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

The REALLY ANNOYING Don’t-Wanna-Subsidize-Wealthy-Kids’-College-Tuition Canard [With fun update!]

Hillary Clinton’s performance wasn’t as clean or as crisp as her last one. Among other things, she invoked 9/11 in order to dodge a question about her campaign donors. But she effectively made the case that, though Sanders speaks about important questions, his solutions are ultimately simplistic and hers are better. Instead of railing about […]

Clinton Campaign Spokesman Brian Fallon Says Healthcare Insurance Premiums Aren’t Paid by Families and Employers, Because They’re Paid to Private For-Profit Insurers. Seriously.

“Bernie Sanders has called for a roughly 9-percent tax hike on middle-class families just to cover his health-care plan,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, referring to legislation Sanders introduced in 2013, “and simple math dictates he’ll need to tax workers even more to pay for the rest of his at least $18-20 trillion agenda. If […]

Okay, so Clinton wouldn’t want Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad administering her healthcare insurance. Instead she wants Anthem Blue Cross to continue to do that.

Hmmm.  I wonder which one of her consultants wrote that one for her, and I wonder how many times she practiced saying it. I mean, y’know, just sayin’. —- UPDATE: Reader Urban Legend asked me in the comments to this thread to provide a link to what I’m referring to.  Here’s what I’m referring to: […]

Instead of nominating Marco Rubio, the Republicans should just cut out the pretense and nominate his doppelgänger: Charlie McCarthy

Bill Clinton had a line during his 1992 campaign that he said, mantra-like, so often in fact that eventually it lost its meaning and was just a cringe-inducing song-like chorus.  The line, the slogan, was, “People who work hard and play by the rules.”  It was—until he repeated it to a point well beyond when people […]

The mindless canard stating as unexplained fact that it would be worse to expand the federal government by a third in order to accommodate single-payer healthcare insurance than it is to have private, for-profit health insurance companies playing this role instead

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 […]

Poverty and Brains

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 […]

Argument: more health insurance does not lower cost

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 […]

Shopping Around . . .

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” […]