Category Archives: Healthcare

Ann's Health-Care Plan

Ann Coulter, Free Markets, Healthcare, Liberty

ANN COULTER has a 1-page health-care plan she is practically begging Republicans to steal. Sadly, they are too statist and chicken to stand by freedom. When she’s good Ms. Coulter is very very good (and funny as no other mainstream columnist is):

“We can’t have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they’d make insurers compete.

The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.

That’s the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.

President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn’t afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she’s got cancer.

Much as I admire Obama’s use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio’s state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things.

It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics – you know, things like cancer.

The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.

Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.

Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms “Harry Reid” and “Viagra” in the same sentence. I promise that won’t happen again.)

My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by Obamacare – and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.

For example, in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding “pre-existing conditions.”

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse new customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire.

That isn’t an “insurance company”; it’s what’s known as a “Christian charity.” …

The complete column is “My health-care plan.” Read it on WND.COM, where you can read my take tonight on the latest developments. Title: “Heeere’s Health-Scare.”

Update II: Waiting For The Weasel Vote (Baier Badgers Barack)

Democracy, Democrats, Healthcare, Media, Regulation, Republicans

“A procedural sleight of hand,” the Washington Post calls Pelosi’s putative plan to pass her hulking healthcare bill without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

This is not unusual; Republicans have resorted to “deem and pass” in the past, but will now make a big fuss, I hope. However, let this country not be lauded, as it often is, by the pundit peanut gallery for the great democracy it is. It is well-accepted that in a democracy the minority is thwarted. Less accepted is the fact that democracy bypasses the majority as well.

Update I: Via Glenn Beck a chart depicting the bypassing of democracy discussed in this post:

Update II (March 17): BAIER BADGERS BARACK. Bret has to be saluted for his valiant efforts to get this smooth operator of a president to answer a question instead of mouth agitprop, in this exclusive FoxNews interview. It’s worth watching Baier at work. He’s good. But, of course, the top propagandist had the upper hand in the end.

Devastating New Poll For Swing-State Dems About Obamacare

Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Government, Healthcare

Writes Robert Bidinotto:

This critical Wall Street Journal article may turn the tide on the ObamaCare vote:

The central argument used by Team Obama to line up wavering congressional Dem support for ObamaCare is: ‘You’ll pay a heavier price in November if we fail to pass ObamaCare, than if you vote for it.'”

This poll proves that this claim is a big lie. It’s the first survey to demonstrate conclusively that swing-district Democrats will pay a heavier price at the polls in November if they vote YES for ObamaCare, than if they vote NO. In fact, if they vote against it, voters are significantly more likely to cut them slack in the next election.

From the poll:

“Sixty percent of the voters surveyed will vote for a candidate who opposes the current [health-care] legislation and wants to start over.” But “the survey does provide a little good news for wavering Democrats. A congressman can buy himself a little grace if he had previously voted for health-care reform but now votes against it. Forty-nine percent of voters will feel more supportive of that member if he does so, 40% less supportive. More dramatically, 58% of voters say they will be more supportive of their congressman’s re-election if he votes against the bill a second time. However, for those members who voted against it in November and vote yes this time, 61% of voters say they will be less likely to support their re-election. Over a third of respondents say they will actively work against a candidate who votes the wrong way or for the candidate who votes the right way.”

[SNIP]

Bidinotto thinks “that it is critical that this survey receive the widest possible attention, especially among swing-district congressmen.” He has a request: “Please link to it on your websites and forward this message to others, including your representative. It may just tip the balance in the vote this week.”

I hope so.

Updated: Here Comes Healthcare (Beating Back The Beast)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Healthcare, Regulation, Republicans

How interesting that among the health-care-overall “ideas” coming from the Right, Obama is eager to consider the use of “undercover investigators” “to fight waste and fraud in federal health programs.” [WSJ]

Looking to push the “long and wrenching debate” over health care into its final stages, President Barack Obama asked lawmakers to schedule a vote on overhaul legislation “in the next few weeks.”

“No matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in remarks at the White House. “We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades.”
President Obama outlines his three-part proposal for health care reform in an address at the White House.
The president called for an “up-or-down vote,” likely opening the way for Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process to pass the legislation without Republican support.

The White House’s plan purports to expand health insurance to about 31 million Americans and is estimated to cost $950 billion over a decade. [For a realistic appraisal of the uninsured read “Destroying Healthcare For The Few Uninsured.”]

Curious too is BO’s support for reconciliation in passing his hulking health care bill. Reconciliation “is a procedure that allows the Senate to pass a bill with a simple majority, without needing 60 votes to override a filibuster.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have abused the procedure originated by a man I have great respect for: the elderly, ailing Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Last year Byrd issued this warning:

“I oppose using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform and climate change legislation…. As one of the authors of the reconciliation process, I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose.”

“But there is a big catch: Anything that is in a budget bill has to have a budget purpose. If not, the provision can be challenged under the ‘Byrd rule,’ named for Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat.” [WSJ]

The president, as has been observed, is avoiding the use of the term reconciliation, instead calling for a simple ‘up or down vote.'” Big Daddy has emphasized his urge to come between Americans and the horrible health care insurance industry.

For their part, the Republicans did not want their ideas incorporated into the Bill. “Instead of passing a sweeping bill, Republicans say Congress should pass incremental legislation to curb medical malpractice lawsuits, allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and create high-risk pools for sick consumers to obtain coverage. They point to a House bill they unveiled last year with these provisions.” [WSJ]

Updated (March 4): Via the Campaign For Liberty:

“In the Virginia House of Delegates with a bipartisan vote of 70–29 (and currently advocating for its passage in the Senate), VA C4L has been closely working with state legislators to pass legislation nullifying any federal health insurance mandate and shielding Virginians from paying any penalties for not purchasing federally-approved health care.

SB 417, the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act, passed in February with wide bipartisan support, and Governor McDonnell is expected to sign the legislation soon. Meanwhile, newly-elected pro-liberty Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is reportedly chomping at the bit to litigate Virginia’s sovereign rights should Washington pass some form of ObamaCare.

In Arizona, HCR 2014, the Health Care Freedom Act, passed the Arizona Legislature in 2009 and will be on the November 2010 ballot.

On February 17, C4L Vice President of Programs Matt Hawes appeared before the Maryland State Senate Finance Committee to testify on behalf of SB 397, the Health Care Freedom Act of 2010.

As Matt told the Committee, ‘SB 397 will help contribute to this renewed national discussion over the proper role of government in our lives and, more directly, it may help keep the federal government from continuing to expand its unconstitutional health care agenda. It is not only within the power of the sovereign state of Maryland, but it is its duty to stand between its people and an overreaching federal government.”’