CSPAN: we interrupt our regular programming to bring you the health care reform negotiations ....

Oops, never mind. There’s nothing to see here. Nope. Nothing. Move along now.

THIS IS RICH: [T]he Virginia Dental Association (VDA) will sponsor legislation that would prohibit dental insurance carriers from negotiating discounted fees for some types of non-covered dental services that subscribers currently receive from their participating dentist.

While insurance premiums would not be affected, the legislation would eliminate the discounts employees receive for services that are either not covered under their policy or exceed the benefit maximum. This means that, in these circumstances, employees will have to pay more out-of-pocket and could pay as much as patients without insurance.

At the moment this is state legislation, and limited to dental insurance, but if ObamaCare passes, it’s probably safe to assume that it will spread.

WHY THE ECONOMY IS STALLED: The small business owner/entrepeneur thinks “[The administration] hates me and what I stand for, and wants to appropriate lots of what I make and give it to others he likes better. Therefore I am not going to take any risks, since he’s either going to take lots of what I already made or even more of what I hope to make.”

Psychology matters.

“MIDDLE-INCOME WORKERS could save as much as $8,000 per year by dropping coverage and purchasing health insurance only when sick. Indeed, the legislation effectively removes any penalty on such behavior by forcing insurers to sell health insurance to the uninsured at standard premiums when they fall ill. The legislation would thus encourage "adverse selection"—an unstable situation that would drive insurance premiums, government spending, and taxes even higher.”

And they will. If I could only do that with my Medicare Part B insurance, I would.

Read it all.

PAUL GREENBERG on freedom of thought: “When it comes to anti-intellectualism, no one practices it so assiduously as the West's own intellectuals.”

THE RISK OF catastrophic victory. Peggy Noonan on ObamaCare writ large, the lack of a loyal opposition, and the mood of the country.

Read the whole thing.

AN ODE TO CATS and cat lovers.

Join Sir Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Schweitzer, Frederic Chopin, Frank Zappa, Carly Simon,


Shadow

Nina Simone, John Lennon, Frank Andrews, Samuel Johnson, Sir Walter Scott, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, M.F.K. Fisher,


Diamond

Clementine Paddleford, Julia Child; Julie Powell, Ron Rosenbaum, T.S. Eliot, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dana Gioia, Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustav Klimt, Andy Warhol, the prophet


Daisy

Mohammad, Pope Leo XII, Pope Benedict XVI, Michel de Montaigne, Eckhart Tolle - and me.

Check out the feline talent at your local animal shelter and consider adopting today.