One of the more pernicious myths surrounding the debate over healthcare is the oft repeated claim that conservatives do not want reform. Nonsense! What we do not want is the warm bucket of snake oil currently being sold to the American people by this administration. Conservatives have long argued for the need to reduce mandated benefits, reduce the reliance on third-party payers and get rid of public policies that hinder entrepreneurship and innovation. This is the kind of reform conservatives want – the right kind of reform.

Because the number of Americans that are actually denied medical care is zero, the administration has chosen to cite the fact that 47 million Americans lack medical insurance (another myth) as the reason for its urgency in passing a huge bill that congressmen can’t be bothered to read. Why, just yesterday the administration and its army of sales people began to talk about health insurance reform; this after years of hearing about the need to reform healthcare. Ahh! The power of focus groups. Now we need single-payer universal healthcare to bring down costs (prices) and to protect the sick from “discrimination” at the hands of evil insurance companies. (more…)

USA’s new series “Royal Pains” is about Dr. Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein), who serves as a “concierge doctor” to the rich and semi-famous residents of the Hamptons.  In the course of the show, there are some unfortunate public policy claims made. In the second episode, entitled “There will be food,” Dr. Hank is trying to provide health care to a not particularly well-to-do fisherman. Hank gives a short lecture on price gouging and hospitals “screwing” people. A heavily discussed theme in this episode involves the need for a free clinic for the regular people who make the Hamptons run and the selfishness of the person who would have been the biggest donor to the clinic who is instead spent his money on a retirement party for a ballerina. In any case, the dialogue for this segment that I would like to focus on is as follows: (more…)