June 17, 2011 2:21PM

That’s Not Healthy: ‘They Said What?’ Edition

By Michael F. Cannon

Some quick hits from today's health care news:

  • As I predicted, the physicians lobby balks at ObamaCare's accountable care organization (ACOs) program, saying, obliquely: "Give us more money."
  • GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty left AHIP members and some reporters confused about how a person can support ACOs but still want to repeal ObamaCare. He and they should have read my column on ACOs.
  • Pawlenty also endorsed a public option when he said his Medicare reform proposal would preserve Parts A, B, and D.  He should have read my papers on a public option and Medicare reform (with Chris Edwards).
  • Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says he will fight "to the end" to keep low-income Americans dependent on lousy government health care programs.
  • Turns out, potential GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has endorsed an individual mandate after all: "I wouldn’t shy away from mandates.  I think if you’re going to get it done and get it done right, [a] mandate has to be part of it...I’m not sure you get to the point of serious attempt without some sort of mandate."
  • Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) gushes over ObamaCare's rationing board.
  • Ezra Klein enlightens Washington Post readers by telling them Medicaid could save money someday if the government somehow became really, really smart.  Klein, too, should read my column on ACOs.
  • According to one mother of a diabetic child, Washington state's death panel members "knew nothing about type 1 diabetes. And they're making this huge, important decision that affects all these people. It was mind-boggling," while a death-panel defender non-ironically laments, "That's what's been driving health care — the whiteness of the hair, the more bravado, the more clout you have in politics — that's what's making health care not healthy."