Update to the Hobby Lobby decision comes as a result of a SCOTUS injunction the day before the 4th of July 2014 The nonprofit Wheaton College filed a petition to keep it from having to a file self-certification document certifying it is a religious organization and should be exempt from having to provide contraceptives. Sotomayer […]
I haven’t read the opinions, concurrence, or dissents in either Hobby Lobby or Harris v. Quinn, so these comments are based on news summaries and quick commentaries by others. But the biggest surprise in Hobby Lobby, I think, is the express approval, in the opinion and in Kennedy’s concurrence, of HHS’s on-the-fly setup devised in […]
Republicans seem obsessed with the idea that Obamacare is a failure; that it is a “train wreck” exacerbating unemployment. But is that really so? First of all, the claim that the Affordable Care Act is a job killer flies in the face of reality, as Dan Diamond at Forbes reports: Since the law was signed […]
Today, “Economist’s View showcased Paul Krugman’s latest NYT article“Veterans and Zombies”. Paul discusses how the hyped-up VA issues are being used as an example of under performing government healthcare to emphasize how bad the much larger PPACA healthcare reform could be if allowed to proceed. Of course this is not true; but both Mark and […]
In the past, I have written about the “cholesterol con” (part 1), the widespread belief that high levels of “bad (LDL) cholesterol” can cause heart attacks. As I have explained (part 2), the myth has generated enormous profits for many commercial interests, including companies that peddle statins. (Please read both parts of the post.) No […]
Lead story at CNN was this: Washington (CNN) — An internal Veterans Affairs audit released Monday said tens of thousands of newly returning veterans wait at least 90 days for medical care, while even more who signed up in the VA system over the past 10 years never got an immediate appointment they requested. I […]
‘Food desert’ is not a common idea on people’s minds, but we also tend to say “Let them eat cake” when it comes to obesity. Michael Pollan suggests: Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. “Always […]
This was an answer in the local Weekly Reader to a couple of others who insisted VA healthcare should be disassembled and handed over to the private sector. I guess I could have said “nuts; I did say “nonsense.” “All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re […]
Greg Sargent gets a great nugget from Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who “recently conducted a statewide poll in Kentucky for an unnamed client and found that Kynect polls very positively, in contrast to Obamacare, which is underwater.” Kynect is the Kentucky version of the Affordable Care Act exchange. To the extent the polling is correct, […]
I was reluctant to read this post by Paul Waldman Obama must fix VA scandal to redeem liberal vision of government. In general, I think very highly of him and think he does our [n]name proud. The post is OK, but I will criticize it. My reaction to the Veterans’ Administration scandal was first to […]