Fire Chief Shot in Court Over Tickets

Yes, that headline is not an exaggeration. The Chief of the Jericho Fire Department went to court and was shot by the police for disputing two tickets requiring two trips to the court house. JERICHO, Ark. – It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire ...

Would the Real Tyler Cowen Please Stand Up?

Tyler Cowen has written several posts in favor of the bailouts. His argument goes something like this: Note that even when the Fed "bails out" a large investment bank, or insurance company, they are checking a chain reaction which would likely spread to some commercial banks, thus bringing in deposit insurance as well, not to mention further bankruptcies. And ...

Resource Allocation and Health Care

Over at his web site Dave has put up a post discussing how resources are allocated. I've touched on this very briefly in comments and a post or two, but nothing this extensive. As such, go read it, it's good. Here is a snippet, Despite the author’s attempt to assuage concern by pooh-poohing the idea of rationing, rationing or ...

Its the Costs, Stupid

In the last several posts on health care it is often pointed out that health insurance companies engage in dubious practices. For example, they’ll deny coverage for the most trivial of reasons. Many posting comments focus on this issue as well as others such as quality of care, the moral nature of providing health care, and so forth. ...

Question of the Day – Healthcare Edition

"Is is possible to make a coherent argument that government-provided healthcare is a moral obligation but that our obligation doesn’t extend to people in Zambia? I don’t think it is but I’m willing to listen to the arguments." - Dave Schuler It's possible to make a practical argument along those lines, as well as to argue that the scope of the ...

What If They Closed Government and Nobody Noticed?

Dave Schuler reports that this is exactly what happened in his hometown of Chicago. The Monday furlough that was touted as a draconian way to cut the budget wound up hurting only the government employees who get screwed out of a day's pay. Dave suggests, "If this keeps up the people of Chicago may decide that a permanent 20% cut ...

Obama’s Op-Ed on Health Care

President Obama, seeing that he is taking a beating in the polls, and that health care is starting to founder took to the pages of the New York Times to lay out the case for health care reform. I think he did a rather bad job of it. He could have done it with far, far fewer ...

Buh-Bye Public Option

The Obama Administration may be dropping the public option requirement from its health care agenda. PHOENIX — The White House, facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate. Along ...

Insurance: You Keep Using That Word…

The Obama Administration is pushing an 8-pronged list of "Health Insurance Consumer Protections." No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history. No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses. No Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care Insurance companies must fully ...

Planning: USA vs. China

Matt Yglesias notes that Shanghai has a long-term plan for expanding their subway system and laments that we're not so forward thinking here in America. What’s striking is the extent to which we don’t operate like that here in the United States. I think everyone believes that over the next couple of decades the Washington, DC metro area will continue to ...

Winning the Healthcare Fight

David Frum frets that conservatives might be in for a Pyrrhic victory in the health care fight if they define winning as "beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself." [W]e’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and ...

Increase US Life Expectancy Without Increasing the Power of Government

Following up on this post about US life expectancy at birth by Dr. Joyner last Friday, it occurs to me that there's a quick and easy step the federal government could take that would significantly increase our life expectancy almost overnight. Unfortunately, while it would without a doubt have a much more profound effect on that metric than even the ...

Higher Middle Class Taxes

Looks like the Obama Administration is testing the waters on the idea of raising taxes on the middle class, WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health ...

Get Married Or Leave Town

In answer to James' query below about when a state or county have forced unmarried people not to live together, meet Olivia Shelltrack, Fondray Loving and their three children. Welcome to Wednesday afternoon at 12475 Parkwood Lane in Black Jack, Mo.: In his room on the second floor, 8-year-old Cortez Loving wages an intergalactic battle with dozens of action figures; next ...

Controlling Medicare Costs—IMAC

The CBO has analyzed some of the suggested methods for controlling health care costs, and the Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC) in particular. The findings so far is not all that good, In particular, CBO reviewed draft legislation transmitted to the Congress by the Administration on July 17, 2009, titled the Independent Medicare Advisory Council Act of 2009. CBO estimates ...