Lobbyists versus Sick People

The Government Can’t Be Trusted With Our Health
By Phil Kerpen on Friday, May 17th, 2013
“We have a large government,” political consultant David Axelrod offered as a plea of ignorance to all of the scandals swirling around his boss. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast.” And yet, thanks to Axelrod and Obama, we now stand on the precipice of the largest expansion of government power in almost half a century: Obamacare, officially known as the Patient ...
Obama Agenda Undermines Medical Innovation
By Phil Kerpen on Friday, May 10th, 2013
Alzheimer’s Disease costs the U.S. economy over $200 billion per year, about $140 billion of which is a direct federal budgetary cost to Medicare and Medicaid. On our present course, this cost will quintuple to $1 trillion by 2050. It is the major driver up the steeply rising health care cost curve. Given this context, the most important question for health policy is not the green eyeshade question of who-pays-how-much that has come to dominate ...
FCC Must Run Honest Auctions
By Phil Kerpen on Monday, May 6th, 2013
“America’s global leadership in mobile, and the strategic bandwidth advantage so many have worked hard to create, is being threatened by the looming spectrum crunch,” recently departed Federal Communications (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski said. But while Genachowski asked Congress to authorize incentive auctions to free up spectrum, he also opposed language to require free and fair auctions to the highest bidder. Instead, he wanted the authority to micromanage auction rules to pick winner and losers, ...
Obama’s FAA Harm Offensive
By Phil Kerpen on Friday, April 26th, 2013
If sequestration happens and nobody feels it, does it have a political impact? No, apparently; so two months into what we were told would be Armageddon, the Obama administration is launching a harm offensive, trying to punish the American people for suggesting Washington might modestly reduce federal spending. The weapon of choice? Furloughs of air-traffic controllers, deliberately imposing flight delays. The corrupt media is largely falling into line, blaming “steep budget cuts” for the flight ...
Lobbyists versus Sick People
By Phil Kerpen on Monday, April 22nd, 2013
What if you had to choose between making insurance more affordable for Americans with pre-existing conditions or funding lobbyists and political hacks? That’s the decision the House will face when it considers H.R. 1549, the Helping Sick Americans Now Act, sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. It should be an easy choice. Earlier this month, Susan Zurface of Hillsboro, Ohio testified before Rep. Pitts’s health subcommittee. “With my newly diagnosed illness, I was unable ...