Category: Politics

• March 29, 2017

  Healthcare is a multiplier, not a consumer good

  Adam Davidson tells a personal story about a relative who, with health care, could’ve continued his career. Without that healthcare, he ended up addicted and in jail. What the GOP doesn’t get about who pays for health care: However, dividing health expenditures into these categories misses an important economic reality: health-care spending has a substantial […]
• March 24, 2017

  Let’s price externalities, America

  Hello, America. We have to talk. You are built on top of a mountain of federal (a trillion or so dollars) debt. That debt covers some things we need (roads, health care, social safety nets, education, scientific research) and subsidizes distasteful things (energy companies, military contractors, banks, real estate). You could consider that debt the […]
• March 13, 2017

  They’re okay political opinions

  The downside to the Republicans proposing a healthcare bill is that it’s a major legislative disappointment, given they’ve spent seven years symbolically opposing healthcare. The upside is that, at least, we have something substantive to discuss about healthcare. The silver lining is possibly voters will come to see the Republican party for its cynicism. What […]
• January 26, 2017

  Perhaps there’s a benign explanation for Paul Ryan appearing to have cut off his phones. Anecdotally, it does not seem GOP Congresscritters are putting much effort into their voicemails or phone lines. I called my representative, Lamar Smith, yesterday afternoon, incensed that he had suggested we listen to Trump and not the media. Both his DC […]