Priceless Author Asks Why People Aren't Signing Up for Medicaid

John Goodman on the disconnect in the health care reform discussion:

Consider this:

· About one in every four individuals who are eligible for Medicaid in this country has not bothered to enroll.
· About one in five employees who are offered employer-provided health insurance turns it down; among workers under 30 years of age, the refusal rate is almost one in three.

Think about that for a moment.

Millions of people are turning down (Medicaid) health insurance, even though it’s free! Millions of others are turning down their employers’ offers. Since employees pay about 27% of the cost of their health insurance, on the average, millions of workers are passing up the opportunity to buy health insurance for 27 cents on the dollar.

You almost never read statistics like these in the mainstream media. Why? Because they completely undermine health policy orthodoxy: the belief that health insurance (even Medicaid) is economically very valuable, that it improves health and saves lives, and that the main reason why people don’t have it is that they can’t afford it.

Welcome to the huge disconnect in health reform.

Why The White House is Panicking About Obamacare || Forbes

My Interview with Gov. Gary Johnson - Libertarian Presidential Candidate - On Al-Qaida, Obamacare

We talked about Syria, al-Qaida, Medicare, Social Security, and Obama. Read about it by clicking the links below.

Libertarian Party Nominee Gary Johnson: ‘A Quarter of the Syrian Rebels are Al-Qaida’ || Politic365

Libertarian Nominee Gary Johnson on Obamacare: ‘A Torpedo in a Sinking Ship' || Politic365

Weekly Health Review, Vol. 14

Editor's Note: The Goins Report did not publish a Weekly Health Review since 8/21/12.

The Senior White House Correspondent for ABC News reports that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel holds that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act, which limits political activity to the President and Vice President.

The IRS Deputy Commissioner says that IRS agents won't be enforcing the 2010 health care law, CNBC news reports.

Democrats are committing a real war on women by forcing contraception coverage at the expense of medical care for older people on Medicare, AAPS columnist Dr. Elizabeth Vliet, MD, writes.

War on Women: 60,000 women died prematurely because of government-endorsed information, Vliet reminds readers.

Tea Party Patriots slammed the must-pass continuing resolution that will go up for vote this Thursday because it funds the 2010 health care law, once derisively called "Obamacare," The Hill reports.


Scientific Breakthrough: Australian scientists working under a government-funded science consortium implanted the "world's first" bionic eye that allows the patient to see images of varying size, Yahoo News reports.

Doesn't that stink? Swallowed batteries account for thousands of children's emergency room visits, Fox News reports.

Health.com outlines 14 types of headaches and how to treat them.

Calm down, everyone! A conservative policy president says Romney's statement that there are parts of the 2010 health care law that he likes is no statement that he'd keep it in place, the National Review Online has the opinion piece.

And she also notes in another piece that what Governor Romney envisioned for Massachusett's was not what was eventually passed into law.

DNC Convention News

Clinton double counts on Medicare, an opinion piece in POLITICO argues.


POLITICO fact-checks Bill Clinton's speech. Does a similar breakdown of Paul Ryan's speech.

Conservatives says that the decrease in health care spending was already in motion before the 2010 health care reform law was passed, yours truly for Politic365 reports.

RNC Convention News

In his RNC acceptance speech, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney vows to repeal and replace the 2010 health care reform law, Kaiser Health News reports (with video).

And while they GOP claims they'll have a mandate to reshape Medicare if they win in November, POLITICO explores the question: A mandate for what?

Liar, Liar?: The Associate Press charged Paul Ryan with taking some factual shortcuts in his RNC VP acceptance speech, The Hill reports.

Weekly Health Review, Vol. 12

Romney's Vice Presidential running mate is far from a fiscal conservative as evidenced by his voting for the biggest Medicare expansion in history, POLITICO reports.

The men of the 2012 Presidential election, Romney, Ryan, and Obama, have all supported near trillion dollar cuts in Medicare, ABC News' Jake Tapper reports.

The key to fixing emergency rooms' overcrowding problem is to put more emphasis on primary care, a doctor wrote for Politic365.com.

Flashback: Mitt Romney invested in a company that disposed aborted fetuses by placing them into an incinerator, Mother Jones reports.

Weekly Health Review, Vol. 6

Rep. Bachmann says that issue in HHS contraceptives mandate debate is whether government can stand in the place of God, CNSNews.com reports.

Politico explains the three scenarios for the president when the Supreme Court rules on the health care law.

HHS Secretary Sebelius says that 11,000 new beneficiaries are added to Medicare daily, CNSNews.com reports.

Democrats dismiss Republican investigation showing White House officials sought to steer the content special interest groups pro-health care law advertisements, Reuters reports.

FLASHBACK: Presidential Candidate Ron Paul says that he would preserve government entitlements while transitioning Americans to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), CBS News reports.

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) said the current healthcare system is overly corporate and not much better than a socialized healthcare system during a town hall in Meredith, New Hampshire on Sunday.

Paul, a physician, said he began practicing medicine in the 1950s before Medicare and Medicaid, so the government had a minimal role in the healthcare system. He said that since President Lyndon Johnson introduced the idea of a federal role in healthcare costs have skyrocketed and the system has become controlled by corporations instead of the government.

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

How to Eliminate Social Security and Medicare

If we want to protect the value of individual human life, particularly in old age, when it is most vulnerable, we must reverse direction and start dismantling Social Security and Medicare, two potentially deadly collectivist institutions. We must restore to the individual the responsibility and the power to determine his own future through forethought and saving. The individual must have his own individual property with the freedom to use it for his own well-being, as he sees fit. Government officials must be barred from the process.

How to Eliminate Social Security and Medicare

Bizarro Land: Double Counting for Obamacare and Medicare

This is really classic.

The HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the truth about how Medicare and Obamacare is being funded.

Read it all here.