Obamacaid Revisited
In the pending Obamacare litigation, the plaintiff-states argue that Title II of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacaid”) unconstitutionally “coerces” them to participate in a grand expansion of Medicaid....
View ArticleThe Debt Trap, Part (2): The Unaffordable We-Don’t-Care Act
Yesterday’s post, on the seemingly unstoppable growth of federal transfer payments to state and local governments, ended on a question: what happens when both parties to the transaction, the states and...
View ArticleObamacaid’s Constitutional Poison
The government’s reply brief on Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion (“Obamacaid”) provides a competent, confident defense of the statute. It also provides occasion to revisit the parties’ positions one more...
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ObamaCare and Medicaid: More Pre-Argument Arguments
Part 2: Thinking About Reform Yesterday’s post made two points: (1) Medicaid is hopelessly unsustainable, regardless of the outcome of the Supreme Court litigation. (2) The brawl over ObamaCare’s...
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Federalism’s Hope: Analysis and Speculation
Yesterday’s post described a sharp sectional divide in contemporary American federalism: pro-competitive states versus pro-cartel states. The divide holds across Obamacare/Medicaid, labor,...
View ArticleNFIB v. Sebelius: A Case About Sovereignty
I have spent the last several days reading and re-reading the opinions in NFIB v. Sebelius, hoping to find a unifying “theme” to organize all my thoughts about the case before posting about any of...
View ArticleGive Me Your Poor, Uninsured Masses. . . .(On Second Thought, You Take Them)
John Hood has a compelling piece in this week’s National Review, arguing that governors should “Say No to Medicaid Expansion.” Even though Obamacare offers states a 100 percent reimbursement rate for...
View ArticleMediscare, Mediscaid, and Block Grants
AEI’s J.D. Kleinke has a long, eye-opening Forbes piece on the latest fads and foibles in the health care market. Aetna and Wellpoint have been buying up health (managed) care providers that...
View ArticleInterposition: An Update From the Cliff
If (as looks likely) a significant number of states decline to participate in Obamacare’s “exchanges” or in its Medicaid expansion (or both), I wrote last week, the Affordable Care Act may well crumble...
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Are We a Nation of Takers?
If nothing else, media coverage of the “fiscal cliff” debates have made most Americans aware that federal spending is outpacing federal revenue, thereby fueling a massive—and growing—federal budget...
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Spend and Regulate
Quick update on Friday’s post, before launching into today’s clueless musings: approximately 10 minutes after I put the blog to bed, the Supreme Court publicly issued its cert grant in American...
View ArticleMedicaid Once More: Can We Please Get Serious?
Yesterday’s Wall Street featured a scathing editorial on Arizona Governor Janet Brewer’s emphatic call for the state’s participation in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Arizona, you’ll recall, was among...
View ArticleQuick Update
Apologies for the prolonged blogging hiatus. I’m not dead yet, just snowed under—I’ll resume my regular blogging at the nearest occasion. Herewith a forthcoming law review piece on the “Medicaid...
View ArticleThe Government is Us. Let’s Unionize!
Happy New Year, and all cheer the arrival of the one and only John McGinnis on this excellent site! His contributions will make it excellenter still. Rummaging around on the Supremes’ docket and among...
View ArticleNationalize It
In this Liberty Law Talk with James L. Buckley—Judge, Senator, Saint—he proposed to terminate any and all federal transfer programs. That bold program is conceptually and directionally right. Can it be...
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How about a Liberal Option – And It Could Be Done Through Reconciliation
Could the market help us solve our healthcare problems? Market economists and theorists say of course it could; big government/Progressive types say no. Let’s find out. As Franklin said when discussing...
View ArticleThe Redistributions and Distortions of the Health Care Market
Walker Percy in 1980 (Evelyn Hofer/Getty Images).A while back I talked about the health care and health insurance market and how it is the result of tremendous government regulation. There are...
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Spend and Regulate
Quick update on Friday’s post, before launching into today’s clueless musings: approximately 10 minutes after I put the blog to bed, the Supreme Court publicly issued its cert grant in American...
View ArticleMedicaid Once More: Can We Please Get Serious?
Chief Justice John Roberts before the 2013 State of the Union Address (Joshua Roberts / Alamy Stock Photo).Yesterday’s Wall Street featured a scathing editorial on Arizona Governor Janet Brewer’s...
View ArticleQuick Update
Chief Justice John Roberts before the 2013 State of the Union Address (Joshua Roberts / Alamy Stock Photo).Apologies for the prolonged blogging hiatus. I’m not dead yet, just snowed under—I’ll resume...
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