten because he wishes to use the rest of his money for other purposes, it seems entirely wrong to say the market (or even the grocer) has rationed the apples. The customer makes his choice on the basis of his preferences and the money available (which is the result of previous transactions). It is true that as a result of market exchanges, goods and resources change hands and (except for land) locations. But in no sense is this rationing or allocation. The resulting arrangement of resources is simply a product of many transactions. Of course, people’s choices of what and what not to buy and sell at which prices create an arrangement of goods and resources that tends to be intelligible in terms of consumers’ subjective priorities. But that does not warrant calling the process rationing or allocation.”

Real health reform: "For most Americans, the shortfalls of our health care system express themselves in high costs (leading to the high number of uninsured), the instability of health coverage tied to employment, and the long-term fiscal nightmare of our Medicare and Medicaid entitlements. To begin to address costs, conservatives should stress some ways of combating the inefficiencies of the current system. Ending the tax penalty for purchasing health coverage outside the employer system would help build a genuine individual market in health insurance and encourage the informed consumer choices and provider competition essential to reining in costs. The Democrats are increasingly open to taxing employer health benefits to pay for their massive new entitlement. Republican reformers should instead propose to extend the benefit to everyone in the form of a refundable tax credit for individuals to enable the creation of a true private health insurance market.”

AARP suffers backlash over health “reform” stance: “Elected officials aren’t the only ones facing frustrated, angry crowds at healthcare town hall meetings. The senior advocacy group AARP is now coming under criticism from its own members for appearing to support President Obama’s healthcare reform plans. The internal debate is heating up as lawmakers prepare to enter what could be the final stretch in writing legislation, with just one committee left to vote on it. But just as constituents are giving their elected representatives a piece of their mind over the August recess, some seniors are starting to protest the AARP. Last week, AARP officials speaking at a forum in Dallas walked out after several seniors interrupted the meeting with critical questions and comments.”

Ten questions politicians won’t answer: “The past week’s debate about health care has shown that in Washington the only things more stubborn than facts are politicians who evade them. In spite of a torrent of independent analyses showing that the so-called health-care ‘reform’ bills moving through Congress will dramatically increase the deficit and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, the politicians leading the effort have steadfastly refused to consider that their ideas and policies, rather than the character of their critics, may be flawed. At the same time, the politicians writing the bill still refuse to answer basic questions about how it will be paid for and how it will affect patients.”

Obama’s latest health care weapon: A White House website: “The White House has rolled out its newest weapon in the cyberwars over health care: A website called ‘Reality Check.’ The White House says its site ‘focuses on what reform really means for you and your family, debunks some common myths along the way and provides you with online tools and content to share the facts with friends, family and anyone else in your social network.’”

The myth of free-market health care in America: "ObamaCare is in retreat. That much was clear the moment the president started springing B-grade Hollywood references to `blue pills and red pills' in its defense during his news conference last week. But before ObamaCare can be beaten back decisively, its critics need to answer this question: How did his plan for a government takeover of roughly a fifth of the U.S. economy get this far in the first place? The answer is not that Democrats have a lock on Washington right now - although they do. Nor that Republicans are intellectually bereft - although they are. The answer is that both ObamaCare's supporters and opponents believe that - unlike Europe - America has something called a free market health care system. So long as this myth holds sway, it will be exceedingly difficult to prescribe free market fixes to America's health care woes - or, conversely, end the lure of big government remedies."

Buy now, pay later: "Listen to liberal advocates of health-care reform and you'll hear two constant refrains: We must expand coverage to everyone, and we must control costs. Democrats tend to sell this as a package deal, a sort of political version of the Billie Mays pitch - but that's not all! And while they've put forth a number of plans that would expand coverage by varying degrees, the tacked-on bonus - as is the case with most info-mercials - is essentially a scam: Claims that the Democrats' current proposals will rein in health-care spending are sketchy at best. Nor is that surprising. Despite all the talk of cutting costs, the tacit plan, from the beginning, has been to pass reform by building a coalition that would collectively agree to give members whatever they wanted now, while cheerfully talking around the serious budgetary complications posed by universal coverage."

Perils of Obamacare: The three big lies: "The Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that the reform plans now being debated will increase overall health-care costs, yet President Obama on Friday repeatedly said that his reform would reduce costs and save Americans money. But no matter how many times he says it, the truth is you will pay more - much more - both in higher taxes and in higher premiums. The final health-care bill is expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That means much higher taxes, and not just for the wealthy."

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here