Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
In his Daily Beast debut, Alex Massie rises in defense of Joe Wilson’s outburst. No, not so much whether Obama was lying in this particular instance but rather the very notion that it’s “inappropriate” to heckle the president. The whole piece is worth a read but here’s a taste: Trivial though it may seem, this [...]
The big news surrounding President Obama’s latest heathcare speech is that South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” in response to the claim that illegal immigrants would not be covered under universal coverage: AP (“Obama heckled by GOP during speech to Congress“): The nastiness of August reached from the nation’s town halls into [...]
President Obama is set to address the nation’s schoolchildren next week, presumably to propagandize them into his evil agenda of turning the country into Communist Russia (pronounced “roo-shuh”) and offing granny to save money on health care just as they do in his native Kenya. There are even instruction manuals to enlist the support of [...]
In the comments on my Obama’s New Health Strategy: Leadership post, Michael Reynolds makes a salient point about President Obama’s leadership style: “He operates like a community organizer: let people have their say, let them wear themselves out, then step in and define the consensus.” I think that’s fundamentally correct. I’ve long marveled at Obama’s [...]
After eight months of letting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid try to handle the most important domestic initiative of his administration, President Obama is reluctantly considering providing some leadership, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei report. Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a [...]
Jon Henke thinks it’s time for the Right to throw out the lunatics: In the 1960′s, William F. Buckley denounced the John Birch Society leadership for being “so far removed from common sense” and later said “We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.” The Birthers are the Birchers of [...]
Charles Krauthammer proclaims “Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead” and helpfully proposes a version 2.0. Basically: No public option, no death panels end-of-life counseling, softpeddle government “best practices,” abandon cost-cutting, and guaranteeing universal coverage. What’s not to like? If you have insurance, you’ll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for preexisting [...]
The award goes to Chris Matthews for this: You know there’s going to be a lot of talk about the tragic blessings of the Kennedy family, and the curse. And it’s all nonsense. These people were courageous risk takers. Kathleen Kennedy, the girl, the oldest daughter, she was killed with her lover traveling on a [...]
A bit over a year ago, Brad DeLong (who is a doctor but not a medical doctor) proposed “An Unrealistic, Impractical, Utopian Plan for Dealing with the Health Care Opportunity,” the crux of which is: 20% Deductible/Out of Pocket Cap: The IRS snarfs 20% of your family economic income. 5% of it is an increase [...]
A bipartisan NBC News poll shows that only 36 percent of Americans think “Barack Obama’s health care plan” is a “good idea” even though 51 percent approve of the job he is doing as president. In the same survey, 43 percent favor “creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would [...]
Taking a page out of Soloman’s playbook, Congressional Democrats have a brand new plan for passing health care reform. The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions [...]
Yesterday’s Gallup poll finding that the town hall protests are having the desired effects of gaining sympathy for the protestors and increasing doubts about health care reform efforts is getting a lot of attention. Those results don’t surprise me, however. (They do surprise Mickey Kaus.) What is interesting is this: Frank Newport: There is a [...]
The Outrage of the Day, apparently, is a USA Today op-ed by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer in which they assert “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” Weekly Standard, Gateway Pundit, The Huffington Post, Top of the Ticket, Moe_Lane’s blog, The Moderate Voice, JammieWearingFool, JustOneMinute, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Jawa [...]
Is preventative medical care really worth it? I can see how eating a sensible diet, exercising, and such could lead to health care savings overall, but these are all things that don’t really need to involve medical care.[1] How about those preventative measures that do involve the medical industry? The CBO says, “Hang on a [...]
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) [...]
Bill Maher has a piece at HuffPo arguing that Americans are a bunch of idiots who should just shut up and let people who know what they’re talking about make decisions on tough issues like health care reform. [T]ake the health care debate we’re presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can [...]
The theme of Wednesday’s edition of OTB Radio was “Crazy Politics.” Spurred by the bitterness of recent discussion threads on seemingly innocuous topics, Dave Schuler and I wondered where it was all headed. Well, we got a pretty good clue last night. Six people were arrested last night in St. Louis after one of the [...]
Tyler Cowen passes along a reader comment that, The difference in life expectancy between the US and Netherlands is often referred to as an example of how superior semi-socialized health care increases life expectancy. At birth, someone living in the Netherlands can expect to live 2.35 years longer than someone born in the US, but [...]
Alex Massie argues that the current inability of the Democrats to pass meaningful health care reform, one of their signature issues, despite overwhelming control of the government shows the system is broken. It’s more difficult than it was in LBJ’s day, mind you. All the horse-trading that once went on in private now takes place [...]
The latest NPR poll, conducted by Democrat Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Republican Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies (Disclosure: My wife is COO) finds President Obama’s approval barely over the majority mark and serious doubts about his health plan. The pollsters found 53 percent approving of the president’s handling of his job, [...]
Continuing a long-running theme at his blog, Matt Yglesias laments that Senators from small states wield so much power. The latest fuel is a NYT feature on six moderates who are supposedly the linchpins to putting together a bipartisan health care deal and who routinely hash out the details of same over snacks. [V]ast power [...]
Patrick Ruffini has used considerably fewer than 140 characters to make an interesting point: “Obama Health Care = Bush Social Security.” The analogy is a strong one. You will recall that President George W. Bush, fresh off re-election in 2004 pledged to use his “political capital” to pass a major reform of the Social Security [...]
Dan Miller laments that “the right has basically abdicated its role in the conversation” on health care reform. Health care has been THE liberal project for literally decades; entire careers (not to mention presidencies) have been built around it. There’s a vast policy apparatus on the progressive side of the aisle built around health care, [...]
Conor Clarke has devised the following chart of the federal effective tax rate paid by the wealthiest 1% over the last 15 years: While he doesn’t “love the idea,” he think it justifies paying for health care for the poor by taxing the rich. Kevin Drum agrees, adding, The basic story is simple: As their [...]
Mickey Kaus calls Ezra Klein a “concern troll” for his “unsettling thought” that: [H]ealth-care reform isn’t simply suffering because the public is overly opposed to some of its revenue raisers. It’s suffering because the public is insufficiently supportive of its core. … [snip] [I]t’s not obvious what health-care reform will do for the average American. [...]
The Defense Department is being urged to ban tobacco use by its personnel, Gregg Zoroya reports for USA Today. Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with smoking. Jack [...]
Kevin Drum argues, correctly I think, that British- and Canadian-style socialized medicine is not on the table in the United States and that we should therefore frame the debate in terms of a French- or Dutch-style mixed system. He further cites Jonathan Cohn‘s argument that these systems are quite good. But in the course of [...]
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will be talk about Mark Sanford, Iran, health care, and President Obama’s poll numbers. Please join us. We’ll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030. Owing to a high trolls to legit callers ratio, [...]
As President Obama settles into his fifth month in office, his personal popularity remains high but his job approval is slipping drastically, according to a new NYT/CBS News poll. A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS [...]
Federal workers will now get benefits for their “partner” whether they are married or not, Scott Butterworth reports for WaPo’s 44 blog. President Obama will announce tomorrow that he is extending federal benefits to include unmarried domestic partners of federal workers, including same-sex partners, White House officials said tonight. Obama will sign an executive order [...]
Or perhaps Obamanomics. Tyler Cowen writes, MEDICARE expenditures threaten to crush the federal budget, yet the Obama administration is proposing that we start by spending more now so we can spend less later. This runs the risk of becoming the new voodoo economics. If we can’t realize significant savings in health care costs now, don’t [...]
These two stories indicate that Obama just isn’t serious about limiting spending and deficits. The first is about how President is trying to earn some credibility for fiscal responsibility. President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to show he was serious about improving the U.S. budget picture as he called on Congress to pass new limits [...]
I’ve argued in the past that health care outcomes like infant mortality and life expectancies are not really very good measures of a country’s health care services since such outcomes are also a function of variables that are outside the control of health care services. A person who is morbidly obese and refuses to change [...]
USA Today reports on a proposal circulating in the Senate Finance Committee to fund health care through sin taxes on booze. Beer taxes would go up by 48 cents a six-pack, wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, and the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth. Proceeds from [...]
Pretty much everyone. Laurence Kotlikoff and Christian Hagist have looked at OECD data for 10 countries and the picture is pretty grim. Although healthcare spending is growing at unsustainable rates in most, if not all, OECD countries, the U.S. appears least able to control its benefit growth due to the nature of its fee-for-service healthcare [...]
Tyler Cowen’s third health care fallacy is, Let’s start with a correct claim: The fiscal outlook is grimmer than before, therefore we should spend less on health care reform than I used to think. I’m willing to make a comparable admission when it comes to tax cuts, so will you sign on to this claim [...]
Tyler Cowen’s second health care fallacy is from one of my least favorite psuedo-economists Robert Reich, Social Security is a tiny problem. Medicare is a terrible one, but the problem is not really Medicare; it’s quickly rising health-care costs. You would think it is hard to resist the fiscal conservatives’ core argument — X is [...]
Tyler Cowen has three health care fallacies and the first one is something I’ve mentioned before (and tooke quite a bit of heat for), Today’s report is this: The financial outlook for Medicare and Social Security has significantly worsened, as the bad economy and mounting job losses have pushed both programs years closer to insolvency, [...]
Megan has a very good post on the subject. Perhaps predictibly, someone showed up in the comments to my post on Medicare and Social Security to argue that liberal analysts have very serious plans to cut Medicare’s costs, which is why we need universal coverage, so that we can implement those very serious plans. I [...]
In the comments to this post on President Obama’s statement about health care commenter Boyd asks, I’m curious why you say health insurance shouldn’t pay for child birth, Steve. I haven’t heard this before (I apologize if I haven’t been paying attention). The classic definition of insurance is to reduce the losses to an individual [...]
This morning Glenn Reynolds posted the following comment from a reader: As a physician in practice for over 25 years, I must comment. Medical schools are actually having trouble filling the available slots they have so more schools won’t necessarily make for better care. Much of “primary care” could be handled by nurse practitioners but [...]
The Washington Post company continues its consolidation of the media universe with the hire of Ezra Klein. Politico’s Michael Calderone breaks the news: The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein, one of the top bloggers on politics and policy, is heading to the Washington Post. Rumors about Klein’s upcoming move spread on Wednesday night during a reception [...]
Robert Reich points out that, if we make up a new way of counting unemployment, we’ve got a lot of unemployment: The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying [...]
Remember that balanced budget we were going to get? Not so fast. President Barack Obama‘s budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month. The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated [...]
Paul Waldman fleshes out a theme that many observers have made in passing: The young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency could create a “permanent” realignment in American politics. In 1984, 59 percent of the nation’s Alex P. Keatons voted for Reagan, an extraordinary percentage for a Republican (and just over his [...]
Not so says CBO’s Doug Elmendorf. CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf explained this last week to the Senate Committee on Finance, which is chaired by Max Baucus, a leading proponent of government health care. The point is that for employers, health care is merely a part of total compensation: It reduces cash compensation for employees [...]
In a feature in the March GQ that’s apparently not available online, Zeke Emanuel, brother of Ari and Rahm and senior counselor on health matters to President Obama, describes his vision for a new health care system: I think there are three main goals: get everyone covered, serious and meaningful cost control, and improving the [...]
Ross Douthat has discovered Barack Obama’s evil genius: What Obama does have, though, is an atmosphere of crisis and a massively-unpopular opposition party, which grants him an unparalleled political opportunity to pass whatever spending the Democratic Party likes, and damn the short-term cost. And what you see in his budgeting proposals, I think, is the [...]
In an era where everything is the worst somethingorantother since the Great Depression or some other time, I suppose retro comparisons are just in style. I’ve seen several references of late to the Republicans being stuck in 1997 or 1993 or whathaveyou. Hell, I’ve made them myself. This one, though, puzzles me: With health care [...]