November 8, 2010
Last week’s news seemed to be dominated by post-election assessments of what it will all mean, and I was fortunate enough to get invited to put my two cents in. Last Thursday evening, I appeared on the PBS NewsHour (along with Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA and Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs) to...
November 3, 2010
It’s important to start with the obvious: Yesterday marked the end of the hyper-activist phase of the Obama administration, and that’s no small matter. Republicans picked up an astounding 60+ seats in the House and now enjoy their largest working majority in decades. Moreover, the House will be quite conservative, with scores...
October 27, 2010
As Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks have already noted, this campaign season has been marked by an unusual degree of Democratic self-delusion. Everything is to be blamed for the current plight of the party except its elected leaders and the policies they have pursued while in office. Thus, the reason Democrats are headed for an...
October 20, 2010
In a new piece for National Review Online, I argue that the new legislators that November’s election will bring to Washington must not, amidst all their other priorities, lose sight of the need to repeal and replace Obamacare: Because the hard truth is that the proponents of a supersized welfare state believe they have...
October 12, 2010
I have a new article at Kaiser Health News on the efforts of Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama administration to shift attention in the health care debate to private insurance companies as antagonists: On Sept. 9, [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] sent a letter to the trade group representing the nation’s health...
October 12, 2010
I have another new article up, at ObamaCareWatch, on how the regulatory tangles brought about by the health care law are already becoming apparent: [A]fter just six months of implementation, it’s clear that even ObamaCare’s fiercest critics underestimated just how badly and how quickly the new law would distort...
September 28, 2010
During the long national debate over the future of American health care, President Obama frequently chastised his opponents for launching exaggerated attacks on his plan for “reform.” He took particular exception to the criticism that the changes he was pushing amounted to a government takeover of the whole health sector. He...
September 28, 2010
I was asked by the New York Times to participate in another of its online “Room for Debate” exchanges. Here’s what I submitted: The Obama administration and its allies are trying to create the political perception that the mandated coverage provisions that are going into effect this year will take the steam out of the...
September 23, 2010
David Brooks’s critique of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Arthur Brooks and Congressman Paul Ryan served its intended purpose. It’s gotten the right people talking, and thinking, and that’s as it should be when those currently out of power have a very real shot at participating in governing again. The back...
September 16, 2010
The Obama administration has been trying since March to convince America’s seniors that the new health care law will be good for them. The Department of Health and Human Services has distributed a mailer to all Medicare beneficiaries touting the supposed benefits of the new law for the retired and disabled. Similarly, HHS also...