Liberal Talk Radio

The Wall Street Journal has a good piece comparing health care plans between Democrats:
Mrs. Clinton charges that Mr. Obama’s plan would leave 15 million people without insurance. Outside experts agree that number is in the ballpark. If people aren’t required by law to buy insurance, many won’t. There are millions of children, for instance, who [...]

How did Malawi end its chronic food shortage issues? Funny you should ask:
Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States [...]

An op-ed: in today’s Times does a reasonably good job of summing up the state of American health care, but concludes with this somewhat unsubstantiated swipe at single-payer insurance:
Deep in their hearts, many liberals yearn for a single-payer system, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, that would have the federal government pay for all care and dictate prices. [...]

Will single-payer health insurance ruin medical innovation? Jon Cohn says the answer is basically no.

He’s compromised almost all of his principles in a failed effort to ride George Bush’s coattails all the way to the White House.
But John McCain still has the cojones to tell Iowa corn growers that he’s opposed to ethanol subsidies. Good for him.
Also in Big Ag news, lots of folks have linked to [...]

“For all the talk of the health costs, the most economically rational purchase on Earth is a Big Mac.”
- Ezra Klein. See the accompanying graph here.

[I break momentarily from my self-imposed exile in "Work" to comment on the following story. Read the whole Krugman piece -- it's excellent.]
Rudi’s been pandering to the right, calling Hillary’s health care proposal “socialized medicine”, and bandying about dubious statistics to support his false claims.
… Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of [...]

I’d always wondered how an atrocity like the farm bill continues to exist. Now I know: it’s tied to the food stamps program, thus creating an interdependent block of congressional votes from the Kansas prarie to the South Bronx.
Of course, the poor people who use food stamps would probably be a [...]

Is there a “third way” for health care payments, one that relies neither on employers nor the Feds?
Contemplating GM’s arrangement with the UAW — in which GM will set up a VEBA (”Voluntary Employee Benefits Association”) — I think there might be.
This would be something similar to the classic model for a building society (aka [...]

As promised, Hillary Clinton unveiled her own health care plan today.
I’m not sure how her plan would actually help most Americans (probably about as much as Edwards’ or Obama’s plans would, elements of which Clinton’s plan clearly cops). But it’s a triumph of PR.
Clinton is clearly keeping one eye squarely on the past with [...]