October is my time of the year for one reason – baseball playoffs followed by the World Series. The critical difference between baseball and politics: baseball is played according to specific rules, and when violations occur they usually get called on it. It’s also a game based on merit. Politics – well, you get the idea. In honor of America’s...

Health Battle Enters Round 2 – That was the weekend headline in the Wall Street Journal (June 30-July1). I’ve written about some of issues surrounding the health care law earlier this year: (March 5, April 20). However, no sooner had the Supreme Court ruled that The Affordable Care Act was constitutional than the lines were drawn on opinion pages as well as Congress as...

Like many, I’ve been frustrated and confused by all the talk about health care costs and reform. (I recently changed my insurance plan from a low deductible to one three times higher in order to save $7,400 over a year.) While The Affordable Care Act has been signed into law, the component that establishes affordable insurance exchanges is not due to take...

Last Friday’s question regarding the 26-state challenge to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and the three-days of oral arguments in the Supreme Court drew a lot of response. Before I go any further, let me say that, “no” I have not read all 2,700 pages of the law. I have read through the key features of the law as well as a timeline of...

In an Op-ed for U.S. News and World Report, GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum wrote that “Polls show Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to ObamaCare, especially the individual mandate.” Is he right or wrong? While the Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of The Affordable Care Act, Pollster Mark Blumenthal at Huffington Post has done some fairly comprehensive work cataloging the public’s...

There have been so many voices involved on the issue of birth control that it’s hard to separate truth from friction, but I’ll try. To begin with, the mandate to have religious-based employers provide coverage for employees as part of their health plans has its roots in what most people refer to as “Obamacare.” The legislation is actually called The Patient...

In August 2009, Specialist Michael Crawford tried to commit suicide by way of a handful of painkillers with a chaser of whiskey.  “It is just a dark place. Being in the W.T.U. is worse than being in Iraq.” The W.T.U. is the Warrior Transition Battalion, “a special unit,” the NY Times writes, “created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds...

Doctors are familiar with the Hippocratic Oath – a pledge taken by incoming physicians that they will practice medicine in an honorable way. However, one partisan urologist in Mount Dora, (a little town not far from Orlando, Florida), has allowed politics to intrude into his practice. Dr. Jack Cassell posted a sign on the front of his office that states: “If you...

Clearly, the most contentious issue facing the country in the last 18 months has been health care reform.  While a majority of people believe that reform is necessary, the details of that reform have driven most to distraction. PolitiFact.com is a collective of reporters and researchers for the St. Petersburg Times whose purpose is to “find the truth in politics” by examining “statements by members...

Hold on to your hats, folks, I’m getting ready to be brilliant. I have the answer to the health care debate.  No, really! Last Saturday, the House narrowly passed its version of health care reform.  Now, we all hold our breath as it goes to the Senate and then back to the House and… let’s skip past all the parsing...