Health Care

Republicans for All

by Laurence M. Vance October 20, 2017

Last month, self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released his Medicare for All plan. Said Sanders, Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege. Every man, woman and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need regardless of their income. The only long-term solution to America’s health care crisis ...

The Libertarian Angle: Libertarianism and Healthcare

by Future of Freedom Foundation July 25, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss the recent debate over universal healthcare. Go to the podcast.

Repealing Obamacare Is Not Enough

by Laurence M. Vance April 7, 2017

Republicare is dead; Obamacare yet lives. The Republican bill to replace Obamacare — the American Health Care Act (AHCA), better known as Republicare — was withdrawn after the House Republican leadership realized that they did not have enough Republican votes to pass it. Too many Republicans wanted a simple bill to repeal Obamacare and not replace it with ...

Obamacare Reform and Paternalism’s Pratfalls

by James Bovard April 1, 2017

One of Donald Trump’s first actions as president was to issue an executive order to reduce the regulatory burden of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare has been intensely controversial since it was enacted in 2010. The battle over its reform or replacement will very likely continue for most of this year, if not most of Trump’s term in office. ...

The Right to Try to Live

by George Leef November 1, 2016

The Right to Try: How the Federal Government Prevents Americans from Getting the Lifesaving Treatments They Need by Darcy Olsen (HarperCollins, 2015); 311 pages. The highly acclaimed 2013 movie Dallas Buyers Club told the story of Ron Woodroof, who tried desperately to get drugs that might help arrest Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome back in the mid 1980s. ...

The Libertarian Angle: Obamacare in Crisis

by Future of Freedom Foundation August 31, 2016

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss the disaster that is Obamacare. Go to the podcast.

The Failure of the Americans with Disabilities Act

by James Bovard October 1, 2015

The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted 25 years ago. It promised a brave new era of equality and freedom. Instead, it has spawned endless lawsuits and absurd federal decrees while harming some of the people it sought to relieve. The original law was badly drafted and subsequent amendments and administrative decrees have made it far worse. The 1990 ADA ...

Why Are Republicans So Upset about Obamacare?

by Laurence M. Vance September 3, 2015

Although Republicans have talked incessantly about repealing Obamacare since the day it became the law of the land, they were for Republican versions of it before they were against it. They are for Republican versions of it right now. And they wholeheartedly support government intervention into the health-care and health-insurance industries that are even worse. In the recent Supreme Court ...

Happy Birthday Medicare and Medicaid?

by Laurence M. Vance July 27, 2015

On July 30, 1965 — fifty years ago —Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendments of 1965 that created two new government programs. Added to the Social Security Act of 1935 was Title XVIII, Medicare, and Title XIX, Medicaid. They were the nation’s first public health-insurance programs. Medicare is government-funded health care for Americans 65 years old and ...

Obamacare Racketeering and Intellectual Knavery

by James Bovard February 1, 2015

Paternalism is a desperate gamble that lying politicians will honestly care for those who fall under their power. This axiom has been made stark with the controversy arising from a video of Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare, in which he admits that the administration conned the American public and blames dumb voters for the flimflam. Gruber, an ...

The Libertarian Angle: Obamacare, Contraceptives, and Immigrant Children

by Future of Freedom Foundation July 7, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the Hobby Lobby ruling and the influx of immigrant children on the southern border. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

TGIF: Dump the Contraception Mandate and All the Rest

by Sheldon Richman January 3, 2014

“Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.” —Oscar Wilde In the wacky world of American politics, if you as an employer have a religious objection to paying for your employees’ contraceptives, you are the one contemptuous of religious freedom. As the New York Times editorial board lectured a judge who thinks otherwise, “the threat to religious liberty comes ...