Open thread March 4, 2013
High Road, Low Road…Scotland and independence
by Joseph Joyce High Road, Low Road Among the many thorny issues that would arise if Scotland were be become an independent nation is the question of its choice of a currency. The first minister of Scotland claims that an independent Scotland would continue to use the pound. But Mark Carney, the governor of the […]
Server problems??
I am sorry for the interminable delay in getting AB to load…help is on the way!!!
Demand Institute and A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities published by the Demand Institute offers some insights into the distribution of housing wealth in the United States: It is all too easy when discussing the U.S. economic outlook to forget that it aggregates the economic prospects of thousands of different cities, towns, and villages across the nation. National statistics […]
MA and cost controls
In 2012 this bill, An Act Improving the Quality of Health Care and Reducing Costs Through Increased Transparency, Efficiency and Innovation. was passed as the next step in reform and addresses cost control measures that are not part of the national conversation. Healthblawg offers a synopsis: 1. The health care cost growth rate may not […]
Medical bills and bankruptcy
Wendell Potter points to a study on medical debt as a major component of bankruptcies: One of the great hopes of health care reform is that it will reduce the number of Americans who file for bankruptcy because of medical debt. A new study in Massachusetts is providing evidence that the reform law passed in […]
Open thread Feb. 28, 2014
Winston (not Smith) and Myths
by Robert Waldmann Karen Tumulty wrote a good article including one bad sentence on the Republican all the eggs in the Obamacare basket case strategy. “In Winston’s view, it is a myth that the last midterm election was swung by voter outrage about Obama’s health-care proposal, which was then being debated in Congress.”
Not even Americans For Prosperity can defeat Glenn Kessler’s love of "both sides"
by Robert Waldmann Not even Americans For Prosperity can defeat Glenn Kessler’s love of “both sides” I mean that he loves the phrase “both sides”. This fact check is pretty much “Opinions on shape of planet differ. Both sides overstate their case.” He is discussing a grotesquely dishonest ad by Americans for Prosperity about an […]