Hooray! Brian Schwartz has started a blog called Patient Power, “brought to you by the Independence Institute.”
Within a minute of viewing Schwartz’s blog, I learned something new about State Senator Bob Hagedorn’s Bill 217, which raises the possibility of new controls and a mandate to force people to buy politician-approved insurance. Schwartz writes:
The Bill Summary for Colorado Senate Bill 08-217 (which I’ve written about here), which would make it a crime for Coloradans not to buy politician-approved medical insurance, includes a link to a report by a group that calls itself “Families USA”* titled Dying For Coverage, which claims that lacking health insurance causes thousands of Coloradans to die each year. …
* You gotta love the name “Families USA.” If you disagree with their policy recommendations, you must be against families, and worse yet, the USA!
Sure enough, the very first pdf file included in the summary is the Families USA study, which, as I pointed out yesterday, is seriously flawed.
In other words, Hagedorn’s bill is motivated by a fabrication.
In his opening post, Schwartz writes:
Why “Patient Power”?
Because this is what government controls have taken away from us. It’s what we need to continue to benefit from life-saving medical advances and care, and be satisfied with our experience with physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies.
State and federal policies have wedged insurance companies between between you and your physician, which erodes the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors have more incentive to please insurance companies than they do to please you, the patient. Government controls have also placed your employer between you and medical insurance companies, so insurers seek to please employers, and not you. …
Patients and doctors alike owe Schwartz thanks for defending their liberties.