Some Health Care Debate Links

I thought I'd throw out a few links regarding health care reform.

Sen. Tom Coburn has an excellent article in National Review Online titled "Ten Questions Politicians Won’t Answer." (h/t Pundit and Pundette). He offers a number of reasonable arguments against both the bills form, and the tactics used by the Congressional leadership and the White House.

Sarah Palin made a lot of headline and hit lists with her "death panels" note on facebook. Before jumping to conclusions, one should read her statement first. It is here.

Michelle Malkin has a list of some of Britain's frightening cost saving measures in a post here. She equates these, at times, draconian cost-saving measures with Palin's "death panel" statement.

Thomas Sowell has an excellent opinion piece found here regarding government and health care.

I can't stop myself from putting in a quick quote: "A bigger question is whether medical care will be better or worse after the government takes it over. There are many available facts relevant to those crucial questions but remarkably little interest in those facts.

"There are facts about the massive government-run medical programs already in existence in the United States — Medicare, Medicaid and veterans' hospitals — as well as government-run medical systems in other countries.

"None of the people who are trying to rush government-run medical care through Congress before we have time to think about it are pointing to Medicare, Medicaid or veterans' hospitals as shining examples of how wonderful we can expect government medical care to be when it becomes 'universal.'"

"As for those uninsured Americans we keep hearing about, there is remarkably little interest in why they don't have insurance. It cannot be poverty, for the poor can automatically get Medicaid.

"In fact, we already know that there are people with substantial incomes who choose to spend those incomes on other things, especially if they are young and in good health. If necessary, they can always go to a hospital emergency room and receive treatment there, whether or not they have insurance.

"Here, the advocates of government-run medical care say that we all end up paying, one way or another, for the free medical care that hospitals are forced by law to provide in their emergency rooms. But unless you think that any situation you don't like is a reason to give politicians a blank check for 'change,' the relevant question becomes whether the alternative is either less expensive or of better quality. Nothing is cheaper just because part of the price is paid in higher taxes. "

Go read the whole article though.

Thomas Sowell also has more informative editorials regarding health care here and here. All are likewise thoughtful and highly recommended.

William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has several good post on various aspects of the health care debate. This post is of particular interest, however.

A quick quote: "One of the key elements of the Democratic proposals is to hand over the power to make cost cuts to an unelected, unimpeachable council similar to MedPAC. By empowering such an insular entity to make decisions over which health care procedures and medicines are cost-effective, we will have surrendered enormous freedom over personal health care. If a procedure or medication is not approved by this entity, it will not be economically viable for the provider to bring it to market, so it will not be available even if you were willing to pay out of pocket.

"Putting aside our freedom, the CBO has come out with an analysis (appearing in full below) which shows that handing over health care decisions to an entity such as MedPAC will not save any substantial sums over the next decade, even as the cost of health care 'reform' escalates."

The CBO analysis itself is available in Jacobson's post and is also linked here.

And lastly, I'll put up links to my own long post about health care reform that I wrote back in April. It's in two parts, the first part here and the second here.

I've tried to limit my links to posts and articles about health care reform from a conservative perspective, rather than items about the ugly debate that has emerged. I hope this list proves informative.