Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page points out that remaining “deficit neutral” — a demand Obama has made of healthcare reform proposals — is likely to be “achieved” through massive context-dropping. How? Max Baucus’s bill plans to keep costs down for the federal government — by forcing costs onto the states through an enforced expansion of Medicaid.

So, states would have a decreased ability to dictate what services Medicaid must Read more

I’m rereading Gen LaGreca’s novel, Noble Vision, for the umpteenth time. In all this talk of healthcare “reform,” I desperately needed the vision of the kind of doctor who succeeds in a free system — and the kind of health care we could enjoy if we had one.

Here’s one of my favorite excerpts:

He’d never understood why people said that doctors should derive no selfish reward from the care they provide. He felt the most glorious Read more

I’m already fed up with New York City spending my tax dollars on anti-smoking advertising and those annoying banners all over the city that say “Start walking.” But I didn’t know about this: Thomas Farley, the new city health commissioner, not only wants to ban smoking in public parks (one of the few places smokers have left to go), he wants to make us take the stairs.

Oh, it’s not being couched in terms of “make us.” It’s all about “encouragement” Read more

A column in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “Does This Pencil Skirt Have an App?” reminded me: It’s time to brag!

The author talks about her experience with Lose It!, an iPhone app that tallies your calories in and out, gives you a daily budget, and charts your progress to weight-loss goals.

I can only say good things about Lose It! As I mentioned earlier this year, I’ve been using the app myself. Well, now I can say it’s Read more

…think twice.

Lots of people think we need the FDA for the same reason they think we need an SEC and a myriad of other regulatory agencies — because businessmen are corrupt and would steal our money, sell us unsafe goods, and otherwise trample consumers on their way to making a quick buck. So we need regulatory agencies — staffed with government employees who are supposed to be immune to third-party influence — to keep such predatory Read more

In his healthcare speech to Congress, President Obama attempted to pigeonhole his opponents as those who would do nothing to reform health care in America. He claims to want to listen to anyone who has a viable proposal. But by “viable proposal,” he means “proposal that involves increased government control” and “sticking it to insurance companies/pharmaceutical companies/whoever is the victim du jour.”

Obama is succeeding in creating a Read more

Raise your hand if you’ve seen this as the Facebook status of at least one person you know:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

The implication, of course, is that you want people to die or go broke if you don’t support liberal healthcare “reform.”

To those who have blithely Read more

Here’s one that I hear a lot: “We’re the richest country in the world, yet we don’t provide health care for all of our citizens. That’s unconscionable!”

Embedded in the “That’s unconscionable!” part of the argument is an implicit statement that health care is a right. But a right for whom? For Americans? Why Americans? Why not Mauritanians, Serbians, Cambodians, and so on and so forth? If “health care is a right” is taken to its logical Read more

Welcome to Objectivist Roundup #114! These are articles written by bloggers who embrace Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. As Rand herself put it:
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”About the Author,” Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Lots of posts this week, so Read more

The left, unfortunately, has mastered the catchy little smear term. How many times have you heard, “Wingnuts say the government shouldn’t be involved in health care at all!” or “Those teabaggers think we can’t afford reform!” Everyone involved in the conversation is then supposed to laugh derisively, because of course wingnuts and teabaggers are crazy, and couldn’t possibly have anything worthwhile to say.

This is a coward’s “argument.” Read more