Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Another Legal Challenge of the ACA Coming Out of Texas and the Fifth District

Cost-Free Preventive Care Under the ACA Faces Legal Challenge, JAMA | JAMA Network, Gregory Curfman, MD; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo. The same federal Jackass judge in Texas who struck down the entire ACA (2018) has risen again. In this particular instance, he is taking aim at a core protection of the ACA or Cost-free preventive care. These […]

Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare

Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare, The Stand, Kip Sullivan Insurance companies decried Medicare’s fee-for-service model. But then Congress let them replace it with something much worse. (May 4, 2023) — Congress enacted Medicare in 1965 as a fee-for-service system because the insurance industry did not want to insure the elderly […]

14th Amendment, Debt Ceiling & Perpetual Bonds

When I read this (third article below), I thought of an earlier commentary by one of our peer-reviewed economists. This is what Robert Waldman had to say: “Investors are glad to pay the Treasury to keep their wealth safe. Now consider the US Federal Government intertemporal budget constraint — the present value of spending must […]

The budget ceiling and the Gephardt Rule

The so-called Gephardt Rule (in honor of Representative Dick Gephardt who introduced its first version) provided that when the House agrees to a budget resolution, the Clerk shall prepare a joint resolution suspending the debt limit for the fiscal year covered by the budget resolution. It was repealed at the beginning of the 107th Congress, […]

Labor has gained and Corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of all gains

Labor has gained since the pandemic, but corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of those gains . . .  – by New Deal democrat I neglected to add a link to my Weekly Indicators piece at Seeking Alpha on Saturday, so here it is. Also, I’ve been trying to understand why, with all of the […]

Why Does Poverty Continue to Exist in America?

A long and good NYT take on why poverty continues to exist, stays stagnant or continues to grow in one of the richest nations in the world and the most capable of all to end poverty. A good read. “Those who have amassed the most power and capital bear the most responsibility for America’s vast […]

Prescription Drug Price Increases for 2016 -2022

What I like about this Issue-Brief is the use of terminology we see, not knowing what it means, and seeing a description or definition. I have added links so as to do a deeper dive into the terminology. Carefully read, a person can garner an understanding of initial drug costs, intermediate costs, discounts, and what […]

What You Already Knew (?), The Waning of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine – Induced Immunity

Checking my emails this morning and found this article as taken from MedPage Today listing the JAMA Network Open article. The article was accepted for publication on March 13 of this year. It finally came to be published May 3, 2023. The study has all the credentials of a particular matter. The data coming from […]

Weakening federal child labor laws

April 28, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI), legislatures in at least ten states have set out to weaken federal child labor laws. In the first three months of 2023, legislators in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota introduced bills to weaken […]

Environmental and Policy Impacting Mother Earth and Us

The History of Earth Day, treehugger.com, Jenn Savedege. The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. The event and which some consider to be the birth of the environmental movement. Founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson. Nelson chose the April date to coincide with spring while avoiding most spring break and final […]