In the real world, rational people know that companies will stop selling products if they are forced to lose money. In the political world, though, common sense doesn’t matter. Or at least it ranks far below other considerations, such as power, polling, fundraising, and spite. If you think I’m being too harsh, just look at what’s […]

Consider this a prelude to Obamacare: Tens of thousands of Texas children will be directly affected by the 11th-hour decision of a number of major health insurance companies to stop selling child-only policies rather than comply with the new federal law that requires they cover youngsters with pre-existing conditions. …Spokespersons for Aetna and Cigna said […]

Here’s some horrifying news from the United Kingdom, where the government-run healthcare system allowed 239 patients to die of malnutrition in 2007. Another 8,000-plus entered the system for malnutrition and actually deteriorated. In 2007, 239 patients died of malnutrition in British hospitals, the latest year for which figures are available. A wag might say it […]

John Goodman of the NCPA has a great article about how the current healthcare system is heavily distorted by government policies that result in people making decision with other people’s money (or at least what they perceive as other people’s money). The excerpt below is a good summary of John’s key points, but I’ll add […]

I believe in freedom and my opinions are never swayed by polling data and election results, but I’m not oblivious to the importance of public opinion. So I’m delighted that the voters of Missouri overwhelmingly approved a measure against a federal mandate to purchase health insurance. Here are the cheerful details. Missouri voters on Tuesday […]

Somebody sent me this story from the Drudge Report and can’t resist the temptation to share. What really astounds me is not that a Swedish man sewed up his own leg after waiting for a long time in a hospital. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if things like that happened in all nations. The really disturbing […]

While the cartoon is amusing, I’m sure I don’t need to remind this audience that this isn’t really a joke. The IRS now has immense additional powers to micro-manage our lives.

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the Congressional Budget Office follows a predictable pattern of endorsing policies that result in bigger government. During the debate about the so-called stimulus, for instance, CBO said more spending and higher deficits would be good for the economy. It then followed up that analysis by claiming that the faux […]

Free markets are characterized by voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers. Mapping that relationship is absurdly simply, as this image indicates. Indeed, the only reason I even bothered to include that image was for purposes of comparison. Here is a new flowchart prepared for the Joint Economic Committee showing the healthcare system under Obamacare.It’s worth […]

While it will be nice to say “I told you so” when Obamacare leads to bad results in America, I would much prefer to avoid having stories like this appear in the American press. But in the United Kingdom, where government controls more than 90 percent of the healthcare system (as opposed to my rough […]