Health Care

Socialism and Medicine, Part 2

by William L. Anderson June 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 In 1965, the U.S. economy was unquestionably the most productive and vibrant in the world. Doctors and hospital administrators were enjoying high revenues, and at that time health insurers generally did not worry about such things as “cost containment.” Life in the medical field was a ...

Socialism and Medicine, Part 1

by William L. Anderson May 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 If the financial popularity of Michael Moore’s latest “documentary,” called Sicko, is an indication of popular sentiment in this country, then the United States seems to be ready for what once was called socialized medicine, but today is better known as “single-payer medicine.” All of the ...

Have a Heart

by Glenn Jacobs February 6, 2008

Since Barney Clark received the first Jarvik-7 artificial heart in 1982, more than 350 people have used the device, mostly as a temporary measure until they could receive a heart transplant. In addition to his totally artificial heart, Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the Jarvik-7, has developed a ventricular assist device (VAD), the Jarvik 2000, ...

Conservative Hypocrisy

by Sheldon Richman September 12, 2007

President Bush opposes efforts in Congress and the states to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to include more children from middle-class families who don’t qualify for Medicaid. He says he’s against those efforts because “when you expand eligibility ... you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch ...

A Clarion Call for Health Independence

by Wendy McElroy January 31, 2007

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992) is one of the best movies you’ve never seen. This incredible drama hit the big screen for two seconds before skidding into rental stores, where it failed to find the wider audience it deserves. Lorenzo’s Oil is a compelling reality-based story of parental devotion and the triumph of truth ...

What Crisis?

by Scott McPherson September 18, 2006

According to the Washington Post, there’s a new crisis brewing in American health care. Not one related to rising costs, substandard service, rationing of services, or any other problem stemming from government’s micro-management of the health-care field, but rather one involving an alleged conflict of consciences. A story in the July 16 issue of ...

Self-Deception about Medical Care

by Sheldon Richman February 15, 2006

Sloppy thinking can make intelligent people say stupid things. Take Christine Cassel. She has been a physician specializing in geriatric medicine for 30 years and recently published Medicare Matters, a brief against privatization of the huge, brittle government program. Interviewed recently on National Public Radio, she made this argument for public support of ...

Waging War on Carcinogens

by Rosalind Lacy MacLennan October 1, 2005

America’s War on “Carcinogens”: Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk by the American Council on Science and Health (March 2005); $15.95. America’s War on “Carcinogens”: Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk calls for medical researchers, journalists, and lawmakers to refocus and change the rules of engagement in the war ...

The Biggest Medicare Fraud Ever

by James Bovard May 1, 2005

The Bush administration admitted in February that its new Medicare drug prescription benefit would cost $1.2 trillion over the next decade — not the $400 billion that Bush had promised when he was pressuring Congress to enact the bill. His vast expansion of the welfare state is wrecking any effort to rein in government spending. In order to better understand ...

A Cancer Patient Faces the Chaos of the American Health-Care System

by Rosalind Lacy MacLennan April 27, 2005

In mid December 2004, I stood up in the middle of my primary-care physician’s waiting room, and said, “I am carrying a weapon of mass destruction in my breast. I have breast cancer. I came here for treatment, not for cemetery care.” At last. The receptionist looked up. After two phone ...

The War on Pain Sufferers

by Sheldon Richman February 14, 2005

A good deal of air is exhaled over the state of medical care in America. Open state worshipers want a complete government takeover, while a more subtle band of state worshipers, those who call themselves advocates of limited government, propose instead to use “market incentives” to accomplish their aims. What ...

Blame Government for the Vaccine Shortage

by Sheldon Richman October 27, 2004

We now know that when the government tries to suppress the production of a drug, say, heroin, supplies nevertheless remain plentiful. Yet when the government tries to guarantee production of a drug, say, flu vaccine, supplies can run short, endangering the people most vulnerable to disease. Thats government for you. The government, especially the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), interferes ...