Profit is a Dirty Word and Government Intervention is Needed

Insurance companies turned a profit in 2009 and the U.S. government is less than pleased. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, does not buy into the idea that companies need to raise rates to keep pace with rising medical costs and neither does The New York Times... Profit is a dirty word and it should not be used as a rationale to account for “huge rate increases” in the health care industry, according to an article that is very weighted in favor of economically illite...

NYT Continues to Ignore Democratic Role in Blocking Obama’s Agenda

President Obama has thrown down the gauntlet again on healthcare and is challenging Republicans to join him in a half-day bipartisan session at The White House where the minority party is expected to put up. This is the tone of Monday’s front page story built around an interview Obama had with CBS just prior to the Super Bowl.  Republicans are expected to offer their own package of ideas for lower costs and expanding coverage. “He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to of...

Illinois Court Ruling Signals Larger Triumph for Trial Lawyers, NYT Suggests

Judicial activists who do not take kindly to uppity elective bodies audacious enough to cap malpractice awards are said to have the final word where the law is concerned in an article about an Illinois Supreme Court decision. Trial lawyers who favor permissive statues claim the decision will frustrate any federal effort to limit the amount of money injured patients receive in suits. But this is questionable and the article does go on to acknowledge that stricter laws have been upheld in 16 st...

Boudreaux: He is We

From Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek: Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the New York Times: Paul Krugman wants the House to pass the Senate’s current health-care bill because “the nation is waiting” (“Do the Right Thing,” Jan. 22). Ummm…. no.  Polls show that health-care ‘reform’ of the sort the Senate passed is now overwhelmingly unpopular.  Indeed, as Scott Brown’s victory makes clear, it’s unpopular even in Massachusetts – perhaps the most ‘Progressive’ state in the union.  ...