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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Mini review: Beating Obamacare

Finished reading: Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law, by Betsy McCaughey. I think the book succeeds in concisely and clearly identifying substantial causes for concern about this legislation and what its impacts will be. I think it fails to live to up to its title and subtitle (the word "surviving," incidentally, is something I had to add, as it is on the book's cover but often not showing up online; did someone have second thoughts about the subtitle?). There is little practical advice as to what to do about the health care law, though in fairness that may be because there is little an individual or business can do. The thing is Big Government in action.

Among many disturbing aspects of the laws are: weakened privacy, including your specialists all being able to know about your psych treatment or whatever, and your household income now becoming transparent to employers; and arbitrary powers, such as the Secretary of HHS handing out waivers from legal requirements for politically connected unions and companies, and "Community Transformation Grants" to favored activists whose connection to health care is tenuous, such as anti-fracking groups.

You don't have to have overblown perceptions of "socialism" and "death panels" to be worried about Obamacare, and this book provides valuable insight into what really is wrong with this massive legislative sausage.