I actually like this article by Ezra Klein. Often I’ve found his articles lacking in understanding of economics, an appreciation for incentives, etc. But this looks quite good. Well balanced and displaying a healthy skepticism about why Medicare’s adminstative costs are lower and if we can get such low costs in general for health care and if it is even desireable. Here are the last two paragraphs, and read the whole thing,
It’s also important to note that you don’t necessarily want administrative costs as low as they could possibly be. Some activities that are considered “administrative” are useful. Disease management, for instance, which accounts for some of the difference between Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Mental health counselors who are available by phone. Good-faith investigations into waste, fraud and abuse. Care coordination. Nurses who use e-mail or telephones to remind patients to take their drugs. Administration is not always wasteful.
But no matter how good you got at slashing administrative costs, they will never be a panacea to the problems of the system. Rick Kronick, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, has done some of the best work on administrative costs, and he summed the situation up quite well. “The main question,” he said, “is why are health care costs going up at 2.4 percent a year faster than GDP? And most of the answers to that question have nothing to do with administrative costs. The answers are that we do more stuff and have more technology. Even if we could wring administrative savings out of the system, which I’m all in favor of and would be a good thing, we’d still be facing the question of how to slow the rate of cost growth.”
Is it my imagination or do things become very, very quiet on Fridays these days? I know that traffic at this blog drops sharply on Fridays which suggests to me that a lot of people read blogs from work and that they aren’t at work on Fridays.
In the DC area, at least, it’s not uncommon to have flex schedules. Some work 10 hour days four days a week and takeMondays or Fridays off. Others put in 9 hour days and take every other Monday or Friday off. And a bold few work 8 hour days while claiming 10.
Beyond that, people tend to treat Fridays more casually, both in their attire and their pace of work, often skipping out quite early.
My blog traffic tends to go down to weekend levels by early afternoon and has for years.
Photo by Flickr user slworking2 under Creative Commons license.
[T]here are currently jobs that manned warplanes can do that drones can’t perform (human pilots are more visually capable than even the best drones, for example), but a) drones are getting better, b) drones are so much cheaper, and c)taking the pilot out means that you can do a lot of funky, interesting things with an advanced airframe. This isn’t to say that the F-35 (or even the F-22) have no role; they’ll continue to be useful frames for the jobs they’re intended to do for a substantial period of time. But I don’t think there’s a next “next generation” of fighter aircraft. And in any case, it appears that the A-10 will remain the platform of choice for fighting the giant robots that undoubtedly will afflict us in the future…
David Axe notes that the aircraft companies and the Russians might have something to say about that and several of Matt Yglesias‘ commenters point out that the cultural affinity of the military, particularly the Air Force, for manned fighters will be hard to overcome. One, Campesino, observes that the Navy is already working on an unmanned carrier bomber.
I don’t claim much expertise on weapons technology but unmanned fighters are scientifically inevitable. We’re already pushing the envelope on what human pilots can sustain. Designing planes around human beings means making them larger, more expensive, and less capable of doing their job than they could already be now. Human physiology is unlikely to evolve as fast as aerospace technology. (As an aside, we’ll continue to need human piloted transport planes, I think, because the need for human judgment is more critical and the need for speed and maneuver is diminished.)
I do, however, have some expertise on the impact of military culture on force planning, having written my dissertation on the subject. The late Carl Builder outlined the basics twenty years ago in his masterwork The Masks Of War: American Military Styles In Strategy And Analysis. The essence of the book is that each of the military services has a core vision of itself that remains constant even as technology and the operational environment change. While the Navy has had fighter planes just as long as the Air Force (indeed, longer than we’ve had an independent Air Force), it merely sees airplanes as one tool in maintaining American dominance of the seas. The Air Force, by contrast, exists only because of its “toys” and its pilots think of themselves first and foremost as drivers of a particular aircraft.
The combination of the pilot mafia, lobbyists for aircraft manufacturers, and powerful sympathizers in the halls of Congress will make it very difficult to make the technologically logical move here.
Retro Comedy offers a collection of “The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time.” I’m not sure if this one is creepy but it is rather bizarre:
I’m not even sure how this poor woman was supposed to “store test” the coffee. Even nowadays, when one can easily buy loose, whole bean coffee — rather than coffee pre-ground and put into sealed cans — I’m not sure how to test for freshness.
With the estimable Rodney Dill on his “usual summer hiatus,” James asked me to fill in if I could. As it happens I’m on vacation, too, but we wouldn’t want to go half the month with no contest. So, without further ado, here’s your supplemental OTB Caption Contest™:
E.D. Kain makes the interesting point that it may be too late for Microsoft’s bing to make much penetration into the search market, regardless of whether it’s better at producing desired results, because we’ve already reached the point where the name of the market leader has become a verb.
Once something becomes a sort of universal noun, that’s bad enough. Kleenex did this in the tissue market, becoming pretty much synonymous with tissue. So whether or not you were using a generic tissue or a Kleenex, you called it a Kleenex. They transcended brand. But it’s so much more potent to achieve verb status, and that’s what Google’s done. You “google” something now – you rarely hear someone say “search.” You never hear anyone say “just ask it” or “just yahoo it” – or at least, I never do.
The only other example that comes readily to mind is “xerox” as a synonym for making photocopies. Then again, Canon and others have made quite an inroads into that business.
Kain makes a less catchy but perhaps more salient point in the comments:
Nor do they understand connectivity and product overlap the way Google does. Google connects your email, chat, documents, search, and even browser now, etc. into basically one product, and with upcoming innovations like Wave and their OS that connectivity and overlap will just become far, far more effective. (Apple has done this fairly well also with hardware added into the mix) Microsoft has tried with “Windows Live” and all that, but there are just too many gaps, too many brands, etc. I mean “bing” is now part of the whole cadre of Microsoft products, but is it really tied into them well? Why Microsoft hasn’t made their Windows platform more webby is beyond me. And why they make it so difficult to integrate everything is also confusing.
That, to me, is the real issue. Google may not be the best at anything but they’re pretty good at everything. It’s mighty convenient to have my email, calendar, task list, and whatnot in one place. They’re all good enough that I’ve stopped looking for competing apps even though there may well be something better out their for any particular product.
I sincerely hope that Microsoft — or somebody — creates a viable enough alternative to keep Google honest, though. Google’s marketplace dominance gives them an awesome amount of power in determining which websites thrive and fail, which videos get seen by the masses, and whatnot. Having a ready alternative will make it harder for them to abuse that position.
But Obama probably also shouldn’t have said this. The president joked to a group of Russian businessmen about how Czar Alexander II gave America “a pretty good deal on Alaska,” which the United States bought from Imperial Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold.
It’s still a sore subject. The first time I visited the post-Soviet Europe as an exchange student in western Ukraine, Alaska came up as I was speaking to a classroom full of high school students. NATO was in the midst of bombing Serbia — on whose behalf Russia entered the First World War — and the ethnic Russian teacher explained that the military action wasn’t the only thing Russians wanted the United States to roll back. Alaska, she said to my astonishment, should be Russia’s again. “We are hoping,” she said earnestly, explaining that this could be a way to deepen trust and respect between Cold War rivals.
That has been my experience, too. I haven’t found the subject to be one about which Russians have much of a sense of humor. I’d appreciate hearing others’ experience to the contrary.
It’s also what’s come out in the scanty Russian language media coverage of President Obama’s visit. Most Russian commentators were more likely to complain about President Obama’s referring to PM Vladimir Putin as “president”. They appeared more predisposed to attribute it to ignorance rather than a slip of the tongue, as I did.
President Obama’s speech was covered live by any of Russia’s major news outlets and the flavor of the coverage it’s received was captured pretty well in this article in the New York Times:
“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.”
Others suggested that after decades of social turmoil, Russians were simply exhausted with politics, and had been so often disappointed by Western leaders that they were not inclined to get excited by the latest one. Asked by one Moscow newspaper what they expected to come out of Mr. Obama’s visit, most respondents had the same answer: traffic jams.
It may not come out in my writing but I am, generally speaking, not unfavorably disposed to President Obama, particularly in the area of foreign policy. When an error is made I think that gentle criticism is warranted and that’s how I saw the incident: an unforced error.
The picture above is of the check for $7.2 million issued by the United States for the purchase of Alaska.
A rather thinly sourced piece in the Philadelphia News alleging racism at a private swim club is getting quite a bit of attention.
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.
“I heard this lady, she was like, ‘Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?’ She’s like, ‘I’m scared they might do something to my child,’” said camper Dymire Baylor.
So, a kid claims “some lady” was wondering about the presence of black kids at a private club that, one gathers, tended to not normally have large numbers of black kids?
“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”
So, the white kids reflexively exited the pool en masse? Because they’ve never seen black kids before? In Philly?
And pool attendants — in 2009 Philadelphia — not only carried out a policy of excluding blacks from the club but had the incredibly poor judgment to tell the blacks that that’s what they were doing?!
Well . . . maybe:
“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
Now, frankly, if I’m paying for membership in a private club so that I can take my kids swimming in peace, I don’t want said club to sell season passes to large groups of non-members. Not only does that make the pool more crowded but it rather diminishes the “club” aspect of the experience. Typically, members are vetted and recommended by other members; having a busload of kids coming in from outside the community makes it, in essence, a public pool.
That may be all Duesler is saying. If so, however, the use of the word “complexion” was exceedingly unfortunate. Especially since, if this screencap is accurate, the club does have a rather light complexion.
Of course, it would be nice to have a link to Duesler’s full statement. (Valley Swim Club’s site is currently down.)
Interestingly, Ed Morrissey says there’s only one listing in the Philadelphia directory for a John Duesler: “the man who ran the O-Positive Obama campaign blood drive in Philly before Barack Obama’s inauguration.” If this is indeed the same guy, it would seemingly suggest that either 1) Duesler is not a racist or 2) he’s very confused.
Apparently, this incident occurred several days ago, so it’s not exactly breaking news even though the report came out just yesterday. It would have been better to hold off reporting this another day or two to get more facts (which, I’m given to understand, is what reporters did back in the old days). Were I the city desk editor, for example, I’d have asked the reporter to find out 1) what the racial composition of the club is; 2) whether similar incidents have occurred in the past; and 3) whether this sort of thing is common in Northeast Philadelphia or it’s contained in one club. Perhaps she could try to find out who was at the pool that day and get some quotes from some of the members. And, certainly, I’d have her follow up with Duesler to see if he’d dig himself any deeper or offer a plausible explanation. And find out if he’s the O-Positive guy.
The CIA has been lying to Congress about somethingoranother for years now, sources tell NYT.
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.
In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.
In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, referred to Mr. Panetta’s disclosure in a letter to the committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, Congressional Quarterly reported on Wednesday. Mr. Reyes wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.”
Via Twitter, Teresa Kopek is asking me to speculate on the subject matter but, honestly, I haven’t a clue. Presumably, given that waterboarding ended years ago under the Bush administration and has been decried by the Obama administration, it’s not about interrogation techniques. Otherwise, though, who knows?
And, in the remarkably long series of ways in which Obama is like Bush, we have this entry:
In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.
Obama, like Bush, is right. You can’t conduct intelligence activities without safeguarding the most sensitive secrets. One could argue for sharing beyond committee chairmen and ranking members, certainly, but there’s no logical rationale that a member of, say, the agriculture committee has a need to know.
This “Onion News Network” parody report on fan reaction to the then-new “Star Trek” prequel movie came out in May but Timothy Sandefur’s post was the first I’d seen it.
“Yes it was exciting . . . but where was the heavyhanded message about tolerance, where was the stiff acting . . . I mean, it just didn’t seem like a Star Trek movie to me.”
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 health care system are heading towards the same cliff we are, just not as fast, is not what I’d call a windfall. It is arguably a reasonable first step in health care reform, but it is not the end solution. And since we’d still have a health care problem even if we implemented the French system plus 0%, no we couldn’t buy France. The problem isn’t so much that we are spending too much right now, but that the rate of growth of health care costs is unsustainable. Switching to the French system might help that problem, it might put off the day at which things get really bad, but it isn’t a permanent fix.
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern.
Dave Schuler and I will be talk about President Obama’s trip to Russia, the G8 summit, the Afghanistan surge, and anything but Michael Jackson.
We’ll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030. Owing to a high trolls to legit callers ratio, however, we’ll be using the BTR chat feature to screen for legit calls.
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In addition to uncertain healthcare services, economic disadvantages, and finding a place to call home, veterans certainly do not need any more challenges. Unfortunately, the wounds of war can be less obvious than those that we can see. Psychological disorders and sicknesses caused by toxic exposure can be the most damaging aspects of war that veterans bring home. Toxin exposure in particular is of particular concern as previous exposure to asbestos among veterans is causing incidence of the aggressive cancer mesothelioma to rise among former members of the armed services. We must not leave those who risked their lives for our nation in the cold. Our veterans have never questioned the right or wrong of war when it mattered most. They simply did as they were trained. We must now show the same unwavering determination, in all ways we are able, by affording those opportunities to which they are entitled, including financial, medical and emotional support to all veterans.
