According to The New York Times article “Silver-Spoon Socialists,” there are legions of young people who want to use their trust fund money to destroy the very system that made their trust fund possible: capitalism. The Democratic Socialists of America has recently been transformed from a fringe group of older leftists to a national organization 100,000 strong – with most of its members under 35 years of age – according to the article.
Avik Roy’s think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), has produced a health reform proposal that has been introduced as a bipartisan bill in Congress. There is a lot of overlap with proposals you will find in the document (endorsed by more thatn 70 representatives of think tanks and public policy organization) and many of these ideas are being implemented buy the Trump administration.
Until recently, every patient with the coronavirus in the United States for the past ten months has been treated with a non-approved drug. What allows doctors to do this? They have always been able to do it.
In medicine, the use of non-approved drugs is ubiquitous. In fact, medical science couldn’t progress without it. In treating a patient with a brand-new condition (like Covid), for example, doctors often experiment with drugs that have worked for related conditions. They compare notes. They trade data on outcomes. They discard less-promising therapies for more promising therapies – in a trial and error process.
Writing at National Review, Marie Fishpaw (Heritage Foundation) and John Goodman say that little noticed health policy changes are revolutionizing the health care system. These are changes that are almost never mentioned in the mainstream media, are largely ignored by the heath care media and are rarely mentioned by the candidates themselves – including the President and the Vice President. They include virtual medicine, allowing employees to have around the clock primary care from a doctor of their choice and allowing employees to obtain individually owned health insurance with employer money.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden and other Democrats have proposed creating a government-run plan to compete with private insurers in the (Obamacare) health insurance exchanges. They say the result will be lower premiums. Yet writing at National Review, Ed Haislmaier and John Goodman say there are several public options” available already in some exchanges and they are not saving consumers any money. Similar to public options, 23 health insurance cooperatives were created under Obamacare, and supported with government subsidies. Of those 23 co-ops, only four still survive — a 79 percent failure rate.
The best position on pre-existing conditions is not to argue that the problem is small, although it certainly is, writes John Goodman at Forbes. Our argument should be that many – perhaps most – people who come to the individual market with a pre-existing condition are worse off because of Obamacare than they would have been under the old system. And that there is a conservative approach that is much better.
There are a surprising number of illiberal proposals, including health insurance subsidies, Medicare enrollment for seniors who are wealthy and already insured, two years of free college – subsidizing the single greatest cause of income inequality. “The puzzle in all this is, Why? Why impose a whole slew of new taxes on the rich and then turn around and give them a whole slew of new benefits?”
Former Congresswoman Nan Hayworth, Newt Gingrich and I discuss healthcare in the next election and beyond. Newt has always been an outlier among Republican politicians when it comes to the topic of health care – aggressively searching for solutions instead of avoiding the subject. Watch my virtual briefing on Healthcare & the 2020 Election w/Newt Gingrich.
With paper-strip tests, Americans could test themselves every day in their own homes, at a cost of $1 to $2 per test. The government could even make the tests available for free. Unlike lengthy swabs and finger prick tests (which cause personal discomfort), paper strip testing involves no more than spitting into a tube or the use of a short nasal swab – with results in a few minutes. By contrast, the standard PCR test currently being used costs from $50 to $100 and sometimes more. Results can take more than a week – and that makes them virtually useless. Also, testing tends to be a one-time, irregular event.
Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish short-term, limited-benefit insurance, but that insurance is on the rise because people want it. Democrats complain that today’s short-term plans don’t cover services people might need. “What if you get sick and need expensive drugs?” they might ask. The answer is: you drop your short-term plan and enroll in an Obamacare plan.