Obama's hidden fees

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Mandatory savings?

How government will compete with private enterprise

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

The recently revived idea of creating a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers may reinforce the impression that President Obama and his allies in Congress are standing tall against those corporate fat cats who delight in denying lifesaving care to children and old ladies. But Mr. Obama and the insurers still see eye to eye on a central element of his health care agenda: the requirement that every American obtain medical coverage.

Myocardial infractions

A breath of fresh air is just what a committee ordered

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009

Six years ago, when I asked an epidemiologist about a report that a smoking ban in Helena, Mont., had cut heart attacks by 40 percent within six months, he thought the idea was so ridiculous that no one would take it seriously. He was wrong.

Piling on penalties

Life plus extra time for bigotry

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama plans to sign soon, is named after two men who were murdered in 1998. Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten to death in Wyoming. Byrd, a black hitchhiker, was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas. Bigotry seemed to play a role in both crimes.

Careless coercion

Why force people to buy insurance?

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009

At a July press conference, President Obama claimed that "the average American family is paying thousands of dollars in hidden costs" because uncompensated health care for the uninsured drives up the price of medical coverage. In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, by contrast, he said uncompensated care costs the average family $900.

Drug control becomes speech control

Pain killers can be a prescription for imprisonment

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009

When the government accuses a doctor of running a "pill mill," prosecutors portray every aspect of his practice in a sinister light. Prescribing painkillers becomes drug trafficking, applying for insurance reimbursement becomes fraud, making bank deposits becomes money laundering and working with people at the office becomes conspiracy.

Unfair, unbalanced, but free

Supreme Court case is a matter of freedom and bogus 'fairness'

Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009

"When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech," says Citizens United, "something has gone terribly wrong." A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems to agree.

Ways of making them talk

Apprehensiveness over possible legal action

Saturday, Aug. 29, 2009

In a 2004 report made public Monday, the CIA's inspector general noted that "a number of agency officers of various grade levels who are involved with detention and interrogation activities are concerned that they may at some future date be vulnerable to legal action."

Grass roots that shun the sun

Some reporting requirements can silence activists

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009

Two years ago, the Senate rejected an attempt to regulate "astroturf," professional political agitation aimed at stimulating (or simulating) grass-roots activity. Recently, that measure's supporters have been saying, "I told you so," citing the debate over who is behind boisterous criticism of President Obama's health care agenda at congressional town-hall meetings.

A bitter remedy

Dr. Obama needs a dose of reality

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009

Last week, Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Counsel of Economic Advisers, suggested that we think of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as an extremely expensive course of antibiotics. "Suppose you go to your doctor for a strep throat," Ms. Romer said in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington, "and he or she prescribes an antibiotic."