Ezra Klein lays out the odds of the GOP reducing the deficit should they regain control of Congress: If Republicans take the House and the Senate, how much likelier is a full extension of the Bush tax cuts? I’d say it goes up to 70 percent, and the only reason I don’t say 100 percent […]
It’s funny how the Republicans always say “big government isn’t the solution”, but there is a very real scenario to look at in this nation that proves just the opposite: While health care reformers argue about what it would take to “break the curve” of health care inflation, the state of Maryland has done it, […]
Ezra Klein, one of the most vocal bill-backers, has a really good plan – scrap the bill. But that doesn’t mean healthcare reform is dead. Instead he offers up items that could easily go through reconciliation: Democrats could scrap the legislation and start over in the reconciliation process. But not to re-create the whole bill. […]
People for the American Way released a report examining the filibuster in the Senate. They have found during the current session of Congress that cloture was invoked a record 89% of the time. Here is a historical graph showing the sharp increase in the usage this year: But the report goes beyond that, to a […]
Ezra Klein interviewed Sen. Tom Harkin and this really caught my eye: Tell me a bit about your reform bill. When you first introduced this, Joe Lieberman was your co-sponsor, right? Well, I introduced that first in 1995, when we were in the minority. I’m going to reintroduce that again in January. And people are […]
With Obama claiming that he never campaigned for the public option a new probelm is presented – the “fix it later” argument. This comment by Obama has taken a lot of people by surprise. Even Ezra Klein, a strong bill backer, is calling the President’s bluff on this: Oy. I’ll defend the argument that the […]
A lot of people in the progressive blogosphere are shocked by the passionate disagreements going on over the uncertain fate of health care reform. I for one am not. We are dealing with an issue that will very much affect every single one of us, so people are going to take a much deeper look […]
From David Waldman via Ezra Klein: The problem with leaving the decision up to the states, he says, is that it doesn’t go far enough. “I think states should leave the abortion question up to the counties,” he explains. “Then I think counties should leave the abortion question up to municipalities. Then the neighborhoods should […]
Nate Silver points out: The Record Profits Myth strikes again — I don’t like the insurance companies either; I’d gladly get rid of them and replace them with single payer. But the industry’s profits are low: only about 3.3%. So what happens when insurance companies are forced to spend 85-90% of premiums on health care […]
Ezra Klein today said this: To put this a bit more sharply, if I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier […]