health care

So, something that makes me smile for a change.

Jacques Delacroix Culture, Current Events , , , ,

It’s a fact that I feel pain in several parts of my body, including in parts I did not know I had. One of the sources of pain is permanent shingles. I only mention this in the hope that it will trigger some of you to get vaccinated or to get their aging parents vaccinated.

So, anyway, recently, someone who ought to know (if you know what I mean) convinced me to try cannabis for my pains. So, I went to the specialized doctor (at least, I think he is a doctor). I gave him $100 and I came out with a medical marijuana card.

I went straight to the dispensary and purchased some cookies, of the kind my adviser had previously let me taste. The effect on my pain was almost miraculous. I felt none from about five pm until I went to bed around 10 pm.

Several things sill trouble me. First, I can’t find a dose small enough to avoid getting a little high, which I would like to avoid. Second, it makes me hungry (surprise!). Third, what if frequent use re-ignites my passions, what then? Fourth, I am really, really pissed off about the $100 because it looks like Californians just passed a recreational cannabis law.

My sage adviser is an excellent auto mechanic in his spare time. You write me, I will give you his name. That would be for mechanical services, of course.

A Free Market in Medical Services

Fred Foldvary Economics, Law, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are two directions for the reform of the U.S. medical services systems. One is towards welfare statism, the control of the medical system by the federal government, and the other is towards economic freedom, providing individuals and families a free choice in medical care.

Economic theory points to a pure free market providing the most productive and equitable economy and therefore medical services. Central planners lack the knowledge to efficiently allocate resources, and politics skews the outcome towards special interests.

Here are the reforms need to have a really free market in medical services: Continue reading →

National-Socialist Management Practices; No Obama Derangement Syndrome

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Liberty, Politics , , , ,

[Editor’s note: this essay first appeared on Dr. Delacroix’s blog, Facts Matter, on July 18 2009]

Quick update on health care on 7/20/09:

I have said before on this blog that there is something wrong with the way we deliver health care in America. It costs us twice more per capita than it costs Europeans and we die younger. That is true in spite of the fact that liberals lie a lot on the subject of health, especially, regarding the number of “uninsured.” The Republican Party missed that boat entirely and we are paying the price for it now.

The President’s insistence that bills must be passed before the August recess has only one explanation: He wants to avoid debate like the plague. Think it through. If our health care system is as bad as he says, it has been so for a long time and we can probably stand it for an additional three months, or six months , or a year. Decisiveness is not everything. (See below.)

After all, the President wants to dispose for the long run of 1/6th of our economy. Given the considerable slowdown in economic growth his other policies guarantee, given the aging of the population, it will soon be 1/5, or 20 % of the economy. There is nothing else like it. For comparison, national defense never took more than 5% since the Korean War.

Aside from anything I may believe about the influence of government on  effectiveness in health delivery, I am interested in the political consequences of the President’s plans, of all his plans. With health, he will make sure the government controls the economy to an unprecedented level. He is turning the US into a corporatist state. That’s another word for “fascist,” without the violent overtones. Continue reading →

A Glimmer of Freedom in Health Care

Warren Gibson Liberty

The politicians are bound and determined to seize total control of health care and damImagen the consequences.  And yet … And yet every so often a glimmer of a free market in health care appears like a weed pushing through a crack in the asphalt and bursting into bloom.

Here we have an inkling of a free market in medicine: an advertisement from a local paper featuring price, diversity of services, convenience and qualification (MD).  We mustn’t give up hope for health care freedom.

I had never heard of Dr. Marchasin but got a pleasant surprise when visiting his web site with links to his criticisms of Obamacare.

Around the Web: ObamaCare Edition (Part 2)

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Links , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is a lot of great stuff out there on the recent ruling. Here are a few I found interesting:

I think I’m done blogging about this whole mess…phlegh!

ObamaCare and the Long Game

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , ,

The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday has garnered a number of ideas for me. I’ll admit that I was a little bit shocked when I heard that ObamaCare had been upheld. The lawyers who argued against ObamaCare were very, very good ones, and the pummeling that they administered to the Obama administration’s lawyers was so thorough, I thought, that I wasn’t even sure that the court would split along the traditional 5-4 line.

Alas. You can read the whole thing here (and I encourage you to do so).

I wonder about Roberts’s political calculations here. What I think happened is that Roberts took a two-pronged approach to the issue. Instead of calling it a mandate, the court ruled that ObamaCare is tax. This is not going to bode well for the Obama administration’s upcoming campaign once the dust settles. The second line of attack is actually a defensive one: the SCOTUS already issued Citizens United in 2010 and if the SCOTUS had struck down ObamaCare a mere two years later the Left would have been electrified. Roberts is playing the long game.

ObamaCare is now actually seen for the huge tax increase that it is. If Republicans are smart (and they are, despite the Left’s attempts to portray them as otherwise), they’ll go after Obama on this, and they’ll go hard. ObamaCare is by no means permanent, either. The Congress could very well dismantle it before it takes effect in 2014.  Continue reading →

A Real Town Meeting in the People’s Green Republic of Santa Cruz

Jacques Delacroix Economics, Politics , , , , ,

Tuesday night, I took in, in person, two and a half hours of town hall meeting with the same congressman, Sam Farr, in my own town of Santa Cruz, this time. Now, it’s important to understand that Santa Cruz is, overall, a seventies throwback, left-liberal to communist anti-American. To give you an idea, on my long street, downtown, there are only three American flags, two of which belong to me. When I make conservative noises in public, in spite of my considerable expressive talents, people think I am kidding.

I went to the meeting with my wife, under my own power. The only prompt I got is that one local radio station gave the time and place of the meeting on the air. It did so several times. It’s seen as a conservative station. (Full disclosure: I [used to] have a talk-show program on that station, KSCO 1080 AM, every Sunday 11AM-1PM.) Rush Limbaugh did not send me. The local Republican Party was pathetically absent in every respect. If there was any conservative or right-wing organization present, it escaped my attention and I was looking for one. There were no right-wing thugs in sight, with the possible exception of myself, and especially, my wife, Krishna. My wife is in very good shape indeed but, she is slight of built. She has never really divulged her age too me but her hair is all white. The only humans she has ever physically threatened were our children, when they were teenagers, and me, of course. I can’t tell you why she threatened me because I don’t like to brag.

I insist on the unorganized nature of the event in a spirit of helpfulness. The main problem most Democrats, including Congressman Farr and including the President face, is that they cannot conceive of a genuine grass-root movement of revulsion. George Beck, the Fox News-appointed liberal, of all things, said on television that he does not believe that the opposition to Obamacare is “spontaneous.” He is not a dumb man. He is associated in some fashion with George Washington University. I have heard him before and never caught him even in a white lie. Those people can’t conceive of spontaneous political action because it seldom happens on their side. Instead, they rely on tax-subsidized ACORN, and on a variety of radical front organizations.  Continue reading →