“On the 47 million people without health insurance point, that too is a statistic where there is less than meets the eye. First, health insurance does not equal health care (there are not just emergency rooms but cash-based clinics, and conversely, a lot of people with insurance don’t get good health care). Second, of that […]
Archive for July, 2009
Jul30th2009
Gary Becker writes:
A recent excellent unpublished study by Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho of the University of Pennsylvania compare mortality rates for breast and prostate cancer. These are two of the most common and deadly forms of cancer–in the United States prostate cancer is the second leading cause of male cancer […]
Jul29th2009
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw breaks down the healthcare debate to one of trust:
Perhaps a lot of the disagreement over healthcare reform, and maybe other policy issues as well, stems from the fundamental question of what kind of institutions a person trusts. Some people are naturally skeptical of profit-seeking firms; others are naturally skeptical of government.
I […]
Jul28th2009
You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
Why the “Buy American” campaign is just another union power grab and should be ignored.
Jul27th2009
Limited Governments Best Friend: The CBO
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Economics, Fiscal Stimulus, General, HealthCare, ModernPolitics and Personal. 2 CommentsRemember the Democrats claim that by empowering a new panel (the Independent Medicare Advisory Council) to recommend future spending reductions we could save several billions of dollars in healthcare costs? If this was before the creation of the CBO (1974, according to Wiki), such claims would be nearly impossible to disprove. Democrats could get away […]
Jul25th2009
“In the thirties, governments had Four Year Plans. Today, they have Four Year from Now Plans - big policies that basically don’t kick in until the next election. Waxman-Markey lets emissions grow normally until 2012. When I criticized the House’s health care plan, several defenders quickly pointed out that its payroll tax doesn’t kick in […]
Jul24th2009
The latest:
Today, the Obama administration delivered one of the more remarkable presidential power grabs seen in recent memory (the transmittal letter is here, and a section-by-section description of the proposal is available here).
The president has decided — just days before the deadline he himself set for passage of health care bills in both chambers of […]
Jul23rd2009
“There are two health policies that liberals and libertarians would both prefer to the status quo. The first is a free market plus redistribution for the poor. The second is bare bones, high-deductible national health care, with a free market for all add-ons. The reason neither are likely to happen is mistrust. Liberals think that […]
Jul20th2009
“Massachusetts passed a major health care reform bill back when Mitt Romney was governor, that effectively created a universal health care system which was paired with some fairly hand-wavy promises of cost controls. The expanded coverage has worked great, but the cost controls haven’t.” — Matthew Yglesias
Jul17th2009
A Wal-Mart Job Is Better Than No Job
Published by in Economics, ModernPolitics and Wal-Mart. 5 CommentsThat is the lesson Chicago politicians need to learn:
Chicago needs new jobs. Wal-Mart wants to provide jobs to Chicago. Alderman Howard Brookins wants Wal-Mart in his 21st Ward. Yet the company and the alderman face huge resistance from the City Council to a proposal for a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the South Side, at 83rd Street […]
Jul16th2009
More Vargas Testimony
Published by in Hispanics (Minority Issues) and affirmative action. 0 CommentsYou need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
Update: Expired video updated with a more complete one.
Jul16th2009
Vargas Testimony In The Sotomayor Hearings
Published by in General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), ModernPolitics and affirmative action. 2 CommentsI haven’t seen this discussed much in the blogosphere so I thought I would provide it here:
ACTING CHAIRMAN: Mr. Ricci, thank you very much for your testimony. We’ll now hear from Lieutenant Ben Vargas. Ben — Benjamin Vargas is a lieutenant in the New Haven Fire Department and was a plaintiff in the case of […]
Jul15th2009
“Universal health care will lead to one of two things. Either people will lose some of the incentive to stay healthy, because everybody else has to pay for the cost, or the government will become even more of a nanny state and will start monitoring our exercise and Twinkie intake. (Remember how the government monitored […]
Jul10th2009
“We now talk of trillions the way, even a few months ago, we spoke of billions. In mid-June, the Senate health committee put out its version of reform and was horrified when the Congressional Budget Office figured that it would cost a trillion dollars over 10 years (over current spending) and would still leave millions […]
Jul9th2009
“Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and […]
Jul8th2009
“What is the essential informational imperfection in our labor market example? Workers have attributes—innate skills, adaptability and maturity, preferences between shirking versus expending effort—that are difficult for employers to observe. As a consequence, employers look for signals about these things. Professor Neumark offers one such signal: If you are an adult and still in a […]
