It looks like the Democrats are going to attempt to shoehorn the Obamacare bill through on the thinnest of margins. Considering the controversial nature of some parts of the bill and the partisan sentiment it has generated, one can only say that this is a foolish and dangerous thing to try and do. Time has [...]

In one of the most cynical moves I’ve seen in politics, the dying UK Labour government is now promoting the idea that people have a “right” to private health care if they can’t get seen on the National Health within 18 weeks. This is the moral equivalent of saying that I have a right to [...]

The House of Representatives has just approved Obama’s healthcare bill 220 -215. The bill will now go to the Senate where the Democrats may have the numbers to pass the bill – assuming all Democrats and the two independents vote for it. Obama needs to get everything passed before the mid-term elections. It is highly [...]

I see the Democrats have reintroduced the “public option” (i.e. State Health Insurance) back into their health reform bill a mere couple of weeks after being unable to get such a bill through the Senate Finance Committee. They never give up, do they? It is highly unlikely that they will keep all the Democrats on [...]

Small businesses in the US are facing sharp rises in their health insurance premiums next year. On average premiums appear to be rising 15% in 2010. The NYT quotes “experts” as suggesting that the insurance industry is “raising premiums to get ahead of any legislative changes that might reduce their profits”. Unfortunately for this theory, [...]

The powerful Senate Finance committee has just voted down two proposed amendments to Obama’s healthcare reform bill; amendments that would have created a public insurance scheme as a key part of insuring some of America’s 47 million uninsured. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s amendment would have added a public insurance option that would reimburse doctors and hospitals [...]

You can’t love on someone with a hammer.
No, this is not a weird addition to the smacking debate, I am simply commenting on President Obama’s current tactics in the healthcare debate. At one point an understanding of a sorts had been reached with the health insurers lobby. The insurance companies accepted that health care needed [...]

I see that New Zealand is clearly no nearer a comprehensive nationwide electronic health record than we were 10 years ago. The Dom post reports on one initiative involving 7 DHBs, but even that one seems to have a substantial undercurrent of squabbling and jockeying for  position. That is only one third of all DHBs [...]

It seems that the new Health Care bill being punted by Obama has a price tag of 1.042 trillion dollars. I guess if you say it fast enough, it doesn’t sound quite as much. And, frankly, that’s my impression of the health care bill – it doesn’t sound like much.
At the end of a decade, [...]

I love watching Obama trying to throw his weight around and talk tough. It is a bit like watching Bambi try to savage a hunter. I’m not talking here about the dynamic hand-wringing that he is doing over the Iran situation, I’m talking about his plans for US Healthcare reform which he tried to sell [...]