Liberal Talk Radio

The Obama white house is backing Sen. Olympia Snowe’s trigger proposal for the public option in the health care debate. If insurance coverage becomes too expensive in a given region, the trigger kicks in and the public option is created. I think the idea is pure fantasy. The idea that some future congress will enact [...]

If you don’t want to give illegal immigrants subsidies to buy health insurance, fine. But if they come with their own money, why not let them? They’ll keep the costs down for the rest of us (they tend to be younger and healthier than the population as a whole), and it’ll make it less attractive [...]

Editor’s note: this is a guest post from long-time reader Sebastian Hernandez. Point #1: The vast majority of Americans receive Health Care benefits from their employers, making Health Care one of the, if not the #1 budget item outside of regular operating capital for businesses. Think of it as a voluntary tax. At the current [...]

If we can recast public financing of healthcare as a way to starve the rest of the beast, as Bob Packwood* sort of argues (if you squint) then there might be an opening to finally see it happen: So Americans have a choice. We can spend 40 percent of our G.D.P., and provide services like [...]

Since nationalization is in the news these days, I’ve been thinking a bit about a different kind of nationalization — specifically, the kind that happens when you’ve got a single buyer for a product, aka “monopsony”. This is what the defense industry is today, an industry that has only a single client. I’ve been noodling [...]

Very interesting expansion of Medicaid buried in the stimulus bill: With little notice and no public hearings, House Democrats would create a temporary new entitlement allowing workers getting unemployment checks to qualify for Medicaid, the health program for low-income people. Spouses and children could also receive benefits, no matter how much money the family had. [...]

Lee at Horse’s Ass is starting a multi-part feature on Joe Biden’s role in the “war on drugs” the 1980s onward. Should be an interesting read: In the fall of 1982, the Reagan Administration’s Justice Department introduced a plan to spend up to $200 million for anti-drug enforcement efforts. The plan was to create a [...]

Well, jeez, so I guess this is what happens when you invite some guests over and they decide to have a domestic dispute in the middle of your dinner party. Not to feed the trolls … Gotta say that I’m fascinated that this debate (on this blog at least) has immediately gotten down to the [...]

The Prof, some friends and I had a lively debate the other night about I-1000, the “Death With Dignity” (a.k.a. physician-assisted suicide, or PAS) initiative being considered in Washington State this fall. I was torn about it: my libertarian and progressive instincts both told me to support it (individual rights), but I’m conservative enough to [...]

This is really freakin’ weird. Someone exhumed the actors who played “Harry and Louise” 15 years ago to cut an ad in favor of health care reform. It’s smart, if you’re one of like 5 people who remember the first round.