Seen in the Comments–Vizzini Edition

In this post of mine on Efficiency and Administrative costs frequent commenter Michael Reynolds wrote, How about we take the French system plus 20%? Hell, France plus 50% would represent a staggering windfall for us. In fact, we could buy France with the savings. I don't think that word (windfall) means what you think it means. That the French and their ...

Efficiency and Administrative Costs

For the sake of argument let us assume that Medicare’s administrative costs are lower than those of the typical health insurance company. Does this imply that Medicare is more efficient than the private company? I’ve been skeptical of this view point since one thing I’ve learned in economics is that firms want to maximize profits. You ...

Looking At Medicare Administrative Costs

Are they lower? This article by the Heritage Foundation makes an interesting point. Medicare beneficiaries are by definition elderly, disabled, or patients with end-stage renal disease. Private insurance beneficiaries may include a small percentage of people in those categories, but they consist primarily of people are who under age 65 and not disabled. Naturally, Medicare beneficiaries need, on average, more ...

Stimulus?

After seeing today’s job report from the BLS I have to wonder, is the stimulus working? I’m thinking no. There are two possible explanations as to what is going on here. The initial forecast for unemployment was too optimistic. The forecast was fine, but the stimulus is just not doing what it is supposed to do: create jobs. Why do ...

Everyone Has a Plan Until they Get Hit

Megan McArdle, reporting from an annual gabfest in Aspen: The questions for [Austan] Goolsbee are much more hostile than they were last year.  I don't know whether to attribute this to the economy, or the fact that the disadvantages of Obama's policies are now apparent.  All policies sound better when they're in white paper, and Obama's rhetorical deftness made it particularly ...

Wal-Mart Supports Mandatory Health Coverage (Out of Kindness, I Suppose)

Michael Tomasky is stoked that Wal-Mart has come out in support of government's mandating business provide health insurance for all employees. His explanation, however, is curious: There's got to be a fascinating story behind the "why." Wal-Mart would never acknowledge this, but there seems to me little doubt that all the pressure campaigns over the years, the documentary films ...

Health Care, Pooling, and Monopsony

At a recent press conference President Obama had this to say about the public health care option he is floating as part of his proposal for reforming health care and its impact on private health care options, Now, the public plan I think is a important tool to discipline insurance companies. What we've said is, under our proposal, let's have a ...

Do Something! Anything! Don’t Read It Just Pass It!

Matt Welch points to the story of how a British maker managed to get $2.7 billion in TARP money. The hurried legislation adopted by a Congress voting under the threat of sudden global economic collapse led to hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries. They included builders of Nascar auto-racing tracks, restaurant chains such as Burger King Holdings ...

Repeating History

Looks like Reps. Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner want both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen lending standards for condos. Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said. In March, ...

Sorry About Terrorizing You…

...how about some movie passes? From Radley Balko comes this story of a wrong door raid and the counties offer for compensation was some free movie passes. Yes, free movie passes. Kenyan immigrant Nancy Njoroge had been living in the United States for a year when a Montgomery County SWAT team burst into her Gaithersburg apartment at 4 a.m., ...

Metro Crash Politics

I agree with Matt Yglesias that "it's a bit ugly to talk politics in the wake of a tragedy" but, like him, I will nonetheless point to a couple of interesting, related debates that have been sparked by yesterday's crash on DC's Metrorail system Red Line. This report, naturally, is causing some finger pointing: The subway train that plowed into another, causing ...

Tale of Two Cites

The Congressional Budget Office, the "nonpartisan" arbiter of the cost of various proposals and plans for the legislature, comes in handy sometimes. Other times, not so much. So House Democrats are discovering anew. Just five days ago Speaker Pelosi vented her frustration with the CBO for its sky high projection for health care reform: “The CBO will always give you the ...

Obama Bans Yummy Cigarettes

The FDA now has the power to regulate what cigarettes taste like. For the children. President Barack Obama cited his own long struggle to quit the cigarettes he got hooked on as a teenager as he signed the nation's strongest-ever anti-smoking bill Monday and praised it for providing critically needed protections for kids. "The decades-long effort to protect our ...

FTC to Monitor Blogs

Here we go again:  The government is looking to get into the business of regulating blogs, reports AP's Deborah Yao. Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon. What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews ...

Radley Balko on No-Knock Raids

And why they are bad as a general rule. Even if police always got the right house and every raid were performed flawlessly (and that's obviously not the case), the image of police dressed as soldiers routinely breaking into private homes to serve warrants for non-violent crimes is one we ought to find disturbing. At one time we did. There's an ...