‘We don’t want the government dictating which doctors we are and are not allowed to see!’

‘We don’t want the government deciding which medical procedures we can and cannot have!’

‘We don’t want the government rationing care or creating inequities in the system!’

‘We want private insurance! Long live the free market!’

Of course, none of these noisy opponents appear to have noticed that, under the current system, private insurers do all of these things.

As lawmakers debate various elements of a health care reform bill, two thirds of microbusiness owners say they are watching closely, with about 60% feeling they have, minimally, a moderate understanding of the issues, according to a survey released last week by the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE). The survey was conducted among microbusiness [...]

Last week, the House Committee on Small Business held a hearing with the cleverly descriptive title “Common Ground: Finding Consensus on Health Reform, the Small Business Perspective.” Everybody else in Washington has been talking about health care reform lately, why not the House Small Business Committee? They even had a piece of proposed legislation to [...]

This might sound like a peculiar thing to say after all this time but it’s beginning to look like the Senate may finally be ready to get serious about health care reform. As might have been expected, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has been holding a series of hearings to examine [...]

Another item from previous sessions of Congress that has returned for an encore is the Equity for Our Nation’s Self-Employed Act of 2009 (H.R. 1470), introduced by Congressmen Ron Kind (D-WI), Wally Herger (R-CA), Suzanne M. Kosmas (D-Fla.) and David G. Reichert (R-WA). The bill is another gem of bipartisan legislative simplicity, the bulk of [...]