If You Blinked, You May Have Missed What Congress Just Passed | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

If You Blinked, You May Have Missed What Congress Just Passed | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In fact, the congressional Budget Office predicts that, despite passage of this bill, insurance premiums will double in the next few years. Worse, for the millions of Americans who get their insurance through the individual market, rather than from an employer, this bill will raise premiums by 10-13 percent more because of this bill.

Nor will we have achieved universal insurance coverage. It is predicted that the bill will eventually result in some 32 million more Americans becoming insured (still leaving some 21 million uninsured). But that wouldn't be achieved until at least 2019."

"Democrats did manage to frontload the bill with some changes that will take effect within the next few months, and are likely to prove popular. For example, the federal government will mail a $250 check to every senior in America. Now that may not have much to do with health care reform, but after all, there is an election coming up.

Beyond that, parents will be able to keep their children on their family insurance plan until those children reach age 26. Of course, that will not be free. Parents who do so can expect to pay higher premiums."

Kitty Rhodes - March 26

March 26: "Supporters of the provision claim that Congress has the authority to mandate insurance because of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. This is a very interesting argument due to the nature of the people who are being regulated. People who do not purchase health insurance are by definition not engaging in commerce. If someone is not engaging in commerce, the question becomes 'how can the federal government regulate it as commerce?'"

"if an adult child is added to a parents health insurance policy and is not a dependent, the health care benefits that child receives are considered taxable at the fair market value."

FOXNews.com - NASA Caught Paying Sky-High Prices for Snacks

FOXNews.com - NASA Caught Paying Sky-High Prices for Snacks: "The nation's space agency paid the out-of-this-world price of $66 a person a day for bagels, cookies and juice at a conference, a new report found.

The subject of the NASA conference? It was a training session for its procurement officials, the people who do the buying with taxpayer money.

During the three-day conference, the 317 attendees snacked on 'light refreshments' of soda, coffee, fruit, bagels and cookies at a cost of $62,611"

They Fly First Class - John Stossel

They Fly First Class - John Stossel: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, frequently sent employees overseas on first- or business-class airplane tickets that cost taxpayers up to $10,000 each..."

"Certainly the scolds at the Environmental Protection Agency wouldn't allow any kind of wasteful travel.

(EPA) Employees faced with supervisors who rejected travel requests could manipulate the electronic system to, in effect, approve their own travel. Because the agency's leadership did not bother to review travel spending, the requests were processed automatically.

Sweet. And why should the EPA's leadership review their staffers' travel spending? It's not their money; the money came from the suckers, er, taxpayers, many of whom ride buses and subways to work and skip vacations to save a few bucks."

Changing the Health Care Game | William Shipman | Cato Institute: Commentary

Changing the Health Care Game | William Shipman | Cato Institute: Commentary: "If America wishes to change this trajectory, it needs new and bold thinking. Here is one candidate: Repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (ratified Feb. 3, 1913) which gives Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, and replace it with an amendment that requires each state to remit to the federal government a certain percent of its tax revenue. This would change the game."

FOXNews.com - Private Guards Kill Somali Pirate for First Time

FOXNews.com - Private Guards Kill Somali Pirate for First Time: "Pirate attacks have not declined despite patrols by dozens of warships off the Somali coast. The amount of ocean to patrol is too vast to protect every ship and pirates have responded to the increased naval presence by moving attacks farther out to sea."

Why don't military ships escort the merchant ships in groups?

FOXNews.com - Eat Less Meat, Reduce Global Warming -- or Not

FOXNews.com - Eat Less Meat, Reduce Global Warming -- or Not: "In the report, the livestock emissions included gases produced by growing animal feed; animals' digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods. But the transportation analysis factored in only emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving, and not all other transport-lifecycle related factors.

'This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue,' he said."

Our Future under Obamacare | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Our Future under Obamacare | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Republicans won't really try to repeal it. Republicans will run this fall on a promise to repeal this deeply unpopular bill, and will likely reap the political advantages of that promise. But in reality there is little chance of their following through. Even if Republicans were to take both houses of Congress, they would still face a presidential veto and a Democratic filibuster.

But more important, once an entitlement is in place, it becomes virtually impossible to take away. The fact that Republicans have been criticizing Obamacare for cutting Medicare shows that they are not really willing to take the heat for cutting people's benefits once they have them — no matter how unaffordable those benefits are. Paul Ryan put forth a serious plan for entitlement reform — and attracted just six co-sponsors at last count. Enough said."

Innovation Best Alternative to Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

Innovation Best Alternative to Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Economist Glen Whitman and physician Raymond Raad found that, when it comes to basic medical sciences, diagnostics (e.g., MRIs and CT scanners), and therapeutics (e.g., ACE inhibitors and statins), the United States often produces more medical innovations than all other nations combined.

America's health insurance markets are not following suit, despite the ready availability of innovations that can improve the delivery of care, insure the 'young invincibles,' and provide secure coverage for the sick. Bringing those innovations to consumers requires tearing down regulatory barriers to competition"

"Yet these innovations lie beyond the reach of most consumers, Stanford health economist Alain Enthoven explains, because our employment-based health insurance system – a creature of the federal tax code – blocks entry by integrated, prepaid health plans."

"While the Obama plan would force young invincibles to purchase health insurance, markets have developed insurance policies that can achieve the same result without coercion. Such policies pay a deferred dividend to customers who end up not filing any claims. The same miscalculation that causes young invincibles to underestimate their need for insurance also causes them to overestimate the probability that they will receive a dividend. Therefore, they insure."

"these innovations are currently available in China, and were quite popular in life-insurance markets in the United States until they were demonized as a form of gambling."

Don't Confuse Health Care Reform with Public Health | George Avery | Cato Institute: Commentary

Don't Confuse Health Care Reform with Public Health | George Avery | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In fact, federal 'reform' often hurts the public health system. Both public health and health care experts have criticized Medicare and Medicaid, enacted by Congress in 1965, for changing the focus of health care practitioners from prevention to treatment. Infectious disease mortality rates rose 22 percent in the 1980s (even after discounting for AIDS deaths), despite rising public and private spending on health insurance and medical care. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine warned of a deteriorating public health system. Inadequate vaccine supplies, such as the recent shortages of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or influenza vaccines, are at least in part the result of federal attempts to control the production and distribution of the vaccines.

Requiring all Americans purchase health insurance, which the current bills hope to do, would not address the underlying socio-economic issues at the root of most public health problems. Income, social capital, employment status, and other factors have a stronger impact on population health than access to health care. People with more education and higher incomes are better able to avoid health risks."

"Indeed, access to health care can help individual patients, but can also aggravate some public health problems. Healthcare, like everything else in life, involves risk tradeoffs. Hospitals can help cure disease, but by their very nature can also help spread infections. Most of Toronto's 2002 SARS cases were infected, for example, were health care workers and visitors infected by exposure to the virus in a hospital. High rates of surgical intervention increase the risk and spread of drug resistant infections like MRSA."