Faced with a choice between saving seniors money or reaping a $2.8 billion windfall, AARP traded the best interests of its 40 million members for a massive payout under ObamaCare.    The moment of truth came over how to reform Medicare.  For years, AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired People, argued that…

First the Supreme Court rewrote President Barack Obama’s signature health reform law to save it from the Constitution.  Now the Internal Revenue Service claims its new rule can interpret the law in a way that violates its text and history.  The latest outrage against common sense is an IRS rule finalized on May 23.  The rule makes…

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding ObamaCare, at least this much is clear: conservative governors are refusing to help socialize healthcare by expanding a Medicaid program that will bankrupt their states.  Here’s how some are framing it.  New Jersey’s Chris Christie calls it “extortion.&rdquo…

One week after the Supreme Court’s perplexing ObamaCare – pardon, ObamaTax – decision, debate continues regarding its most likely long-term legacy.  Was Chief Justice John Roberts playing a game of stealth conservative chess, while the rest of us remain only capable of checkers?  Or did he instead play the role of Supreme…

Recall this promise from President Barack Obama back in 2009: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”  The statement was designed to convince people that passage of ObamaCare…

As good a job as ObamaCare’s opponents did in pleading their case before the Supreme Court this week, they failed (except very obliquely) to use one of the best available arguments, of a practical rather than purely legal nature, to refute the administration’s central thesis. They could have made a stronger case that there is nothing special…

One of the biggest wins for conservatives in Paul Ryan's newest Path to Prosperity budget proposal is the eventual conversion of Medicare into a defined contribution plan, thus saving taxpayers trillions of dollars in unfunded promises. For decades, many employees enjoyed defined benefit plans from employers willing to guarantee a specific type of…

New opinion polls and government deficit projections create unexpected new difficulties for ObamaCare and its assault against religious liberty, as well as Obama’s reelection effort generally.  In fact, the issue has turned so quickly against Obama that he pivoted from contriving it as a political bludgeon to despairing that others might…

In its latest unveiling of ObamaCare mandates, the Department of Health and Human Services promises that the creation of government-run health insurance exchanges will give states more flexibility and consumers more choices.  But an examination of the rhetoric versus the reality reveals that these claims are just a smokescreen while HHS effectively…

From March 26 to 28 the United States Supreme Court will hear an historic 5 ½ hours of oral argument about the constitutionality of various provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., ObamaCare).  But while the questions presented to the Justices could, if answered correctly, result in eliminating much of the law…

The battle over ObamaCare is really a fight about freedom. Regarding the centrality of freedom to the very identity of the United States, the philosophical chasm between the American political left and right is vast. On health care, as on so many other issues, the left doesn’t even recognize freedom as a valid concern. Conservatives, on the other…

The Obama administration’s mandated contraception compromise raises serious constitutional and moral questions.  It also makes one wonder why employees don’t have the freedom to choose their own health plan.  The answer comes from the late economist Milton Friedman.  In a 2001 report for the Hoover Institution entitled How…

To read President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal regarding Medicare and Medicaid in light of Rep. Paul Ryan’s more flexible alternative is to see a startling contrast of visions.  On Page Four of President Obama’s Budget Message to Congress, there is a thinly veiled swipe at Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare and Medicaid…

While ObamaCare creates armies of bureaucrats in the public and private sectors, a small but growing number of doctors and patients are using a simple solution to improve medical treatment while cutting out middle men.  When it was signed into law in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) was estimated by Newt Gingrich…

Like night following day, another Paul Ryan reform proposal is igniting another round of teeth-gnashing over the past, present and future of America.   Last Thursday, Representative Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced a plan to reform Medicare in a way that (1) gives seniors more options, and (2) reduces costs to taxpayers…

Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent speech at the Hoover Institution laid out a comprehensive alternative to ObamaCare that takes a patient-centered approach to controlling skyrocketing health care costs.   So far, it is the most detailed plan available for a conservative movement looking to counter the biggest government power grab since the 1960s…

Americans are often subjected to a false dichotomy in our ongoing healthcare debate:  Even more government healthcare versus letting people just die in the streets.  That false binary choice isn’t just intellectually sloppy.  It also emotionally tilts the issue in a manner favorable toward advocates of ObamaCare or wholesale government…

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney both have serious problems that have nothing to do with their presidential campaigns: At least on health care, both of them are statists, and philosophically incoherent ones at that. The former House Speaker and former Massachusetts governor both defend the idea of an “individual mandate” to buy health insurance…

Implementing the various command-and-control features of ObamaCare is proving to be as damaging to the rule of law as was its passage.  In a fine piece of journalism, the Daily Caller shows that 38 of the 204 new ObamaCare waivers issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in April 2011 went to swanky San Francisco nightclubs…

This was a wonderful week for individual freedom in America.  For the second time in two months, a federal judge has ruled ObamaCare unconstitutional.  Specifically, Judge Roger Vinson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled that ObamaCare’s “individual mandate,” which would force…

Last week, House Republicans kept a promise made in the recent election by voting to repeal the costly new health care law. Now it is time to keep another one – and put in place fiscally responsible, patient-centered reforms that seriously address the problems in our nation’s health care system. Since the health care bill became law…

Now that a Republican House of Representatives has passed repeal of ObamaCare, a momentous fight for the future of American liberty has been joined. Even amongst the most ardent supporters of repeal, however, the reality that it might require a sympathetic president to pull the final plugs on the program is becoming conventional wisdom. …

In the opening days of the 2011 legislative session, Texas State Representative Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) is serving notice that ObamaCare and its mandates most definitely mess with Texas.  From time to time, Texas’ commitment to limited government turns freedom into a straightjacket.  Because the state tries to cap the amount of damage…

The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes… ~The Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 8  How symbolically fitting is this?   During the very week in which we celebrate the original Tea Party hosted by…

In selling ObamaCare to a renitent nation just six months ago, proponents swore that it would restrain health spending and insurance costs.  To lubricate public acceptance, they even frontloaded the bill’s benefits so that the gain would arrive before the pain, making Republican efforts to repeal less popular.  For example, the bill…

“Once you explain what’s in the bill, the American people of course like it.” ~Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nevada) “It’s going to be very, very exciting.  But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”  ~Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D – …

Back in February – when liberals were in fever pitch over the prospect that a filibuster might derail their ambitions to make healthcare a federal utility – America’s columnist laureate, George Will, remarked of the Democratic Party’s fainting spells, “Filibusters are devices for registering intensity rather than mere…

“My body, my choice” worked for abortion advocates, but that does not seem to apply to the American diet.  Federal and local governments for years have told us what we should and should not put into our bodies.  Whether it's alcohol or cigarettes, saturated or trans fat, sugar or salt, legislators and regulators pick things off…

With elements of ObamaCare going into effect before the November mid-terms, voters in at least 31 congressional districts will have the opportunity to send someone to Congress who can offer an expert’s critique: a local doctor.  After years of fighting reduced Medicare payments with an annually passed bill known as the “doc fix,&rdquo…

The legislative victory among Washington's political class comes at a high cost for all Americans forced to swallow this bitter pill. This massive health care overhaul - a remake of one-sixth of our economy - will exacerbate the very problems this reform effort sought to address. It will dramatically alter our deteriorating economic and…