March 10, 2017

With ‘Fatal Conceit,’ Speaker Paul Ryan Fails Insurance 101

It appears Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is deeply disturbed that insurance premiums paid by healthy people help offset the insurance costs of people who are sick. But that is exactly how health insurance works. In fact, it’s how all insurance works. It’s called spreading the risk. In any insurance pot, there is a minority segment who are higher risk, and these higher risk individuals rightfully pay higher premiums. But in addition to those high-risk premiums, the low-risk majority chips-in to cover the greater cost outlay to insure the high-risk minority.

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March 8, 2017

Republicans Cannot ‘Solve’ Health Care In Good Faith

Fiscal conservatism defines nearly all Republicans, even if decades of failed economic promises say otherwise, but the modern Republican Party is also a collective of combative factions. There are extreme social conservatives who often vote based on social wedge issues like abortion. There are moderate social conservatives who tend to go along with many social conservative positions, but who are primarily fiscal hawks. And there are extreme fiscal hawks who lean libertarian, and in many cases reject some of the more offensive tenets of social conservatism.

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February 13, 2017

Republicans Lost At Sea On Obamacare Repeal

Over the years, Republicans have voted for a variety of Obamacare repeal bills. This time last year the repeal count was over 60. These repeal votes were red meat for their rabid base, a dog and pony show for the rest. Because Republicans knew they had the cover of an Obama veto, they never had to do the hard work. Turns out this governing thing isn’t so easy when it really matters.

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January 17, 2017

GOP Won’t Put Forth A Better Healthcare Plan

You and I already know why it is not possible for Republicans to offer a healthcare plan better than Obamacare. Even if Republicans do eventually present a unified healthcare plan, and even if Republicans insist their plan is better than the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and even if you stubbornly continue to believe what Republicans say, Obamacare will still be better.

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November 15, 2014

It’s Not Good Enough To Simply Oppose Obamacare

It’s not good enough to simply oppose the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). If you are going to continue to complain about the health care law, then you need to offer an alternative. Because health care in the United States pre-Obamacare was unacceptable, and well, that’s not subjective, it’s reality. Because when tens of millions of Americans lack health care insurance, that is a problem, even if you don’t think it is.

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September 6, 2014

Paul Krugman: Medicare Spending Is Down Sharply

Since the mainstream media is mum, and even liberal MSNBC is mostly silent, I thought I’d share a little tidbit about health care spending. Over the last few years, overall health care spending has slowed dramatically, and now we find out Medicare is spending $1,000 less per beneficiary than originally projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Paul Krugman says this is a really big deal (and it would seem so based on that statistic alone), and he calls it the Medicare Miracle.

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