In a new radio interview, [Massachusetts senator-cum-New Hampshire senate candidate Scott] Brown professes support for protecting people with preexisting conditions and other general goals of the law. But he reiterates his support for repealing Obamacare, claiming its goals should only be accomplished by states: “I believe states can do it better. They can certainly cover preexisting […]

In 2015, I predict that Obamacare enrollment will soar, matching 2014’s success. This may seem counter-intuitive. After all, in recent months, the public’s perception of Obamacare seems to have soured. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation’s health care tracking poll for July reveals that 53% of those surveyed last month said they view the Affordable Care […]

What impact would Congress have on corporations if it were to change the amount of tax-deductible executive performance-based compensation downwards from $1 million to $500,000? The portal to the upper 1% of household taxpayers in income is $500,000 in normal income. If Congress were to limit tax-deductible performance-based income to $500,000, the change would put […]

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, some 10 million previously uninsured adults gained coverage during the open enrollment period that began on October 1, 2013. Last month, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the share of Americans who are “going naked” has plummeted from 21 percent in September of 2013 to 16.3 percent […]

I remember in the late sixties and early seventies in the little suburb town where I lived in Ohio, the police chief had files on ‘potential threats’, including candle light vigil participants such as my parents.  Feelings of fear were common, and some quick to judge: Mike Konczal takes a look back at some of the […]

Remember that old jingle Burger King used in it’s advertisements? Well it looks like Burger King is determined to have it “their” way by merging with Canada’s Tim Hortons in a take over of the company. Not that Canadians will be happy with this merger as they were not according to rumor the last time […]

In my last post, I gave an introduction to the massive data work underlying Capital in the Twenty-First Century, as well as two clear results from Piketty’s work. First, he showed that the optimistic Kuznets view after World War II that inequality was well on its way to being conquered was wrong, based on putting […]

by Robert Waldmann Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts Monkey Cage Match A real smack down in the Monkey Cage via Jonathan Bernstein (who summarized better than I can) A catch to Andrew Gelman for correcting an attempted but inaccurate catch by Alfred Moore, Joseph Parent and Joseph Uscinski, who thought they had caught Paul Krugman […]

Drought in Santa Cruz, CA is especially relevant because the city relies on precipitation for sources rather than the extensive systems in place for the state. There are other towns in the same dilemma, but watching policy develop to change behavior is interesting. Like bottled water in Head scratching use of water in a previous […]

Dr. Mark Harmon points us to a number of studies concerning the role of sugars in our public health arena and stunning changes over the last fifty years: This study of more than 40,000 people, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, accounted for all other potential risk factors including total calories, overall diet quality, smoking, cholesterol, […]