“Health care in the United States” on The Daily Caller

Peter Orszag, the president’s outgoing Director of the Office of Management and Budget, released the annual mid-year update to the administration’s budget projections at 3 pm last Friday afternoon in a conference call with reporters. That was a dead giveaway that the administration was hoping not to make much news with its latest budget projections, or at least not make news in a way that anyone would notice. (more)

DENVER — The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years. (more)

Public debate and discussion are the critical disinfectants for democratic government.  That’s how we spotlight ideas and alternatives and ultimately make decisions on the great issues of the day.  This elemental truth seems to have escaped this administration and congressional leaders as Congress and the president have moved to preclude debate in this crucial election year on possibly the two most important issues facing the American people:  health care and the federal budget. (more)

Many states are lobbying the Senate to extend the Medicaid bailout enacted in the February 2009 stimulus bill. While several attempts by Senate leaders to extend the bailout—passed by the House—have failed, it is likely to be brought to the floor again. (more)

If you want to sell marijuana in San Francisco, you’re going to have to play by some new rules — and advocates for pot legalization couldn’t be happier about it. (more)

President Obama has bypassed the normal Senate confirmation process and recess appointed Donald Berwick as Administrator of CMS, where he will oversee Medicare and Medicaid and be charged with implementing ObamaCare’s significant changes to both programs. (more)

Multiple sclerosis patients can get prescription pot to ease their painful muscle spasms—if they live in Great Britain, where regulators recently approved a mouth spray made from cannabis, or marijuana. GW Pharmaceuticals, which developed Sativex and is preparing for advanced clinical trials to test its ability to relieve pain for cancer patients, wants to bring it to the United States. (more)

As spiritual events go, it was an unusual request. (more)

Colorado and Michigan are starting to see the business benefits of recently legalized medical marijuana, and the results show that pot is potent —  not only as a gateway to understanding Grateful Dead lyrics, but also as an economic stimulus. (more)

The Obama administration on Monday released a new regulation setting rules for who can keep their current health insurance plans under the law. The regulation gave special consideration to plans negotiated by unions, quickly drawing criticism from conservatives and others, who argue the rules will put small businesses at a competitive disadvantage. (more)

In selling the health care overhaul to Congress, the Obama administration cited a once obscure research group at Dartmouth College to claim that it could not only cut billions in wasteful health care spending but make people healthier by doing so. (more)

Neither group [Republicans and Democrats] will be completely happy with the jobs bill being pushed through Congress. The $192 billion “American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act of 2010,” which could be approved in the House as soon as Wednesday and later this week in the Senate, largely keeps in place the policies that Democrats have pushed over the past year to deal with the recession as unemployment remains at almost 10 percent. (more)

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President Obama and his team are in full campaign mode once again. They are telling America about all of the good things that the new health reform law will do for them this year. So, you may have heard this line recently “starting this year, for all of you students out there, if you don’t have insurance or if you are about to graduate and you’re not sure what your next job is going to be or there is a little gap between graduating and getting that job with insurance, all new plans and some current ones will allow you to stay on your parent’s insurance policy until you’re 26 years old, starting this year!” (emphasis added). (more)

Is There a Doctor in the House? (more)

The great frustration for many Americans during the debate on ObamaCare was tone-deaf politicians. No one seemed willing to listen to their concerns. Federal deficits, pork-barrel spending, and the cost of health care got lost in the push to pass partisan legislation. As we move into the regulatory phase of writing the critical implementation rules, the concern is that Obama-bureaucrats will also ignore the people. (more)

Many Americans said “No!” to ObamaCare in polls and recent elections from Virginia to New Jersey to Massachusetts. But, now it has passed. The majority of citizens still want it repealed. The anger and frustrations are unlikely to subside as some politicians are hoping. ObamaCare is now the law of the land. That may change with the pending constitutional challenges, but the time has come to plan ahead and prepare for a very different future. While lawyers and politicians consider “repeal and replace” reform initiatives, employers and benefit managers must move to implement. (more)

I’m married to a solo-practicing primary care physician. I know, a dying breed, but he likes being his own boss. Like most primary care physicians, most of his patients are on Medicare. We’ve had as many as three people working for us over the years and now we have one full-time and one part-time person working for us. In February, we moved to a smaller office to prepare for what might be coming. We figured, anywhere we could save money, would help us weather whatever was coming with Obamacare. We moved from Suite 230 to Suite 170 of the same building. You would think that would be a simple and straightforward move for Medicare. It wasn’t. (more)

Paul Kennedy, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” was wrong. Nations don’t fall because of imperial overstretch. They fall because of entitlement overstretch. It’s not what happens outside their borders, but what they do to themselves inside their borders. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans learned early Thursday that they will be able to kill language in a measure altering President Barack Obama’s newly enacted health care overhaul, meaning the bill will have to return to the House for final congressional approval. (more)