It is obvious that many republicans oppose the proposed health care bill. But many liberals and progressives oppose it as well. For example, economist L. Randall Wray writes: Here’s the opportunity, Wall Street’s newest and bestest gamble: there is a huge untapped market of some 50 million people who are not paying insurance premiums—and the […]
Read more...I got pushback on a post I put up yesterday critical of the health care reform bill from readers who pointed to the fact that folks like Paul Krugman and Al Franken were supporting it meant it must be at least OK. Well, it isn’t, and don’t delude yourself into thinking that. Why did health […]
Read more...Ah, another Christmas Eve story that (not surprisingly) has gotten little attention. Most of the ire directed against the phony health care reform bill focuses on how it further enriches a fat and undeserving health insurance industry. The media has given less attention to another group that has thrown plenty of lobbying dollars at getting […]
Read more...One of my many pet peeves is drug marketing. Even though Big Phama likes to tout how much it spends on R&D as a justification for high drug prices, it spends more on marketing as a percentage of revenues than it does on R&D. Think about it: in what other industry are the margins high […]
Read more...As readers probably know, the health care reform bill passed the House tonight, by a thin margin and with the Democrats offering a large concession by limiting reimbursements on abortions. Thomas Frank has a good piece in the New York Times tonight, in which he argues that health care reform might lead more doctors to […]
Read more...It should come as no surprise that those at the top of the food chain get preferential treatment on all levels. But this still stinks to high heaven. Employees of the Goldman, the Fed, Citigroup, and other banks are getting H1N1 vaccine allotments out of proportion to what can be justified from a public health […]
Read more...A fascinating and somewhat disturbing article at the New York Review of Books by Jerome Groopman looks at what counts for progress in medical diagnosis and finds it to be more of a mixed bag than most readers would assume. This won’t come as much of a surprise to those who know a bit about […]
Read more...In the early days of this blog, I would often wind up comparing coverage of news between the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal because the offender (almost without exception the Journal) had done a job so poor or misleading that it merited comment. Then the credit crisis forced the Journal to up its […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist who writes for the New Deal 2.0. A history of failed attempts to introduce universal health insurance has left us with a system in which the government pays directly or indirectly for more than half of the nation’s health care, but the actual delivery both of insurance and of […]
Read more...In the waning days of Lehman, this blog described a particularly avid defender of the beleaguered bank at CNBC as “the favorite outlet of those who aspire to paint the tape.” That was not terribly well received, needless to say. The New York Times seems to be adopting a similar fawning posture towards health insurers. […]
Read more...From Marshall Auerback, an investment management and commentator who writes for New Deal 2.0. No more free passes. A number of the President’s supporters who expressed concerns about the pro-Wall Street tilt of his early administration decisions were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt so long as he came through on healthcare. […]
Read more...One of the guest bloggers here, the esteemed Ed Harrison, was initially more hopeful about Obama than some of us (I an sufficiently cynical that I find it hard to get excited about any politician, although I will confess to falling for Australia’s Kevin Rudd) but is now calling him a black Herbert Hoover. Even […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. As you all know, Yves has been swamped writing her book, a work we all await with anticipation. So I have stepped into the breach to add my voice to hers on this site from time to time. This week I will also try to help pick up […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more questionable in Washington, then along comes this (hat tip Tom). Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and […]
Read more...Edward Harrison is the main writer at Credit Writedowns. Yesterday, I argued that the United States faced a policy dilemma in avoiding debt deflationary forces while maintaining fiscal prudence. The reality is that President Obama faces political constraints in Washington right now in regards to budget deficits. He is not likely to get another stimulus […]
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