“Health care reform” on The Daily Caller

Over the next 10 years, if left unchanged, Obamacare will take $500 billion from Medicare.  Medicare beneficiaries will see higher premiums. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medical suppliers will get lower payments.  Under Obamacare, Medicare reductions will be used to subsidize expanded Medicaid to low-income recipients and to fund insurance for the uninsured.  This redistribution of funding from Medicare to other programs is the most controversial part of health reform. (more)

Roughly seven months after the passage of President Obama’s contentious health care bill, 53 percent of Americans, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, favor its repeal. Moreover, 43 percent strongly favor Congress making that its number-one priority next year. (more)

Mississippi Republican Governor Haley Barbour on Sunday was quick to predict a Republican takeover in House after Tuesday’s election, but hesitated to say the same for the Senate. Barbour appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” alongside Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, who said he believed Democrats would continue to control both chambers of Congress after the election. (more)

The impact of the president’s health care reform plan is becoming evident but not in the way its supporters envisioned. (more)

Throughout the debate over healthcare reform, President Obama insisted that individuals would be able to maintain their current healthcare plan: “If you like it, you can keep it.” It was a refrain that was used as Congress was writing the bill, as the bill struggled to pass, and now the president continues to claim that the law will allow individuals to keep their coverage. (more)

Nearly half of Americans want the Democrats’ April health-care law repealed, but a wide majority support many of the law’s provisions, according to a national Bloomberg News poll released Tuesday. (more)

It has been six months since the Democrats blatantly defied the will of the American people, turning a deaf ear to the overwhelming opposition to their $2.6 trillion overhaul of our health care system.  For years, health reform dominated the national debate, and across the spectrum, improvements are necessary.  Our current system leaves some individuals with limited or no access to affordable care and leaves employers with concerns over the spiraling costs of providing health coverage to their employees. (more)

(Reuters) – The U.S. healthcare reform law will worsen a shortage of physicians as millions of newly insured patients seek care, the Association of American Medical Colleges said on Thursday. (more)

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently issued its annual survey of employer-sponsored health benefits, declaring: “Family Health Premiums Rise 3 Percent to $13,770 in 2010, But Workers’ Share Jumps 14 Percent as Firms Shift Cost Burden.” That’s half-right — but the other half perpetuates a myth about employee health benefits that stands in the way of real health care reform. (more)

South Carolina Rep. John Spratt, a 28-year Democratic incumbent fighting for his political life, squared off against his challenger, Republican state Sen. Mick Mulvaney, Tuesday night, and health care — not the economy or immigration — was the issue that divided the candidates most deeply. (more)

Labor Day is almost here and Democrats are still waiting for the cavalry to arrive. An exhaustive scan of the horizon reveals no rescuers and none of the things Democrats badly need to save them from tough midterm election losses on Nov. 2. (more)

In a moment of honesty, professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, arguing in favor of a single-payer (government) system of health insurance coverage, noted that “… the public sector… sooner or later [would] have to make key decisions about medical treatment.”  And: “… health care—including the decision about what treatment is provided—[would become] a public responsibility.” (more)

Senate Democrats want to kill a controversial part of their own healthcare law that imposes new tax burdens on small businesses. (more)

A loophole in Colorado’s medical marijuana rules means thousands of pounds of surplus marijuana are left to feed the black market here and in neighboring states, an I-News Network investigation has found. (more)

When the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation decided in 1991 to take on Joe Camel, it became the nation’s largest private funding source for fighting smoking. The foundation spent $700 million to help knock the cartoon character out of advertisements, finance research and advocacy for higher cigarette taxes and smoke-free air laws and, ultimately, to aid in reducing the nation’s smoking rate almost by half. (more)

Healthcare reform will end up helping Democrats at the polls this fall, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested Monday. (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)

With Democrats headed for a man-made disaster in November and the Obama presidency increasingly looking like a quagmired domestic-contingency operation, speculation about Hillary Clinton running for president in 2012 is on the rise. We know Secretary Clinton has a strong desire to be the president, but will she step down as Secretary of State and challenge Barack Obama, the first African-American president and a fellow Democrat? And if she won her party’s nomination what are her prospects for winning the general election? (more)

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan suggested Thursday the Democrats’ health-care law would fail even without legislative action. (more)

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has evaded answering the question of whether President Barack Obama agrees with Dr. Donald Berwick, his newly appointed director of Medicare and Medicaid, who has insisted that health-care systems must redistribute wealth. (more)