No one would ever accuse Bernie Sanders of thinking small. The senator from Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate wants to transform one of the world’s most boisterous free-market economies into an exemplar ofScandinavian-style “democratic socialism.” He wants to jail Wall Street executives and double the minimum wage. And he wants to spend taxpayer money, lots of it. According to an estimate by The Wall […]

I think it is best to just click and read this. In a study published this year in Nature Neuroscience, several co-authors and I found that family income is significantly correlated with children’s brain size — specifically, the surface area of the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain that does most […]

When we last looked at Obamacare as an alleged “job-killer,” Matt Yglesias had just pointed out that 2014, the first full year of insurance on the exchanges, was also the best year for job creation since 1999. But recently a non-blogging friend reminded me of a related anti-Obamacare meme, the idea that employers have been […]

This morning on Washington Journal was a discussion with Marogt Sanger-Katz of the NYT Upshot blog.    She wrote a post: No, Giving More People Health Insurance Doesn’t Save Money.  It’s a controversial title for sure, but there is some interesting points that I know are often mentioned on a few email lists I’m on for […]

I want to stress the need to shop around when looking for healthcare insurance on the exchanges by citing one example of how it can make a difference. As mentioned earlier here and on Charles Gaba’s ACA Signups blog, Shopping Around does make a difference. If you did not do so, you could be suckered […]

Quite a few blogging PPACA naysayers are out there advertising the 25 to 50% increases in premiums for healthcare plans under the PPACA. Charles Gaba@ACA Signups blog points out it is just an opportunity to “shop around” and the premium increases may not be big anyway in dollars and cents. “Looking past the scary headlines” […]

(Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) by Robert Waldmann Brad DeLong buries the Lead in what is left of George Will’s Credibility A 16th paragraph (if I counted right) at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth blog is more prominent that a first paragraph here, but Brad has never been a stickler for restrictions on fair […]

Democrats should take continued GOP opposition to Obamacare very seriously. It has serious real-world consequences. As long as states hold out against the Medicaid expansion, it could slow the law’s efforts to realize its goal of expanding coverage. One thing this means is that Democrats should redouble their efforts to regain electoral ground on the level […]

In his dissent to Edwards v. Aguillard, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia made a neat distinction, sidestepping the issue of “legislative intent” that he finds so troubling: it is possible to discern the objective “purpose” of a statute (i. e., the public good at which its provisions appear to be directed), (The dissent is obsessed with […]

[T]oday’s victory may have been even more decisive than it looks at first glance. It isn’t just that the Court ruled six-to-three in favor of the government’s position, with John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy joining the Court’s liberals in support of a single, non-splintered decision, though that’s important. It’s also that Roberts’ opinion may have precluded […]