Healthcare

John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare – WSJ.com

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While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

Read the whole article here…  John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare – WSJ.com.

10 Facts About US Healthcare – Hoover Institution

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Many great facts about private vs public healthcare. Too bad Barry doesn’t read.

Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.

via Hoover Institution – Hoover Digest – Here’s a Second Opinion.

Pelosi’s Health-Care Payroll Tax Is a Tax on Labor – WSJ.com

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A new study by Sageworks, Inc., a financial consulting firm, runs the numbers on the income statements of actual companies. It looks at three types of firms with at least $5 million in sales: a retailer, a construction company and a small manufacturer. The companies each have total payroll of between $750,000 and $1 million a year. Assuming the firms absorb the cost of the payroll tax, their net profits fall by one-third on average. That is on top of the 45% income tax and surtax that many small business owners would pay as part of the House tax scheme, so the total reduction in some small business profits would climb to nearly 80%. These lower after-tax profits would mean fewer jobs.

To put it another way, the workers who will gain health insurance from ObamaCare will pay the steepest price for it in either a shrinking pay check, or no job at all.

via Pelosi’s Health-Care Payroll Tax Is a Tax on Labor – WSJ.com.

Support Slips for Health Plan – WSJ.com

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In the new poll, conducted July 24 to July 27, 42% called it a bad idea while 36% said it was a good idea.

Among those with insurance, the proportion calling the plan a bad idea rose to 47% from 37%.

The declining popularity of health-care overhaul appeared to be fueled by rising anxiety over the federal budget deficit and concerns over the role of government in determining personal medical decisions.

via Support Slips for Health Plan – WSJ.com.

Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care – WSJ.com

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The party of the left owns the White House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a 70-seat House majority. As one House Republican aide quipped: “We could have every GOP congressman and their parents vote against a Democratic bill, and still not stop it.” All Democrats have to do is agree on something.

You can’t blame the GOP when you own every Washington institution.

That they can’t is testimony to Team Obama’s mismanagement of its first big legislative project. The president is a skilled politician and orator, but the real test of a new administration is whether it can shepherd a high-stakes bill through Congress. In retrospect, the mistakes are growing clear.

via Strassel: How Obama Stumbled on Health Care – WSJ.com.

House healthcare talks break down in anger

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The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill.

“I’ve been lied to,” Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. “We have not had legitimate negotiations.

via TheHill.com.

Democrats’ New Worry: Their Own Rich Voters – WSJ.com

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A glimmer of hope…

A group of Democrats elected in recent years from some of the country’s richest congressional districts have emerged as a stumbling block to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama’s ambitious health-care overhaul just as the plan has begun to meet increasing resistance over its cost.

via Democrats’ New Worry: Their Own Rich Voters – WSJ.com.

A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com

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The level of anger should be rising. These clowns need to be out before this goes through. Call your senators.

Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.

via A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com.