Today's Op-Ed selections: Medicare, Medicaid and the Constitution

Maybe It's Time To Slow Down The Pace Of Medical Treatment The Washington Post
My patient had just been the recipient of a rare and highly valued medical commodity, a treatment that is as quantifiable in its effects as the milligrams of a medication or the number of stitches in a wound: Time (Daphne Miller, 9/15).

Health-Care Reform And The Constitution The Wall Street Journal
Why hasn't the Commerce Clause been read to allow interstate insurance sales? (Andrew P. Napolitano, 9/15) .

Congress Should Extend Help With Medicaid Des Moines Register
[O]ne provision Congress should consider extending is an increase in the federal matching rate for Medicaid - health insurance for the indigent, paid for by a mix of state and federal dollars (9/15).

Medicare Oxygen Policy Short Of Breadth The Modesto Bee
Like tossing out the baby with the bath water, Medicare is saving money for the taxpayers by depriving seriously ill people of life-giving oxygen, forgetting that taxpayers are also patients (Saul Friedman, 9/15).

Reform Medicare First The Washington Times
Though touching the entitlement is a hard political sell, any attempt at wholesale health care reform will be pointless without first tackling Medicare's negative impact on patient care and the federal deficit (9/15).

Hispanics Get Overlooked In Health Care Debate The Austin American-Statesman
As a society, we accept the fact that education is vital for a productive labor force and have made education a citizenship right, at least through high school. We have not come to the same conclusion concerning health. Yet health is wealth in the most basic sense of the term, and our collective wealth depends heavily on the health of the Mexican-origin population (Ronald and Jacqueline Angel, 9/15).

Why Small-Government Proponents Champion Medicare The New York Times
If the tax system is wildly wasteful and public services are mediocre, then there will be little public enthusiasm for expanding the size of the state. Can this explain why some advocates of limited government have become the archdefenders of Medicare's largess? After all, if health care stays enormously expensive, then this will surely limit Americans' appetite for expanding the entitlement to health care (Edward L. Glaeser, 9/15).

Seniors Complain Loudest, Benefit Most From Public Health Care The Baltimore Sun
[O]n our televisions we see enraged senior citizens at health care town halls with signs warning about the rise of socialism in America. That is, the group most worried about government intervention into health care is the group that benefits from the greatest government investment in public health care the planet has ever witnessed. Are you kidding me? (Thomas F. Schaller, 9/15).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.