WSJ.com - Why Medical Malpractice Is Off Limits

This is not just a partisan viewpoint.  See the last paragraph I quote below.

WSJ.com - Opinion: Why Medical Malpractice Is Off Limits

Eliminating defensive medicine could save upwards of $200 billion in health-care costs annually, according to estimates by the American Medical Association and others. The cure is a reliable medical malpractice system that patients, doctors and the general public can trust.

But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That's because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.

Almost all the other groups with a stake in health reform support pilot projects such as special health courts that would move beyond today's hyper-adversarial malpractice lawsuit system to a court that would quickly and reliably distinguish between good and bad care. The support for some kind of reform reflects a growing awareness among these groups that managing health care sensibly, including containing costs, is almost impossible when doctors go through the day thinking about how to protect themselves from lawsuits.

Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, was asked why there is nothing in the health-care proposals about liability reform. Mr. Dean replied: "The reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers. . . . And that is the plain and simple truth."

WSJ.com - Health 'Reform' Is Income Redistribution (from Young to Old)

This article includes simple explanations of the terms: Guaranteed issue, Community rating, and Individual mandate

WSJ.com - Opinion: Health 'Reform' Is Income Redistribution

Let's have an honest debate before we transfer more money from young to old.

Let's start with basics: Insurance protects against the risk of something bad happening. When your house is on fire you no longer need protection against risk. You need a fireman and cash to rebuild your home. But suppose the government requires insurers to sell you fire "insurance" while your house is on fire and says you can pay the same premium as people whose houses are not on fire. The result would be that few homeowners would buy insurance until their houses were on fire.

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There are wiser and more equitable ways to ensure that every American has access to affordable health insurance. Policy experts and state policy makers have experimented with different solutions, including high risk pools and taxpayer-funded vouchers subsidized for those who are both poor and sick. Medicaid, charity care, and uncompensated care provided by hospitals cover some of these costs today.

These solutions are imperfect, but so are the reforms being proposed in Congress. Congress should be explicit about who will pay more under its plans.

WSJ.com - Charter Schools Pass Key Test in Study

WSJ.com - Charter Schools Pass Key Test in Study

New York City students who win a lottery to enroll in charter schools outperform those who don't win spots and go on to attend traditional schools, according to new research to be released Tuesday.

Ms. Hoxby's study found that the charter-school students, who tend to come from poor and disadvantaged families, scored almost as well as students in the affluent Scarsdale school district in the suburbs north of the city. The English test results showed a similar pattern. The study also found students were more likely to earn a state Regents diploma, given to higher-achieving students, the longer they attended charter schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools, typically with nonunion teachers, that are granted more freedom by states in curriculum and hiring, and are often promoted as a way to turn around failing schools.

WSJ.com - Getting Well: It's About Time

This article doesn’t draw any policy conclusions, but I think it comes back to the main problem with the 3^rd-party payer system.  If it is not our money on the line, we aren’t concerned about being wise with its use.  We need to reconnect the health consumer with the costs for routine care.

 

WSJ.com - Getting Well: It's About Time

 

What cures colds, flu, sore throats, sore muscles, headaches, stomach aches, diarrhea, menstrual cramps, hangovers, back pain, jaw pain, tennis elbow, blisters, acne and colic, costs nothing, has no weird side effects and doesn't require a prescription?

Plain old-fashioned time. But it's often the hardest medicine for patients to take.

An estimated one-third to one-half of the $2.2 trillion Americans spend annually on health care in the U.S. is spent on unnecessary tests, treatments and doctor visits. Much of that merely buys time for the body to heal itself.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Mandatory Insurance Is Unconstitutional

WSJ.com - Opinion: Mandatory Insurance Is Unconstitutional

The elephant in the room is the Constitution. As every civics class once taught, the federal government is a government of limited, enumerated powers, with the states retaining broad regulatory authority. As James Madison explained in the Federalist Papers: "[I]n the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects." Congress, in other words, cannot regulate simply because it sees a problem to be fixed. Federal law must be grounded in one of the specific grants of authority found in the Constitution.

Congress cannot so simply avoid the constitutional limits on its power. Taxation can favor one industry or course of action over another, but a "tax" that falls exclusively on anyone who is uninsured is a penalty beyond Congress's authority. If the rule were otherwise, Congress could evade all constitutional limits by "taxing" anyone who doesn't follow an order of any kind—whether to obtain health-care insurance, or to join a health club, or exercise regularly, or even eat your vegetables.

This type of congressional trickery is bad for our democracy and has implications far beyond the health-care debate. The Constitution's Framers divided power between the federal government and states—just as they did among the three federal branches of government—for a reason. They viewed these structural limitations on governmental power as the most reliable means of protecting individual liberty—more important even than the Bill of Rights.

WSJ.com - Energy 'Sprawl' and the Green Economy

Whether the author is right or wrong about nuclear power, he’s absolutely right that we need to consider the sprawl issue in our environmental debates.

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Energy 'Sprawl' and the Green Economy

 

We're about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He's also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind. This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

This "sprawl" has been missing from our energy discussions.

The 1,000 square-mile solar project proposed by Mr. Salazar would generate, on a continuous basis, 35,000 megawatts of electricity. You could get the same output from 30 new nuclear reactors that would fit comfortably onto existing nuclear sites.

Renewable energy is not a free lunch. It is an unprecedented assault on the American landscape.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Man Who Defused the 'Population Bomb'

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Man Who Defused the 'Population Bomb'

 

Norman Borlaug arguably the greatest American of the 20th century died late Saturday after 95 richly accomplished years. The very personification of human goodness, Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived. He was America's Albert Schweitzer: a brilliant man who forsook privilege and riches in order to help the dispossessed of distant lands. That this great man and benefactor to humanity died little-known in his own country speaks volumes about the superficiality of modern American culture.

Often it is said America lacks heroes who can provide constructive examples to the young. Here was such a hero. Yet though streets and buildings are named for Norman Borlaug throughout the developing world, most Americans don't even know his name.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Health-Care Reform and the Constitution

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Health-Care Reform and the Constitution

 

Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution.

One of those powers—the power "to regulate" interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of anything it wants to control.

The same Congress that wants to tell family farmers what to grow in their backyards has declined "to keep regular" the commercial sale of insurance policies. It has permitted all 50 states to erect the type of barriers that the Commerce Clause was written precisely to tear down. Insurers are barred from selling policies to people in another state.

That's right: Congress refuses to keep commerce regular when the commercial activity is the sale of insurance, but claims it can regulate the removal of a person's appendix because that constitutes interstate commerce.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Whoa, Trigger

WSJ.com - Opinion: Whoa, Trigger

 

The latest political gimmick is the notion of a "trigger" for the public option: A new government program for the middle class would only come on line if private insurance companies fail to meet certain benchmarks, such as lowering overall health spending or shrinking the number of the uninsured.

 

Liberals should love the idea because a trigger isn't a substantive concession… Democrats will goose the tests so that private insurers can't possibly meet them, mainly by imposing new regulations and other costly burdens.

 

Keep in mind that every version of ObamaCare now under consideration essentially turns all private insurers into subsidiaries of Congress. All coverage will be strictly regulated down to the fine print, and politics will dictate the level of benefits as well as premiums, deductibles and copays.

 

The [House] bill also rewrites the 1974 federal law known as Erisa that lets large and mid-sized employers offer insurance with little regulation. Many businesses are finding innovative ways to drive down spending, largely with worker incentives to live healthier and be more sensitive to the costs of care. Many Democrats call this discriminatory.  In the individual insurance market, Democrats intend to outlaw medical underwriting: Everyone must be charged the same rate or close to it for the same policies, regardless of health status or history.

 

ObamaCare doesn't bother with incentives, instead merely increasing government command and control of private insurance while making it more expensive in the process. That's why a trigger will inevitably lead to the public option, and also why ObamaCare will make all of our current health problems worse.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Labor Day and the American Dream

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Labor Day and the American Dream

Mike Rowe wants to restore the luster to Labor Day. As host of the cable TV show "Dirty Jobs," Mr. Rowe has done them all: from steel-mill worker and pig-slop processor to hot-tar roofer and sewer inspector. In the last year, he's teamed up with industrial-supplies giant Grainger to set up a Web site (www.mikeroweWORKS.com) aimed at the millions of Americans who find their calling outside a university's hallways.

In an entry headlined "WORK IS NOT THE ENEMY," Mr. Rowe nails his thesis to his Web page: "We've convinced ourselves that 'good jobs' are the result of a four-year degree. That's bunk. Not all knowledge comes from college. Skill is back in demand. Steel-toed boots are back in fashion."

It's true that, on average, a college grad will make much more money and have significantly greater job security than his high school counterpart. For most Americans, it's also true that the likeliest path to upward mobility runs through the college quad. Averages, however, never tell the whole story.