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President Obama gave up yesterday on health-care votes in Congress before the August recess, as his approval rating on the issue sinks below 50% and Democrats get the jimmy legs. The numbers will only get worse if he insists on bull-rushing a government takeover on a partisan vote in the fall. For the sake of the country, not to mention the Obama Presidency, we’d like to suggest a better path to reform that could get Republican votes.

The irony is that pretty much everyone in Washington agrees that the system needs improvement—and the double irony is that the basis for a major reform that combines ideas from both parties already exists. Yet Mr. Obama has delegated health care to left-wing committee chairmen in Congress, much as he did on cap and tax and the stimulus. While a less rushed, less divisive compromise would anger the left, it would also guarantee that a bill passes and would be far more durable.
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President Barack Obama wants a health care reform plan by August and the news media are doing their part to make it happen. ABC, CBS and NBC have boosted the administration’s case with sad stories about children without medical care and cancer patients whose insurance was cancelled. At the same time, those networks are nearly ignoring trillion-dollar cost estimates for a universal health care package, and have been virtually silent on the failures of Medicare the government insurance program that “reform” would be modeled on. 

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Americans have, at best, a love-hate relationship with the life-sciences industry—the term for the sector of the economy that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics (like vaccines), and medical devices. These days, the mere mention of a pharmaceutical manufacturer seems to elicit gut-level hostility. Journalists, operating from a bias against industry that goes as far back as the work of Upton Sinclair in the early years of the 20th century, treat companies from AstraZeneca to Wyeth as rapacious factories billowing forth nothing but profit. At the same time, Americans are adamant about the need for access to the newest cures and therapies and expect new cures and therapies to emerge for their every ailment—all of which result from work done primarily by these very same companies whose profits make possible the research that allows for such breakthroughs. 

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The nation’s governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them. 

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Don't Fall Prey to Propaganda: Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality are Unreliable Measures for Comparing the U.S. Health Care System to Others; by David Hogberg, Ph.D. 

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Health Care: The administration uses the "46 million uninsured" as a reason to nationalize health care. But the Census Bureau says about a fifth of those aren't U.S. citizens. In fact, a goodly number are illegal aliens. 

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Lard atop lard that only a politician or bureaucrat could love.
By DANIEL HENNINGER  In his speech on health care to the American Medical Association, President Obama explained why the U.S. has "failed" (yet again) to provide comprehensive reform that "covers everyone." He had a list of the failing people, who "simply couldn't agree" on reform: doctors, insurance companies, businesses, workers, others. And "if we're honest," he said (ergo, disagreeing with this is dishonest) we must add to the list "some interest groups and lobbyists" who have used "fear tactics." 

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Author:    Capretta, James C.
Publication:    National Review

THE most powerful constituency in the debate over the future of health care in the United States comprises those families enrolled in stable, employer-based health plans run by large and medium-sized companies. Conservatives need to get these voters on their side, both to block the worst elements of President Obama's agenda and to take the first steps in building a rational marketplace. 

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FreedomWorks has published Issue Analysis 126: The Sources of Insurance: Private, Public, the Uninsured, and Reforms for the Future.  Key finding:  

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