publius

Why Grassley’s Comments Matter

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by publius I wanted to return to Grassley's comments last week in which he essentially embraced Palin's "death panels" falsehoods.  To me, these comments have very significant implications on various fronts. First, I think Grassley's comments show the real significance of the town hall protests.  The media coverage has focused primarily on how the protests … Read more

This Is Better

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by publius Marc Ambinder: An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke"[.]  . . .  A second official, Linda Douglass . . . said that President Obama believed that a public option was the best way to reduce costs and promote competition among insurance companies, that he had not … Read more

Dropping The Public Option

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by publius Obviously, I disagree as a matter of both policy and negotiating strategy.  But, the public option isn't the main part of the bill, and it's not the hill that health coverage reform should die on. But… if it's going to be dropped, then the White House and Dem leadership need to get something … Read more

The Horrors of Free Health Care

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by publius It's heartening to see Britain rallying around its health care system in the face of egregiously dishonest attacks and accusations.  Of course, as this NYT essay explains, the British system has its problems.  But the general British complaints about their health care system are being misinterpreted on this side of the pond. It's … Read more

The Finance Committee’s Continuing Good Work

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by publius I'm too busy at the moment with school starting to say what needs to be said about this: The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday. There really aren't words to describe not only how ridiculous … Read more

A User’s Guide to Bad Faith Health Care Arguments

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by publius One challenge in countering the attacks on the health care bills is that they come in many varieties.  Steve Benen had a good post a while back describing the diversity among the critics (the "Greedy," the "Wonks," etc.).  The attacks themselves, though, are also fairly diverse — and some of them are more … Read more

The Invisible Hand

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by publius Paul Krugman speaketh wisdom: So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.  . . .   All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the … Read more

Things That Aren’t True

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by publius RedState's Jeff Emanuel's has a post called "Health Care Bill Fact of the Day:  'You Can Keep Your Health Plan,' But Once You Change it, the Government is Your Only Option."  He writes: [B]eginning the year this bill takes effect, individuals who leave their current insurer for any reason – whether it be … Read more

Waxman-Markey as National Security

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by publius The military is increasingly worried about the national security threats posed by climate change.  The million dollar question, then, is whether these concerns will persuade skeptical, and/or industry-purchased, legislators to get behind bills like Waxman-Markey. The short answer is who knows.  But there's an interesting parallel here, I think, with the early civil … Read more

Why Size Matters

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by publius David Frum is worried that politicians might learn the wrong lessons if the GOP "wins" health care.  He's specifically worried that Medicare will never again be touched.  At the American Scene, Conor argues that a better lesson for politicians to learn would be to "keep it simple": If health care reform is defeated, … Read more

Because Your Walls Need Some Spice

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by publius Just wanted to give a quick shoutout to my friend Sarah Heller's new website.  She is a very talented artist and architect, and the site showcases her paintings.  It's very cool stuff, and you should check it out.

Death Panels – Sneak Preview

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by publius Now that “death panels” have been added to the health coverage bill, the logical question is how to structure them most efficiently.  Personally, I hope Obama requires all death panels to be modeled after the Trial of Zod in Superman 2 (begin at 1:30):

It’s Evil, Alright

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by publius Sarah Palin: The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of … Read more

More Like This

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by publius As I wrote earlier this week, the health coverage debate poses a fundamental David Simon-like challenge to the media.  Can the American media, as an institution, inform the public about what's really being proposed?  And can it do so in the face of sustained, outright falsehoods (not good faith policy disagreements). Well, this … Read more

Lessons of Sotomayor — They Ain’t All Good

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by publius She's in.  So what exactly are the political implications of the debate we just saw?  To me, it seems like a mixed bag. Ed Kilgore thinks it's "lose-lose" for the GOP.  On the one hand, he argues that the GOP's opposition will hurt them with Latinos, an increasingly large and important demographic.  At … Read more

Help Me Not Go Insane

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by publius Am I really supposed to take seriously this "snitch list"/"Big Brother" business from the same people who cheered on basically every single executive action during the Bush years?  I mean, massive secret interception of private communications is ok, but asking people to email misinformation is a "dissident database"? Help me understand — I'm … Read more

America’s Grassley Problem

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by publius Chuck Grassley — the Democrats' point man on health care — was on Newshour yesterday.  (Best show EV-AH).  To put it mildly, I didn't get the sense that I was watching a man determined to make reform happened.  I think it was his repeated opposition to "government taking over health care" that made … Read more

Dangerous Misunderstandings

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by publius Daniel Larison has an excellent post on the Russian submarines that appeared within a few hundreds miles of our coast.  You should read the whole thing. To me, his post illustrates one of the most dangerous, recurring problem in international relations — interpreting defensive maneuvers as offensive ones.  This misinterpretation occurs when we … Read more

The Great David Simon Challenge of ’09

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by publius I'm a bit torn about attacking the protests at the health care town halls, even assuming they're organized.  I mean, that's sort of what democracies are about.  These protests do worry me, but for a different reason — they worry me because they're a test of whether our media instititions are capable of … Read more

Hate Crimes Hatin’

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by publius Oh Richard Cohen — why must you torment me so?  Today's new torment is a column devoted to denouncing hate crimes.  I guess there's nothing much going on in DC these days.  Anyway, here's the thrust of it: The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups — blacks, Hispanics, … Read more

Quote of the Week

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by publius Via Amanda Marcotte, here's your quote of the week.  It's from Arthur Laffer, of Laffer Curve fame: If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

The New Net Neutrality Bill

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by publius

I just finished reading the net neutrality bill that Markey and Eshoo introduced last week — the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458) (pdf).  And it's really good stuff.  The leadership should move on it.

The bill covers all the more well-known problems.  For instance, it prevents Internet providers from blocking sites, and from entering into agreements to deliver certain sites at higher speeds.  That's all to the good.

But the bill has several important provisions that you may not be as familiar with.  Below the fold, I've listed a few that stood out to me:

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The “Costs” of Inaction

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by publius Ross Douthat's column praising the budget policies of my adopted state of Texas has been pretty thoroughly critiqued.  But I thought Ezra Klein's chart captured the essence of the problem with it.  The upshot is that Texas's budget is in relatively better shape because there's not as much spending on social services.  It's … Read more

What’s Driving Unrest In Iran?

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by publius One last observation about Iran…  A couple of weeks ago, we had a good thread on Marx.  One point I made was that the most persuasive part of Marx (to me) was his argument that economic interests generally drive events.  That doesn't justify his normative proposals (which are wrong, and require humans to … Read more

New Sanctions for Iran?

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by publius Momentum in Congress seems to be gaining for new sanctions against Iran that would cut off its imports of refined gasoline. As the NYT explains, Iran has lots of oil, but not enough refining capacity to meet its domestic needs. Anyway, I’m hoping someone can convince me that new sanctions are a good … Read more

Andy’s Book

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by publius We recently received a comment from Wes Olmsted, Andy's father, on one of our threads.  I'm posting it below verbatim:___________ This is not a comment on this topic, but is a note about Andy Olmsted's book. I had previously stated that it could be ordered on line at Vantage but this turns out … Read more

Least Surprising News of the Day

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by publius I'm not sure Max Baucus and staff read Jonathan Cohn, but they should.  This comes from his latest report on where things stand on Capitol Hill: Baucus, as you may know, has been trying to hammer out a deal with a bipartisan group of six members. But on Thursday the most conservative member … Read more

Why Kidney Selling Bothers Me

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by publius I missed the latest round of the “should we sell our kidneys” debate.  To recap, various libertarian conservatives say yes, arguing that the donors’ health risks are small and that people really need kidneys.  The real challenge then, as John Schwenkler notes, is to justify the ban on kidney selling. So I’ll try.  … Read more

Shameful

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by publius Like Steve Benen, I was shocked to learn that Karl Rove played a greater role than previously known in the U.S. Attorney firings.  Of all the various DOJ disgraces of the Bush years, this one is actually the most inexcusable. Don't get me wrong — the legal approval of torture and wiretapping was … Read more

Fighting For The Public Option

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by publius Scott Lemieux and Ezra Klein recently had a back and forth on whether a health coverage reform bill without a public option was worth supporting.  I agree with Klein on the merits, but it's a trickier question politically when you start viewing it through a game theory lens. On the policy merits alone, … Read more

A Good Offense Is The Best Defense

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by publius Under the "breakthrough" in the House, there will be no vote on health care before the August recess.  Politico adds: Republicans, meanwhile, are ready to use the August recess to rip the bill apart and attack Democrats in their home districts. Democrats need to explain the bill.  No argument there.  But they shouldn't … Read more

Deep Inside the Baucus Caucus

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by publius Inside Max Baucus’s Senate conference room.  The bipartisan panel of six Senators is negotiating a bipartisan deal on health coverage reform.   The Democratic Senators are Baucus, Conrad, and Bingaman.  The Republican Senators are Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi. BAUCUS:  Thanks everyone for being here.  I know everyone understands the historical stakes, and everyone wants … Read more

No Exit

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by publius I've never read No Exit.  My understanding of the general plot is that three people get stuck in a room in hell with some rather annoying Chatty Cathys.  They think they'll be tortured, but actually the punishment is confining them together in a room from which they can't escape each other's company.  "Hell … Read more

How Strong Are The Blue Dogs?

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by publius In my ongoing obsession with the Blue Dogs, I've been wondering — why exactly should we expect the 52-member Blue Dog coalition to vote as a bloc?  How exactly can the coalition's leadership maintain discipline once Pelosi starts twisting arms? In thinking about all this, I decided to run some numbers on the … Read more