[ Posted Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 – 16:01 UTC ]
I have a few questions about healthcare reform, even if I don't have solid answers. Solid answers, when looking at the economics of the insurance industry, quickly lead you to the equation "insurance equals discrimination." Insurance, by its actuarial nature, has to discriminate, or else it couldn't survive. But that is really a topic for another day. My questions today are about the costs of healthcare discrimination, and what reform will do to alter this equation.
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[ Posted Friday, August 14th, 2009 – 17:15 UTC ]
The healthcare reform fracas has gotten so bad, it has forced some in the media to actually do their jobs. This statement will come as a shock to anyone who has become accustomed to the way these soi-disant "journalists" present just about any issue these days -- by having a center-left politician and a hard-right politician on to "debate," and then fanning the flames by refusing to referee and provide actual facts to the discussion. But I think now (maybe) the "journalists" have finally gotten to the point of embarrassment, leading them to actually report on what is true and what is not in the entire debate. In other words, as I said, to do their actual jobs.
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[ Posted Friday, August 7th, 2009 – 09:00 UTC ]
I've always been confused why the media goes berserk about rating a president's "first 100 days," but then just stops counting after the first milestone. This, to a statistician, would be known as a "zero dimensional data array" -- one data point, to be exact. If you don't re-test the sample on a regular schedule, how are you supposed to compare it to anything?
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 – 16:00 UTC ]
But this year's season could produce a bumper crop of silly. The silly, it seems, is just bustin' out all over. And it's only the beginning of August, when our elected representatives all take off work for five weeks. Who knows how silly things are going to be by the end of the month?
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 – 17:19 UTC ]
Is yelling a smart political tactic? That's an abstract sort of question, but it's going to become more and more concrete in the next few weeks, because there appears to be a coordinated effort to use the tactic of shouting everyone down to disrupt "town hall" events by Democratic members of Congress in their home districts during the August recess. My question is whether this tactic is going to be effective or whether it has the possibility of backfiring.
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[ Posted Monday, August 3rd, 2009 – 15:06 UTC ]
It's the beginning of a new month, which means it is time again to take a look at President Obama's poll numbers. The news this month for Obama fans is not particularly good, as Obama has definitely ended his "honeymoon" period (which virtually all first-term presidents go through). The downward trend to his numbers was expected, but the increase in the curve downward is slightly worrisome at this point -- but not yet what I would call a cause for alarm.
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[ Posted Friday, July 31st, 2009 – 15:59 UTC ]
We haven't run a really good contest in a while, so I thought we'd open up the betting on what the outcome of the healthcare reform push will likely be, rather than write yet another column of seething frustration at the lack of progress from our belovéd Congresscritters.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 30th, 2009 – 16:33 UTC ]
For a while now, I've been using the metaphor of a baseball game to describe the progress of healthcare reform legislation trundling its way through Congress. And I have to caution everyone, we are still in the middle innings of this "game" (no disrespect intended, I know it's a serious subject -- I'm just talking metaphorically here) Which means that, no matter what the bills look like when they come out of the recalcitrant House and Senate committees, there will still be a lot of fighting before this is all over. I say this not to discourage healthcare reform advocates, but to keep everyone focused on how far we have to go.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 – 16:44 UTC ]
California voters may soon get a chance to weigh in on whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed by the state. If enacted, this may help the state's budget by providing revenue from a brand new source, while also freeing up money that previously went to enforcement efforts against marijuana growing. Of course, marijuana would still be illegal under federal law, but this may be a turning point in the legalization movement -- the point where politicians desperate for tax revenues see dollar signs instead of prison bars when looking at the cannabis plant.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 – 15:58 UTC ]
The White House has, of late, been quietly expressing a bit of confidence that the economy is going to pick up in the last two quarters of this year. They aren't shouting it from the rooftops, exactly, but they have been publicly predicting that the recession will officially be over in the next six months or so. Which raises the question -- since the Republicans have pretty much doubled down on Obama's failure, what are they going to do if the economy gets better next year? When the midterm congressional election season gets under way in full force, what are they going to run on if people are happy with Obama's policies at that point?
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