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

Extraordinary rise in Premiums they are about to face

“Staggering Premium Spikes Due to GOP Subsidy Cuts,” Common Dreams More than 20 million Americans are expected to see their health insurance premiums more than double next year after Republicans refused to extend a tax credit for those who purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. And as the GOP remains firm in its stance […]

Social dissatisfaction and right wing revanchism:  comment

Paul Campos has a post up asking:  “What are the main sources of the immense amounts of social dissatisfaction that have fueled among other things the political ascent of the worst person in the history of American politics to the presidency?”  He lists several factors: Campos’ discussion of these factors is worth reading. Obviously, there […]

Designed to Fail

The appointments of Hegseth, Noem, Kennedy, Patel, et al weren’t mistakes; they were part of a plan to destroy America so that ‘they’ can rebuild it in their image under their god and the Heritage Foundation in memory of Joseph Coors, Paul Weyrich, and Lewis Powell in the interest of wealth almighty.   Something the […]

Number of US Students in College Decreases as Political Views Discourage Foreign Students

This is a rambling commentary pulling from an Angry Bear writer and two articles. I believe I have it all in order. Most recently Joel discussed Academia with an eye on colleges, “The end of the golden age for academia.” As he points out: “Recent months have brought terminations of 120 staff members at Boston […]

China holds some mighty strong cards

In his continuous effort to control the media cycle and distract from the Epstein files, Trump has been threatening China on and off with huge tariffs. But as usual, it looks like it’s bluster. Why? “America has made an unusually directional economic bet that is at this moment totally dependent on Chinese rare earth exports. […]

Health Care Lies by Republicans

Fifth term Virginia’s 8th District U.S. Representative representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County, Don Beyer talks healthcare. By no stretch of the imagination could Tru_p, Mikie Johnson, etc, be promoting something better for the public. Canceling out the funding for ACA, Medicaid and a part of the subsidy for Medicare is […]

Trump Is Making Great, Great Again?

“even if Trump’s push to establish authoritarian rule is defeated, it will take many years to recover what we’ve lost.” I have been thinking of this all along. Domestically? Tr_mp has been breaking the nations gains down. What comes to mind is reducing the minimum wage for federal contractors, rolling back rules that strengthening overtime […]

Medicare Advantage is Not What You Think It is.

Two articles in this commentary. The first CEPR article discusses selective loss of Medicare Advantage enrollees. This not necessarily because of people leaving the plans. It is more on the order of the plans cutting benefits in certain plans and also cutting coverage in certain markets of the US. People are also using their plans […]

Foreign-trained physicians and the physician workforce

I’ve written previously about the shortage of primary care physicians in the US. In principle, one way to address this shortage is to admit more international medical graduates as physicians. But an historic barrier to this solution is the requirement for US residency training. Some states are passing laws allowing international medical graduates if they […]

More on stock market indexes’ advance-decline lines: the healthy and the sick

– by New Deal democrat I am currently on vacation, and as the shutdown continues with no end in sight, the only sources of economic data are from the Fed and its regional banks, the States (unemployment claims and sporadic updates on tax withholding), and private sources.  In other words, I might play hooky several days […]