As you know, I don’t normally provide an unfettered platform for politicians like this but I thought this op-ed from Chairwoman Landrieu (which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal) was timely, since she will convene a hearing on health care reform and small businesses later this week. This is another instance in which terminology [...]

President Obama, hailed back in February as a savior simply because he was ‘saving’ us from a bad case of Bush Fatigue, is now learning what it’s like when the honeymoon is over.

He certainly deserves credit for refusing to do what his predecessors have done: take one look at health care reform and run screaming from the room. This has to be one of the most thankless tasks in the universe.

Various groups complain and release studies and demand action. Then, when some brave politician comes along and proposes said action, people see change bearing down on them, freak out, and then they run screaming from the room.

The President was going to give a major speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress. This is something that doesn’t usually happen beyond the annual State of the Union Address. Said the White House Press Office, ‘Let there by hype.’ And there was hype. In the end, the Great Speech got [...]

The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) is getting a little hot under the collar about proposals for health care reform. Or, to be more specific, they are perturbed by the lack of help for the self-employed to be found in those proposals. Although policy makers understand that small business stakeholders are deeply engaged here, [...]

“You may think you’ve won but your victory won’t matter once I’ve detonated this Smart-but-Evil bomb, a weapon with such destructive power that it will blow up this entire planet!!! Muwhahahahaha!!!”

The evil laugh is required.

Now, you wouldn’t think to see this sort of thing this side of an old episode of Underdog but something very similar is going on this very minute in the national health care reform debate — such as it is.

I mean … come on! Euthanasia? Rationed care? Puh-leeze!

Setting aside an unimportant little document of which you may have heard, called the U.S. Constitution, I’m wondering what the Democrats have done in living memory that would make these tales in the least bit credible?

Elected Democrats, that is. The left has its very own lunatic fringe, I do recognize that.

My point is this: they may not agree with the current leadership at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue but I wonder why so many people find it easy to believe that the folks in Congress are monsters?

Dr. Len Nichols appears, at first glance, to be a reasonably unremarkable fellow but appearances can be deceiving. In fact, Nichols is one of those fortunate mortals who gets paid to think (which, parenthetically, is my idea of a really great job). I didn’t think to ask but I’d guess that Dr. Nichols is much [...]

It would be fairly easy for me to make the case that there is no real reason why the interests of the insurance industry should be taken into account.

But then, I have never believed it is incumbent on the U.S. government, when it sets about to address a problem we collectively have, to protect the profits of any sector in the economy. Businesses are supposed to be able to take care of themselves.

At least, that’s the way it is with microbusinesses.

If you stop to think about it, it’s rather astonishing to reflect that it was back in 1993 that newly sworn-in President William Jefferson Clinton vowed to fix health care and provide coverage for everybody in the country. The rest, as they say, is history. It is now sixteen years later and we have the [...]

A little over a month ago, the House Small Business Committee held a hearing to discuss Congressional efforts at health care reform, in search of bipartisan consensus on broad principles for said reform. Last week, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship took its turn to host a roundtable to discuss small businesses and [...]