Forbes has one of those “pics and words” articles about healthcare, with quotes from lots of smart and not-so-smart commenters. But I just thought it would be fun for you to read the quotes and then play the “who really said that” game.  Here are some quotes I picked, not quite at random. After the jump, I reveal who said them with a little commentary

1) We want to get to 100% insurance coverage so the whole country is in the risk pool, which eliminates cherry picking.

2) The old managed competition idea from the Clinton years is still a pretty good one. The idea was to have some entity–employer, private or possibly a public sponsor–set up a menu of choices for people and give them a lot of information about each choice. Then give people a set of choices that range from basic coverage to highly generous, expensive coverage and let them decide how much money they want to spend. Subsidize lower-income people in some way, like refundable tax credits, to ensure people have money to buy good basic coverage, but then they’d have to add their own money if they wanted something more extravagant.

3) We have turned over $2.2 trillion of our money to those who manage our health care, without holding them accountable. Not surprisingly, these folks–hospitals, insurers, governments–used the money to benefit themselves

4) All of the incentives are pointed in the wrong direction.

5) The Medicare program needs to focus on being a more active purchaser. We need to consider an entire episode of care from start to finish to ensure a patient gets care in the most appropriate location … We don’t, at the moment, have a rational reimbursement structure for health care. You may pay more for a procedure at one location, and the quality of care may not be higher. Part of fixing that will take legislation.

6) Spend money on an information infrastructure. Then it would technically be quite possible to track what different hospitals actually spend on health care and what happens to these patients that get treated. Put that information on the web and let people see it to hold doctors and hospitals accountable for how they practice.

7) You need to have a private marketplace rather than have government control in the health care sector, and that means fixing the federal tax code.

You want to know who really said that? Read on:

Continue reading…

In raiding like Gestapo officers and then shutting down all the medical marijuana dispensaries in San Mateo county Thursday, the DEA confirmed the sensible opinion that it’s ana gency filled with total scumbags. I guess we can blame the cowardly Democrats who did not vote to suspend DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries even when they had the chance to do so last month.

But what’s worse is that for the first time that I can recall local law enforcement in California joined in, with both the City of San Mateo PD and the San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force taking part. That’s just shameful behavior from those local cops, presumably incited by the DEA offering them a share of the take—as usually happens in these situations. Are they unaware of the local support for Proposition 215 and medical marijuana?

Clearly we need Federal resolution of this ridiculous waste of taxpayers money, and the consequent suffering of patients—but the local cops need to get a clue first. I sincerely hope that the citya nd county elected officials let them know about this.