Healthcare Competition ala Dr. Seuss

On the healthcare arms race by Gregory Warner at Marketplace via WonkBlog: 

Medicare Costs Taxpayers Less than Employee Insurance.

The blog Incidental Economist does the calculations and finds that tax-subsidies alone for employee-based insurance cost roughly as much per person as the entire Medicare bill for an individual. 

As Fox's Murdoch Goes in Britain So Goes Fox News .. ?

Discussion of how the phone-tapping and police-bribing scandal has effected Rupert Murdoch's media empire in Britain cast an indirect light on his control of right-wing media, including the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, in the United States.

Women Doctors Should Commit to Their Careers

Oh, boy, I can see the feminists foaming at the mouth already.

A female doctor points out that medical degrees are subsidized, there are limited slots in med school, the nation is facing a shortage of doctors and states bluntly that, if women don't want to commit to medicine as a career, they shouldn't enter the field. 

Delaying Medicare eligibility is bad for health | The Incidental Economist

Two key points on healthcare: 1) Medicare does a much better job of controlling rising healthcare costs than private insurance, and 2) Raising the starting age for Medicare coverage will increases costs, not reduce them, because people will go without healthcare until the program kicks in.

When Food Kills - Kristoff

Should feeding antibiotics to healthy animals be banned?

We Already Have Socialized Medicine in America, and (Shhusssh) It works! | Klein

WaPo's Ezra Klein points out we already have an example of socialized medicine in America and it seems to work pretty well, at least from the health- and economic-statistics. 

Republicans Want Power to Censor Political TV Advertising

First, the right-wing claimed that large multinational corporations should have the same rights as people, now they want the power to stop opponents from expressing dissenting views. Seriously.

The GOP is threatening TV stations and cable networks if they carry advertising that disagrees with the Tea Party-GOP plan to replace Medicare with a system where seniors are forced to buy insurance from for-profit insurance companies using taxpayer vouchers. 

If the GOP system is implemented, millions of seniors will eventually be thrown into poverty, live in poor health, and die sooner than they need to -- to help support the GOP's plans to give trillions in additional tax cuts to large companies and the more affluent. The GOP is trying to prevent people from even hearing that opinion.

Does Medicine Need Malpractice Tort Reform?

Discussions I've read or heard about medical malpractice as a part of reigning in out-of-control healthcare costs seem to focus entirely on malpractice insurance, jury awards, and politics: The GOP says malpractice lawsuits inflate healthcare costs and if we merely eliminated people's ability to get compensated for bad healthcare, all would be fixed.

Atul Gawande Commencement Speech at Harvard Medical School

Excerpts from the commencement address by Atul Gawande, whose writings on the U.S. medical system have catalyzed much of the current debate, as published in the New Yorker.