Attempting to answer whether or not “Barack Obama supports Socialized Medicine?” CATO’s Michael Cannon writes: Socialized medicine exists to the extent that government controls medical resources and socializes the costs. … What matters—what determines real as opposed to nominal ownership—is who controls the resources. The particular decisions that government makes about those resources are likewise irrelevant. It matters not whether the government is stingy about medical spending (as in Canada’s Medicare system, the British National Health Service, or the U.S. Medicaid program) or obscenely lavish (as in the U.S. Medicare …
The Washington Post has a lengthy front-page story today on Barack Obama’s health care plan, which the newspaper admits contains “profound — and controversial — changes.” The Post tries to compare the Obama plan to Massachusetts’ 2006 health care legislation, asserting the only difference between the two is the individual mandate in the Massachusetts plan. This is indeed a big difference between the two plans, but it is nowhere near the most important. For all of its other problems, the Massachusetts plan did not create a new government-run health care …
Heritage Foundation Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy Studies, Stuart Butler, Ph.D., will be at kaisernetwork.org today at 1:30 p.m. answering questions about the presidential candidates health care policy plans. Kaiser makes the following pitch: A number of proposals to expand health insurance coverage — including those put forward by leading Democratic candidates for President — would allow people to enroll in a publicly-sponsored health plan, potentially competing side-by-side with private insurance plans. The next kaisernetwork.org Ask the Experts live webcast will examine this idea, looking at such questions …
