Dynamist Blog
More Health Care Does Not Mean Cheaper Health Care
In an important column, the WaPo's Maya MacGuineas echoes points I made, in a more specific context, here and, even more explictly, here. Her conclusion:
Here is the bottom line: Most health-care inflation is the result of new technologies. Bending the curve enough to help balance the budget means walking away from some of the new technologies and devices that people want when they are sick. It also means improving consumer cost-consciousness through insurance reform and higher deductibles and co-payments. For most of us, that means paying more, not less. Even then, it is unlikely to be enough to get costs under control.
Health-care reform will have to be an incremental process: Try some things now, and try more in a few years. Maybe we will choose to spend a good deal more on health care, but if so, even more will have to be done to fix the rest of the budget. As much as we might wish it were so, creating an expensive plan to expand coverage, with some measures to get us started on bringing down costs, will not be sufficient to improve America's fiscal health anytime soon -- let alone fix the federal budget.
[Via Greg Mankiw.]
The Lethal Dangers of Sand
The Tangled Political Economy of Government Motors
Like Cato's Dan Mitchell, quoted in this LAT article on what the government should do with its auto company stock, my first instinct is to say, "Divest immediately." But I'm not so sure that's right. Owning a big chunk of the auto companies--and (this is important) hoping to profit from that ownership--could check some of the worst excesses of the Obama administration's lust for industrial control, starting with the belief, against all evidence, that U.S. automakers would be more successful if they abandoned SUVs and concentrated on competing with the Prius and Civic. Trying to maximize shareholder return might persuade policy makers to keep out of management decisions. On the other hand, it's a great incentive for further subsidies and favoritism. (Even the NYT, bellwether of liberal conventional wisdom, notes, for instance, that cap-and-trade "is almost perfectly designed for the buying and selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional districts.") All in all, a no-win situation.
The Government Motors Debacle
Tough but fair words from Jim Glassman:
I head a nonprofit group that encourages developing nations to adopt policies that will lead to prosperity — starting with transparency and the rule of law — and hold up America as a model. Yet in its high-handed dealings with Chrysler and G.M., the Obama administration reminds me of an irresponsible third-world regime, skirting the law and handing economic prizes to political cronies.
How long before the UAW dumps the stock? And, if it doesn't, how long before Ford seeks to decertify the union and replace it with one that doesn't own the company's competitors?
What Do We Get for the Money?
The SacBee's Dan Weintraub has a good column on California's ongoing fiscal mess and the need for performance-based budgeting.
Is Resilience the Next Big Thing?
A too-short, but significant article from Foreign Policy. I certainly hope he's right. (Via Lynne Kiesling, who applies the idea to the electrical grid.)
Blogging for Dollars
Overlawyered's Walter Olson reveals the secret to boosting traffic in this short piece by Alex Beam. (And it isn't Britney Spears.)
Facebook Impersonators
A disturbing account by impersonation-victim Matthew Herper of Forbes.com:
For months somebody (I don't know who) has been running a Facebook profile that bears my name, my personal information and several photos of me.
An old high school friend had connected with the faker, instead of me. Several of the people with whom fake Matt is friends also appeared to be fakes, including a copycat of Vertex Pharmaceuticals founder and chief executive Joshua Boger. (Boger has a real Facebook profile but isn't friends with me. He declined to comment on the fakesters.) I couldn't see this Fake Matt's profile myself, even by searching for my name.
This pretender was one of 100 impersonators of scientists, journalists and science policy wonks uncovered by Lucas Laursen, a reporter at Nature, the scientific journal. Most of the people who were copied are somehow linked to the biotech industry, and many are linked to the especially controversial field of embryonic stem cell research. Ruth McKernan, chief scientific officer of Pfizer's regenerative medicine unit is on the list; so was University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, whose thinking about stem cells has been hugely influential. (See the Nature article.)
Read the whole thing. (The Nature article is, unfortunately, seriously gated.) Facebook, like many Internet sites, runs partly on technology but largely on trust. Erode that trust and people won't use it.
Also, I have been wondering for a long time whether the Norma McCorvey on my long and eclectic FB friends list is the real woman from Roe v. Wade or an impersonator. Either way, she's claiming she just had to reset her password.
"About as visionary as the guy who invented Dippin' Dots, Ice Cream of the Future"
Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch evaluate Barack Obama's First 100 Days and find it wanting.