Author Archive | Conrad F. Meier

The nature of a lie is such that if you repeat it often enough it takes on a life of its own, always at the expense of truth. While some lies–”your hair looks great”–are harmless enough, and lies like “I never had sex with that woman” are laughable, others can be harmful to life, liberty, [...]

A mature Harry Potter has traveled through the Outerland, to the banks of the Hogwash. From here he can see his final destination: the Ministry of the Village. The Villages’ inhabitants, known as Republocrats, are faceless mutations of an old two-party political system. Ever since Harry’s parents disappeared in the bureaucratic Medicare maze, his life-long [...]

A new national survey, sponsored by the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) and co-sponsored by the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, reveals considerable support among small business owners for market-based solutions addressing the health insurance needs of the nation’s 43 million uninsured citizens. Kate Sullivan, [...]

Last year a sophisticated Internet hacker took control of the University of Washington Medical Center’s network and downloaded the admissions records of 4,000 cardiology patients. Among the thousands of pieces of private information he downloaded were names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, and descriptions of the medical procedures undergone by the patients. The 25-year-old Dutch hacker, [...]

Remember when you could choose to go to any doctor, pay a reasonable fee for your medical service, and not worry about co-pays, deductibles, and some distant stranger authorizing or denying the care prescribed by your physician? If so, you have lived long enough to know “what goes around comes around.” And what has come [...]