This is a truly absurd line from Uwe. E. Reinhardt in his New York Times blog post, but I think it does a great job of capturing what is so wrong with the health care debate in this country. The American health insurance system now is structured as a paradise for clever adolescents, inviting gaming [...]

Senate Democrats apparently are trying to scare Republicans into not filibustering every single thing, by threatening to filibuster everything the GOP tries to do if the GOP regains power. From Politico: The White House and Senate Democrats are issuing a blunt warning to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans: You live by the filibuster, [...]

This is a pure expression of male paternalism regarding women being able to make their own reproductive decisions. From USA Today: President Obama said today that “as the father of two daughters,” he supports his health secretary’s decision to block over-the-counter sales of the Plan B “morning after” birth control pill to girls under 17 [...]

Yesterday the United States Department of Health and Human Services did something extraordinary. For the first time ever, the HHS secretary publicly overruled the Food and Drug Administration. After a careful, lengthy and scientific review, the FDA came to the conclusion that the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, should be available over the counter. In what [...]

During the health care reform fight the women’s reproductive rights groups and legislators were basically sold out. President Obama decided to cut a deal with Bart Stupak’s Gang. He assumed that the pro-choice and women legislators in the House and pro-choice groups would just fall in line, and they did with very little fighting. Passing [...]

Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former OMB director, has a rather depressing column in which he predicts the future of health care in America. He thinks employer health care will go the route that private pensions have gone, being replaced by individual 401(k) plans. He also thinks the Affordable Care Act he helped create will accelerate [...]

When the payroll tax was first proposed last year I thought it was an inherently bad idea. While the economy needed a stimulus, it should never have taken the form of messing with the basic social contract that is the foundation of our social safety net. Democrats supporting a cut in the payroll tax, even [...]

The op-ed “Obamacare to the Rescue” in the LA Times by Spike Dolomite Ward has been making the rounds among Democratic bloggers. Ms. Ward was an uninsured, disappointed Obama supporter until she got cancer.  Luckily, Ward was one of a few thousand Americans able to find, qualify for and afford the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan [...]

In the past few decades it has become much rarer for the poor to move themselves out of poverty. From the LA Times: The ability to go from poor to rich — or at least to climb out of poverty — has become much harder to do in the last three decades, according to an [...]

In case you weren’t paying attention during the debate about the extension of the Bush tax cuts last year, members of Congress are again working on a deal to clearly show there is no such thing as a deficit hawk. From Politico: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is quietly working both sides of the Capitol to [...]