Thomas Frank in the WSJ on the subject of gategate

Conservatives won this round in the culture wars, not merely because most of the facts broke their way, but because their grievance is one that a certain species of liberal never seems to grasp. Whether the issue is abortion, evolution or recycling, these liberal patricians are forever astonished to discover that the professions and institutions and attitudes that they revere are seen by others as arrogance and affectation.

Why Megan opposes coercive Health Care

One of the worlds greatest opening lines:
"In a nutshell, I hate the poor and want them to die so that all my rich friends can use their bodies as mulch for their diamond ranches."
A Long, Long Post About My Reasons For Opposing National Health Care - Megan McArdle

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Instapundit

Instapundit

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Essay - To Overhaul the System, 'Health' Needs Redefining - NYTimes.com

The NYT. The NYT! We might have lost the NYT!
Essay - To Overhaul the System, ‘Health’ Needs Redefining - NYTimes.com

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CBO deals new blow to health plan - Chris Frates - POLITICO.com

I could point out that this is one of the disadvantages of a crop of attorney's for whom numbers are a major mystery, but I won't.
CBO deals new blow to health plan - Chris Frates - POLITICO.com

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Peggy Noonan: Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare - WSJ.com

I suspect voters, the past few weeks, have been giving themselves an internal Q-and-A that goes something like this:

Will whatever health care bill is produced by Congress increase the deficit? “Of course.”
Will it mean tax increases? “Of course.” Will it mean new fees of fines? “Probably.” Can I afford it right now? “No, I’m already getting clobbered.”
Will it make the marketplace freer and better? “Probably not.”
Is our health care system in crisis? “Yeah, it has been for years.”
Is it the most pressing crisis right now? “No, the economy is.”
Will a health-care bill improve the economy? “I doubt it.”
Peggy Noonan: Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare - WSJ.com

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Health-Care Reform Would Cost Seniors and Young People Plenty - WSJ.com

And the officially designed screwees are:

• Small Businesses. Employers who don’t provide coverage will have to pay a tax up to 8% of their payroll. Yet those who do provide coverage also have to pay the tax—if the law says their coverage is not “adequate.” Amazingly, even if a small business provides adequate insurance but its employees choose coverage in another plan offered through the government, the employer still must pay.

• Health Savings Account (HSA) holders. Eight million Americans, according to the Treasury Department, are covered by plans with low-cost premiums and high deductibles that are designed for large, unexpected medical costs. Money is also set aside in a savings account to cover the deductibles, and whatever isn’t spent in one year can build up tax-free. Nearly a third of new HSA users, according to Treasury figures, previously had no insurance or bought coverage on their own.

These policies will be severely limited. The Senate plan says a policy deemed “acceptable” must have insurance (rather than the individual) pay out at least 76% of the benefits. The House plan is pegged at 70%. That’s not the way these plans are set up to work. Ray Ramthun, who implemented the HSA regulations at the Treasury Department in 2003, says the regulations are crippling. “Companies tell me they could be forced to take products off the market,” he said in an interview.

• Medicare Advantage users. Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats want to cut back this program—care provided by private companies and subsidized by the government. Medicare Advantage grew by 15% last year; 10.5 million seniors, or 22% of all Medicare patients, are now enrolled.
Health-Care Reform Would Cost Seniors and Young People Plenty - WSJ.com

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Kausfiles : Another Reason to Delay Orszagism

Wisdom from Kaus (a fan of a government plan, btw): "Everytime a politician calls his reform "comprehensive" I look for the dangerous part that doesn't have to be there..."
Kausfiles : Another Reason to Delay Orszagism

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Is Ann Althouse the perfect woman?

Alas, no. She's a lawyer. But she comes close!
Althouse: "It's time to stand up with the President and fight back against this disastrous brand of old-style politics."

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CBO Director's Blog The Long-Term Budget Outlook

Money shot: "Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run."
Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Long-Term Budget Outlook

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OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE at DickMorris.com

Mickey Kause says Dick Morris is right twice a day. Fair enough; I think he's right on this one!
"Obama's health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered."
OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE at DickMorris.com

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Glenn Reynolds on the hidden cost of national health care | OpEd Contributor | Washington Examiner

Glenn Reynolds on the hidden cost of national health care | OpEd Contributor | Washington Examiner

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In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say no? - washingtonpost.com

Probably won't be Doctors. Obviously won't be the eeevvviiilll healthcare companies. I'm betting on my fellow bureaucrats. "I'm sorry to tell you that granny's going to die because a GS12 doesn't like the ROI on the proposed medical plan".
In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Set Limits? - washingtonpost.com

Money quote:
"The question came from a Colorado neurologist. "Mr. President," he said at a recent forum, "what can you do to convince the American public that there actually are limits to what we can pay for with our American health-care system? And if there are going to be limits, who . . . is going to enforce the rules for a system like that?" President Obama called it the "right question" -- then failed to answer it."
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Here's Mickey Kause of Slate on the same subject:

"WaPo's Alec MacGillis notes that Obama's health care reformers

are clearly spooked by the notion that they could be accused of denying, for example, hip surgery to an 80-year-old.

If so, they largely have themselves to blame. They brought it up! It wasn't the Republicans who billed health care reform as a cost saving, budget-balancing measure that would start to deny payments for treatments deemed "ineffective," or (as one acolyte put it) when "a person's life, or health, is not worth the price." And to think when they heard that people started to worry about rationing! Fancy that."[Yes, the emphasis is mine]

The 'acolyte' is Ezra Klein from www.prospect.org, arguably the most progressive of modern progressivists. This gets more distasteful, if this quote attributed to Justice Ginsburg,
AJSCOTUS, is correct:
"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." --Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If it is, the modern progressives are getting closer and closer to traditional progressives. Eugenics. Who'da thunk.

Public Engagement Forum on Healthcare Reform

As we Americans attempt to recover from the current economic crisis, another, more serious crisis looms on the horizon. With a national budget deficit of nearly 1.67 trillion dollars, an expanding aging population, and the already strained programs of Medicare, and Medicaid, Americans will be forced to make difficult decisions in the coming years regarding their health insurance. Health care costs are projected to rise to levels that will be unaffordable without major tax increases at federal, state and local governments. President Obama has led the Congress to the threshold of major reform, both to extend coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs. The reforms on the table promise to significantly change health care for all of us in the future.
George Mason University, in conjunction with the Concord Coalition, is inviting the public to attend a public engagement meeting on health care reform. Local government leaders, business leaders, students, and community members will come together to discuss the future of health care reform.
What: Public Engagement Forum on Health care Reform
Where: George Mason University - Mason Hall, Meese Board Room, Fairfax Campus
When: - Monday, July 27, 2009 - 4:30pm – 6:00pm
Questions? Contact Jeremy Milliken –JeremyMilliken@gmail.com

The Big Public Pension Squeeze

The cost of public sector pensions is set to soar in coming years because the recent meltdown in the financial markets has worsened the health of systems that were already badly underfunded. Municipal and state governments across the country are struggling with massive budget shortfalls, leaving them in no position to fill the pension gap. As a result, public workers look likely to bear the burden through cutbacks in their salaries and benefits and increases in their pension contributions.
The Big Public Pension Squeeze

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The Big Public Pension Squeeze

The Big Public Pension Squeeze

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America's long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now underway

The money quote is actually the last sentence of this paragraph, "Not only will those factors steadily lower our standard of living, but they will imperil economic and financial stability. There are 'things' that happen when economic & financial stability goes down the drain. People start demanding a fix by, as the saying goes, any means necessary. In platonic terms, people call for a champion. And a champion will emerge. Think Lenin, think Mussolini, yes, think Hitler. And think of the effect on unpopular minorities when society implodes this way...
America's long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now underway. Depending on policy actions taken now and over the next few years, federal deficits will likely average as much as 6% of GDP through 2019, contributing to a jump in debt held by the public to as high as 82% of GDP by then - a doubling over the next decade. Worse, barring aggressive policy actions, deficits and debt will rise even more sharply thereafter as entitlement spending accelerates relative to GDP. Keeping entitlement promises would require unsustainable borrowing, taxes or both, severely testing the credibility of our policies and hurting our long-term ability to finance investment and sustain growth. And soaring debt will force up real interest rates, reducing capital and productivity and boosting debt service. Not only will those factors steadily lower our standard of living, but they will imperil economic and financial stability.
Morgan Stanley - Global Economic Forum

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Badges & Players - Tea Party WDC & March for Liberty Coalition

Badges & Players - Tea Party WDC & March for Liberty Coalition

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California'€™s Nightmare Will Kill Obamanomics: Kevin Hassett - Bloomberg.com

Inasmuch as GWB is my second least favorite Republican Prez, AND I find it hard to disagree with Hassett...
"The federal picture is so bleak because he Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S. I would imagine that he would be the intergalactic champion as well, if we could gather the data on deficits on other worlds. Obama has taken George W. Bush’s inattention to deficits and elevated it to an art form."
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTKrn1jUJwdE">California'€™s Nightmare Will Kill Obamanomics: Kevin Hassett - Bloomberg.com

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Statistical vs. Material Significance, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

Money quote:
"Statistical significance is not a measure of the importance of a relationship. Statistical significance is a measure of the unlikelihood that you got your results solely due to chance sampling error."
Statistical vs. Material Significance, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

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