tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34015849916891974042024-03-26T23:37:44.485-07:00Donkeylicious - A Blog by Neil Sinhababu and Nicholas BeaudrotNeil Sinhababu and Nicholas Beaudrot's political blogNeil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.comBlogger1878125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-3293037391310318252015-06-08T16:55:00.000-07:002019-08-19T20:09:00.482-07:00New Blog!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Thanks to all the Donkeylicious readers who have followed us over the years! Those who are interested in more posts by me might enjoy my new blog at <a href="http://neilsinhababu.blogspot.com/">neilsinhababu.blogspot.com</a>. It'll have some political content like you saw here, plus some philosophy posts. There will also be random trivia about cool stuff, and music on Fridays.<br />
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Thanks also to Nick for being a wonderful co-blogger. Our complementary skills and fundamentally similar outlook are what any team of comic book heroes needs for success. If the creation of more happiness for everyone requires that we someday blog together again, I'll be among the happy ones.<br /><br />- Neil Sinhababu</div>
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-4437305235740076442015-01-22T02:17:00.000-08:002015-01-22T02:23:39.395-08:00Fox News And Paris Muslim No-Go Zones<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If I ran a cable channel devoted to misinforming Americans about other countries, I'd spread whimsical false beliefs instead of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/">terrifying ones</a>. Like, maybe in Paris there are Muslim Pogo Zones where everyone bounces to work during Ramadan! <br /><br />I guess the trouble is that people might go to Paris to see wacky things that aren't real, and lose their money. But that would still be better than going to Iraq to protect us from nuclear threats that aren't real, and losing their lives.</div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-30660636308914084612014-09-17T00:41:00.000-07:002018-06-27T12:23:32.257-07:00Scotland Decides<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It looks like a really close independence vote in Scotland. I guess I would've come down on the 'No' side, mainly because of the currency issues. If Scotland keeps the pound, it seems that Scotland's economy is still ruled by London bankers, and it loses what little ability it had to control them. But the future is hard to figure out -- maybe they don't keep the pound, or any one of dozens of considerations overrides that. I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions.<br />
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My own postcolonial attachments to the idea of independence from England make it hard for me to be a 'No' supporter. As the American-born child of Bengali parents, I'm at the intersection of two spectacular stories of throwing off English rule. The American story is familiar, but the Indian story may be even better. Over centuries of being ruled by well-educated Englishmen, famines that killed millions were common in India. In the Bengal famine of the early 1940s, Churchill shipped the grain out of the Bengali countryside to fortify Calcutta against a Japanese siege that never came, starving millions of Bengali villagers. (Leo Amery, the British Secretary of State for India, recalls Churchill saying, 'I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion'.) Then after India becomes an independent democracy, famines that kill millions are a thing of the past. When severe drought hit Maharastra in 1972, the government responded to popular pressure for relief, and mass starvation was avoided. The US and Indian success story is basically the success story of democracy -- the people may not be geniuses, but they'll stop you from starving them. I guess if Scotland were to lose all democratic control over its monetary policy, the democratic lessons of America and India might actually apply against independence.<br />
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To a utilitarian like me, political systems are broadly like sewer systems. Their proper functioning is tremendously important to human life, and sometimes it's best to build your identity around them. Seriously, with the sewers. If your regime won't let you ever build sewers, becoming a violent sewer revolutionary and murdering people who won't let you do what's needed to build them may be better than letting millions die in endless cholera epidemics. But it's best for the structure of political authority and your identity to come apart if sticking them together doesn't achieve good consequences.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuNhc61TyuoAUGaR_QKKW95gHJbpCADsj2Q7hCf_gy_PXxl-Zr1fHNZQb69b_eckst00ZcoOYsnZh1okwbEcAjjx2s_b_MDix3NxQpzlJzWu0iqrfddsYhsfCf-v87NHHjIM96kd0xx9p/s1600/800px-Arthurs_seat_edinburgh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuNhc61TyuoAUGaR_QKKW95gHJbpCADsj2Q7hCf_gy_PXxl-Zr1fHNZQb69b_eckst00ZcoOYsnZh1okwbEcAjjx2s_b_MDix3NxQpzlJzWu0iqrfddsYhsfCf-v87NHHjIM96kd0xx9p/s1600/800px-Arthurs_seat_edinburgh.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
There's all kinds of cool arguments I've heard for independence, including my friend Alfred's argument that an independent Scotland could fill its underpopulated areas with enterprising immigrants (he pointed at me and said "we need more clever fuckers like you!"). Maybe some of these arguments point to systematic reasons why Scottish nationalism is a force for good. It's not impossible. Indian nationalism a hundred years ago was well aligned with the betterment of India, and very likely humanity as a whole. But if that's true of Scotland now, it's not something I can clearly see.<br />
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Scotland will always be the home of my favorite British things. There's MacPherson's Farewell, and Fear a Bhata, and the Loch Tay Boat Song. There's David Hume, and more recently, my buddy Aidan McGlynn versus this English knowledge-first thing that looks more useless on issues the better I understand them. There's the beauty of Edinburgh and the Highlands and girls with skin like milk and hair like fire. And I expect them to remain just as beautiful no matter what Scottish voters chose.</div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-47627596015072676252014-02-12T06:31:00.002-08:002014-02-12T06:31:46.121-08:00Unionization and An End to Corporate Welfare: Two Great Tastes That Go Great TogetherThe UAW is attempting to unionize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Republican elected officials are <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140211/AUTO0104/302110035/0/AUTO01/Tennessee-Republicans-raise-stakes-VW-plant-s-UAW-vote">threatening to stop giving out "incentives"</a> in the form of mammoth tax breaks if the union vote succeeds. I don't know about you, dear reader, but to me this sounds like having your cake and eating it too.<br />
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There are good reasons to recruit large manufacturers to your municipality. The jobs they create pay good wages; the plants are very "sticky" so the jobs will last a decade if not much much longer; and you can use it to boost an ecosystem of manufacturing employment. But the tax breaks and free land that are the large attractions in these deals are a little unseemly. We'd be much better off if governments focused on providing quality public services that these manufacturers need--education, transportation, management of health care costs--rather than just tossing money from the "Economic Development" slush fund at large corporations.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-29656418229309488822014-02-04T08:07:00.000-08:002014-02-04T08:07:50.847-08:00Racist, But...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As people have noticed, <a href="http://malborghetto.soup.io/post/380261619/The-Not-Racist-Butt-via-Cyanide-Happiness">"I'm not racist, but..."</a> very often precedes racist opinions. Anyway, it would be sort of refreshing to see the reverse: "I'm racist, but the mayor ought to take a stand against police harassment of young black men."
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-71348002802635730262014-01-25T10:56:00.001-08:002014-01-25T11:01:32.392-08:00Health Care And Ending The War Secure Obama's Legacy, Nick Gillespie. Okay, Pot Would Be Nice Too<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I imagine we're going to see lots more frivolous Obama-legacy commentary as his second term draws to an end. But here's a fine entry in the genre from <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2014/01/25/ending-the-war-on-pot-is-obamas-best-hop">Nick Gillespie</a>, whose Reason article is headlined "Ending the War on Pot is Obama's Best Hope for a Legacy." The earlier Daily Beast version replaces "Best Hope" with <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2014/01/25/ending-the-war-on-pot-is-obamas-best-hop">"Last Chance"</a>. Look, I'd love to see marijuana legalized, and I'd be very happy to see him push towards legalization however he can. But Obama's legacy is already set.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLh3OZIfLaysby8S0obtSbhnFh7XvjHqEro0j8RFx9MptYRyXd694eiXVQqRNu6D_yx1XKH3873vMZ4lTUFfuF9ATYXbanPltQND980emQGWX75VLyzpcGVrNW60iOxu0ERvokK4MrYbK/s1600/url.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLh3OZIfLaysby8S0obtSbhnFh7XvjHqEro0j8RFx9MptYRyXd694eiXVQqRNu6D_yx1XKH3873vMZ4lTUFfuF9ATYXbanPltQND980emQGWX75VLyzpcGVrNW60iOxu0ERvokK4MrYbK/s1600/url.jpeg" height="240" width="320" /></a>Obama's legacy is health care reform, ending the Iraq War, and his economic role after the financial crisis. (Also Kagan, Sotomayor, and Yellen.) With getting the health care system closer to a government monopoly that can force down prices, we made a big move towards resolving the greatest risk of structural economic catastrophe, where the percentage of GDP spent on health care rises from <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS">18%</a> to even more insane proportions and strangles the whole economy. Really, the legislators are the superstars there, but Obama played his Chris Bosh role behind Harry Reid's Dwyane Wade and Nancy Pelosi's LeBron, and he deserves credit. There are lots of terrible things going on with Afghanistan and drones and such, but the total death tolls and financial <a href="http://warorcar.blogspot.sg/">cost of the Iraq War</a> were insane in a way nothing else in US foreign policy has been since. And while I'll give Obama not-too-great grades on economic recovery -- I'm with Krugman in thinking he could've done better -- that's going to be a huge part of how we look back on him.<br />
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No doubt about this: I'd be very happy if Obama helped us move towards marijuana legalization. Legally prohibiting the use of marijuana is stupid public policy and it should change. Now, I don't think it's as big a deal in prison-related terms as some of our left-wing allies make it out to be. If you want the dour case that marijuana isn't that huge a deal incarceration-wise and in other broad public policy terms, <a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/">here it is</a>, and scroll down to section III. (Summary: marijuana generates a large proportion of arrests, but not a large proportion of prison time, since tons of people get arrested for possessing marijuana, but they don't usually end up in prison.) I think a weakness of Scott Alexander's analysis is that it leaves out one of the best effects of marijuana legalization: cannabis is a cause of some very pleasant experiences, and people would have a great time smoking it more often. If the high-minded factors he considers come out even, fun would easily tip the balance.<br />
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At the end of this, I'm realizing that this post is basically "I totally agree with your cause, but I got annoyed at your overblown rhetorical strategy." So, sorry about that. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-4213124958489318982013-12-03T10:14:00.000-08:002013-12-06T04:12:10.071-08:00December Donations: Deworm The World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDRGywZ9cWtsFoKAt__D5y7fIFuZTZ-OcAjuyAx0ztyWbMA35zCWjq1t5mIrNl67BeaaumTK0xk-3-cXMshJJ6fXKBVuAwk-4SMgQU_cIbcw4lt_jLcZCNErM6uO5R-YpEn3iBkwPZTBkM/s1600/kids_school.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDRGywZ9cWtsFoKAt__D5y7fIFuZTZ-OcAjuyAx0ztyWbMA35zCWjq1t5mIrNl67BeaaumTK0xk-3-cXMshJJ6fXKBVuAwk-4SMgQU_cIbcw4lt_jLcZCNErM6uO5R-YpEn3iBkwPZTBkM/s1600/kids_school.jpg" /></a>Over this month, I plan to give away over $10,000 to the best charitable and political causes I can find.<br />
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First off is $2,000 to <a href="http://evidenceaction.org/deworming/">Deworm the World</a>. Medicine to cure children's parasitic worm infections costs about 35 cents per child. DtW has been working with local governments in India to administer school deworming programs, particularly in the state of Bihar where about 2/3 of children have some kind of worm infection. I've given DtW a lot of money before, and I'm happy to do so again, as <a href="http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/deworm-world-initiative">GiveWell has recently named them one of the 3 most cost-effective ways to help people.</a><br />
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You can see the thing I wrote previously about <a href="http://www.donkeylicious.com/2011/05/go-humans-beat-worms.html">Deworm the World here</a>. Since then, a couple things have changed. On the downside, it looks like the "two cents for an extra day of school" thing applied only in one situation where flooding had gotten so many kids so sick with worms that you could actually buy an extra day of school for every two cents donated. That doesn't usually happen. But on the upside, Deworm the World has come under new management that has made a lot more information about what they're doing available, leading to the GiveWell recommendation. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-81926566323210736732013-11-23T07:55:00.002-08:002013-11-23T07:55:42.845-08:00Most Americans Don't Remember JFK's Assassination, Because They Weren't Alive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihL31Fv7EsGgcAdOt0v1zAdpu4eEyuRQe2MIMruCHtUoYPgqYKHgvRVOuJUhzs7bs3A-CUy8f9yNiE1_r3H5-dfue7xOg37Tc_x0O8N8BOFNI3Jum04aD8BVywQtQrI6C9zPMDCXwCU5YC/s1600/800px-USpop2010.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihL31Fv7EsGgcAdOt0v1zAdpu4eEyuRQe2MIMruCHtUoYPgqYKHgvRVOuJUhzs7bs3A-CUy8f9yNiE1_r3H5-dfue7xOg37Tc_x0O8N8BOFNI3Jum04aD8BVywQtQrI6C9zPMDCXwCU5YC/s320/800px-USpop2010.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div>
The median age of Americans is 36.8 years, and from the graph at right it looks like about a third of us are over age 50. So 50 years later, the country is mostly populated by people who don't remember where they were when Kennedy was assassinated, because they weren't anywhere.<br />
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I don't really know how significantly the assassination changed history. Lyndon Johnson was probably the most significant president after FDR, with impressive achievements on civil rights, Medicare, and the War on Poverty, and a disaster in Vietnam. How do all those things go in the counterfactual scenario where Kennedy becomes president? My impression is that his approach wouldn't be too different from Johnson's, but I'm not at all confident about this. If it's true that it would've all gone more or less the same way, the assassination becomes more a moment of Baby Boomer cultural memory than a turning point in the history of anything that matters. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-88705107452559060322013-11-21T10:31:00.002-08:002013-11-21T10:31:46.603-08:00Reid Goes Nuclear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQg7abzR9L95xPAfICzuAZlPNEQ_ERCYKA7S3V7V6ALuTHjqn-nfGB_iJNgnxL76wsszVCgXUpBveG_zgT4LX5IBY6UqA4TPU9TqEiy_ZxB0Iu1AJPozePzujlou07NpoHzQCTodynsfj/s1600/imgres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQg7abzR9L95xPAfICzuAZlPNEQ_ERCYKA7S3V7V6ALuTHjqn-nfGB_iJNgnxL76wsszVCgXUpBveG_zgT4LX5IBY6UqA4TPU9TqEiy_ZxB0Iu1AJPozePzujlou07NpoHzQCTodynsfj/s1600/imgres.jpg" /></a></div>
Harry Reid has <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/harry-reid-nuclear-option-senate">just carried out</a> the "nuclear option", eliminating the filibuster for executive branch and non-Supreme judicial nominations. All Democrats in the Senate supported the effort, except for red-staters Mark Pryor and Joe Manchin, who have an excuse, and general opponent of change Carl Levin, whose impending retirement will end his time as the Least Valuable Player in the Democratic caucus.<br />
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The timing is pretty good. It would've been especially good to fill executive branch vacancies faster, but at least the judicial vacancies can now be filled by the end of Obama's second term, letting Democrats refresh the bench with lots of smart young judges. Some of them will be appellate and Supreme Court nominees someday.<br />
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I see that <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/11/detonation">Scott Lemieux</a> is saying this is probably the most important vote of Obama's second term. Sounds right to me. Scott's been saying good things about Harry Reid, and I agree with that too. I wish we'd gotten here sooner, but the delay is probably more the fault of the Carl Levin types than anything Reid could control. Reid has been an excellent Senate Majority (and briefly Minority) Leader. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-49208392996462762292013-11-18T08:33:00.002-08:002013-11-18T08:33:51.136-08:00Bailouts For The 99%<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/18/wall_street_isn_t_worth_it_john_quiggin_on_cutting_finance_down_to_size.html">As Yglesias writes</a>, it's hard to write legislation separating the socially beneficial side of the finance industry (like airlines using derivatives to hedge against unpredictable changes in fuel costs, without which they'd go bankrupt whenever fuel costs jump) from the speculative side where people are just gambling and can be bailed out if their bad bets wreck the economy. He's responding to <a href="http://jacobinmag.com/2013/11/wall-street-isnt-worth-it/">John Quiggin's piece here</a>. <div>
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I thought I'd say a bit more about bailouts. Mere promises never to support more bailouts aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. Once a big enough financial crisis looms, policymakers will have to do something to prevent economic catastrophe. If bailing out banks is the only feasible way to do that, that's the policy we'll get. Quiggin's proposal to shrink the financial sector would solve this problem by eliminating the problem of financial institutions being too big to fail by just preventing the from being too big. The problem is how to implement it, eliminating the gambling while preserving the hedging. </div>
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Setting up policies for stabilizing the economy in the face of financial crisis, but which don't involve bailing out banks, would be a good way to go. For example, you could allow the Federal Reserve, in times of crisis, to simply print enough money and distribute it evenly among all residents of the USA. Then if the financial crisis led to people losing their jobs and incomes, free money from the Fed would provide a cushion. It'd probably do a lot to prevent the job losses in the first place, as the anticipated introduction of new money would counteract the forecasted economic gloom that leads to layoffs and recessions. And it'd prevent banks from gambling with the expectation that they'll be bailed out, because the bailouts wouldn't go to the gamblers. If that's a major factor in the growth of the financial sector (I don't know if it is, but to whatever extent it is, it should stop) it'd be a way of implementing Quiggin's financial sector shrinking agenda. </div>
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Obviously there are massive political obstacles here and we might never get circumstances where we'd be able to pass such a thing. But if we're talking about a legislative proposal that would actually have the right effects, this seems to be one. </div>
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-40116858114225801192013-11-11T10:49:00.004-08:002013-11-11T10:49:31.143-08:00Medicaid Expansion Needs to Happen Sooner Rather Than LaterThe <i>New York Times</i> had a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/health/cuts-in-hospital-subsidies-threaten-safety-net-care.html?hp&_r=0">big piece this weekend</a> on the pinch felt by community hospitals in states that are not expanding Medicaid to cover everyone -- mostly the working poor -- who have incomes under 133% of the Federal Poverty Line.<br />
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To review, in the pre-ACA world, the federal government funneled extra money to hospitals that served an unusually large number of Medicaid & uninsured patients. This helps these hospitals make up for the fact that Medicaid and uninsured patients tend to pay a lot less. The ACA includes a significant boost in Medicaid reimbursements, and should lead to a decline in the number of uninsured patients between the individual mandate and Medicaid expansion. <i>In theory</i> these changes should help safety-net hospitals become less reliant on DSH payments. <i>In practice</i>, however, twenty-four states run by troglodytes have rejected Medicaid expansion, and will thus voluntarily decimate their safety-net hospitals.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/07/medicaid-map1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="477" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/07/medicaid-map1.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illinois should thank Republican governor of Wisconsin and state legislature of Missouri for any new hospitals<br />that are built in the next five years.</td></tr>
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The impact of this decision on states' economies and political economies is likely to be significant. Some estimates suggest that Medicaid expansion may increase a city's economic output by as much as 2-3%. Medical professionals and for-profit hospital managers will have significant incentives to gravitate towards states that have accepted the Medicaid expansion. If Jay Nixon (D-MO) manages to hammer out a Medicaid expansion compromise with his Republican legislature while Sam Brownback (R-KS) sits on his hands, the Kansas side of Kansas City will suffer relative to the Missouri side. State-level Medical Associations and especially Hospital Associations will have tremendous incentive to become 100% Democratic donors at least at the federal level, and to back any Democratic candidates for governor or state legislature that appear viable.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/09/heres-why-every-state-should-expand-medicaid-through-obamacare">White House blog notes</a> that the number of states accepting the original expansion of Medicaid under LBJ exactly matches the expansion under Obama, and that over the next four years, <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10254.pdf?new_window=1">all but two states decided the expansion was worthwhile</a>. Thus the current state of Medicaid expansion is not without precedent, even if it's completely immoral.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-22123599157074942052013-11-09T00:00:00.002-08:002013-11-09T00:00:27.118-08:00Foreign Aid, Perception and Reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I like <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/08/americans-already-think-a-third-of-the-budget-goes-to-foreign-aid-what-if-it-did/">Dylan Matthews' argument</a> that we should actually give a really huge chunk of money to foreign aid -- maybe the 28% of the budget that Americans think we're giving. It looks like you can save the life of someone in another country with health interventions against AIDS, insecticide-treated bednets to prevent malaria, or deworming pills for under $5000 a year. Devoting a big chunk of the federal budget to causes like this would be of enormous benefit to humanity, and that's what utilitarians like me care about.<br />
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I was thinking about why Americans think 28% of the budget is going to foreign aid when it's only 1%. I wonder if most Americans are categorizing foreign aid in the same way that pundits talking about the budget usually do. A huge portion of the federal budget is directed overseas -- in particular, to military spending. And a lot of military spending has gone to endeavors that could be confused with some kind of foreign aid, on a broad definition of the term -- nation-building endeavors alongside military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. Maybe that's part of why so many Americans think such a huge percentage goes to foreign aid.<br />
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Obviously this isn't anything like the aid Dylan supports. It'd be a real misfortune if opposition to excessive "foreign aid" was to expensive nation-building projects that operated alongside military operations, and it frightened politicians away from doing genuinely beneficial humanitarian work. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-5220062698418234312013-10-27T19:42:00.001-07:002013-10-27T19:42:26.850-07:00Meat Substitute Branding Thoughts (I Want To Eat Dragon)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV8Q0fV9TRcmsMEk8ZFkNXOwcsfc7xkZ3kC3coLJvlVY0UdMQdHhX2XoEye-g75EpGyBMgjKe8eiJt42MvB01WbornjPNvJxC9SDU56cPCzYDZ12Pk9dgHRUM2cksA_7SWqyqWNnbw_eh/s1600/url.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV8Q0fV9TRcmsMEk8ZFkNXOwcsfc7xkZ3kC3coLJvlVY0UdMQdHhX2XoEye-g75EpGyBMgjKe8eiJt42MvB01WbornjPNvJxC9SDU56cPCzYDZ12Pk9dgHRUM2cksA_7SWqyqWNnbw_eh/s400/url.jpeg" width="400" /></a>If you invent a tasty new fake meat, but it isn't really like any particular real meat like beef or pork or chicken, I'd suggest giving it the name of a mythical creature. I'd like to eat unicorn or hydra or phoenix or dragon.<br />
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The image is from <a href="http://mythicalcreaturebutchershop.com/shop/">these folks</a>.<br />
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-27775252617078747592013-10-26T00:02:00.003-07:002013-10-26T00:02:47.384-07:00National Standardization Of Voting Laws<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
It was fairly obvious to everyone that Republican voter ID laws were attempts to stop Democrats from winning elections by preventing black people from voting. After the <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/330665-yelton-was-fired-for-saying-what-the-nc-gop-wont">Buncombe County GOP chairman</a> said it in so many words to a Daily Show reporter, it's out there in public. </div>
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If Democrats somehow win back the House of Representatives in 2014, some sort of national standardization of voting laws should be on the agenda, to stop local authorities from erecting frivolous barriers to voting. As always has been the case, federal action is the way to defeat a racist majority in state government that is determined to prevent black people from voting. </div>
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-77347016070578626662013-10-22T09:44:00.004-07:002013-10-22T09:44:37.883-07:00Assorted Thoughts on the Seattle/Tacoma UFCW non-strikeUnionized workers at several grocery store chains--Safeway, Albertson's, and the Kroger-owned Fred Meyer and QFC--will stay on the job after <a href="http://www.westseattleherald.com/2013/10/21/news/update-2-ufcw21-union-reports-tentative-agreement">negotiators reached a tentative agreement last night</a>. The main sticking point seems to have been <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15706/tense_obamacare_deadlines_loom_for_grocery_workers_in_seattle_ny/">health insurance coverage for part time workers</a>. The current contract provides some level of insurance to part-time employees working 16 hours per weekweek. Management sought to limit insurance coverage to employees who 30 hours per week, those who meet the definition of "full-time" under the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare.<br />
<ul>
<li>Management's position here is similar to, though less generous than, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/16/trader-joes-cut-health-benefits-last-week-heres-its-side-of-the-story/">Trader Joe's</a>. TJ's decided to give its part-time employees $500/year to purchase insurance on the exchange while dropping their employer-sponsored insurance coverage. They claim that for part-time workers for whom the job at TJ's is their only job, this is a much better deal. It's quite possible they're correct.</li>
<li>Simply dropping employer-sponsored coverage in exchange for <i>nothing</i> is a raw deal. It's just a reduction in compensation. If management had been offering a raise, that would be different, but instead they were trying to <a href="http://ufcw555.com/fred-meyer-non-foods-bargaining-update/">cut entry-level wages and eliminate paid sick leave</a>.</li>
<li>Economists like to say that benefits are "compensation", and that any cut in benefits should result in higher cash wages for workers. While that may be true in the long term, it's not always going to be true in the short term.</li>
<li>If the we want some or all of surplus generated by insurance cuts to flow to workers, we need to think about how to boost employee bargaining power, which has drastically deteriorated in man job sectors over the last fifty years. </li>
<li>Unions whose employees are likely to qualify for subsidized insurance <i>ought</i> to think about fighting for higher cash wages, or defined-benefit pensions, rather than non-cash compensation.</li>
<li>Employers who can easily rely on part-time workers, such as retailers, can engage in all sorts of scheduling games to prevent employees from qualifying for benefits. Requiring employers to provide benefits for part-time workers prevents them from wasting managerial time and effort playing these games.</li>
<li>This whole episode could be avoided, or at least mitigated, by replacing the 30-hour cliff with some measurement of full-time equivalents and require a certain level of insurance per FTE.</li>
</ul>
Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-68360611724102832742013-10-16T03:00:00.000-07:002013-10-16T03:00:02.502-07:00The Medical Device Tax Is Good Political EconomyOne of the odd pieces of shutdown/debt ceiling negotiations has been an obsession in Washington with a 2.3% tax on medical devices included as part of the Affordable Care Act. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-house-gops-shutdown-deal-is-a-big-improvement/2013/10/15/a67b32fe-35b0-11e3-89db-8002ba99b894_blog.html?wprss=rss_ezra-klein">Ezra Klein says</a> "there's no obvious justification for the medical device tax", which, in pure policy terms I suppose is "mostly true". There's some deadweight loss, there will be slightly fewer jobs and slightly less innovation in the field. Whether or not that's a good price to pay for the revenue gained by the tax is an empirical and phisophical question. Note that there is some concern among health care wonks that medical devices are overutilized, particularly the subcategory of <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-03-24/news/35449954_1_medical-equipment-new-medicare-rule-home-oxygen-equipment">durable medical equipment</a>.<br />
<br />
But at the level of political economy, the medical device tax is a good tax. Most health care industry trade groups—insurers, drug manufacturers, hospital associations, etc.—decided that they would rather be at least a reluctant partner in the ACA's passage and negotiate some sort of industry-wide fee, tax, or federal spending cut in exchange for a tremendous expansion of their customer base. This lead to some unseemly results such as the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/memos-unveil-how-white-house-worked-with-phrma-to-sell-obamacare/">White House opposing Democratic efforts to bring down the cost of prescription drugs</a> as the price of PhrMA's cooperation. The trade group for medical device manufacturers—the Advance Medical Technology Association—<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/news/affordable-care-act/2013/10/01/medical-device-industry-fears-laws-tax-on-sales/?_r=0">refused to play ball</a>. The tax is thus a combination of (1) a way to gain revenue, (2) an attempt to compensate for perceived overuse & mispricing of medical devices, and (3) a penalty for the trade group's intransigence. The trade group is now trying to wriggle out from their previous mistakes.<br />
<br />
This is the big leagues. In 2009, the AMTA played the lobbying game and lost. Now in 2013, they're trying again and losing. If device manufacturers want the tax repealed while Barack Obama is in the White House, they should try tying to something Democrats might actually care about. Fix the "family glitch". Replace the 30-hour "full time employee" cliff with some sort of full-time equivalency measurement. But attaching repeal or delay to reopening the government at sequestration levels of spending? That's not a ransom note that the Obama Administration should sign.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-63288430017875477412013-10-14T00:53:00.003-07:002013-10-14T00:53:57.148-07:00How To Negotiate Your Party Into Extremism, In Three Easy Steps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1) Congressional Republicans threaten to do something extreme in negotiations with Democrats. For example, "We're not going to raise the debt ceiling unless you accept the repeal of Obamacare." It's just a negotiating ploy -- they really think the debt ceiling should be raised, but they're trying to extract concessions by making threats.<br />
<br />
2) So that they don't look like hostage-takers, they want to seem like they're making principled demands rather extreme threats. So they <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/10/ted-yoho-thinks-not-raising-debt-ceiling-great-idea/70223/">argue</a> that the threatened scenarios really fit their principles. For example, "Not raising the debt ceiling is necessary to keep us from going broke."<br />
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3) The Republican base believes them. After all, the opposing views are coming from Democrats and the mainstream media, whom they don't trust. So many Republicans think not raising the debt ceiling is necessary to keep America from going broke -- even though it triggers debt default, which actually constitutes going broke!<br />
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Do this over and over again, and people in your party start to have views on major issues that weren't even believed by the people who initially expressed them. I don't know whether Ted Yoho is a cruder example of the politicians in (2) or one of the base voters in (3) who managed to win a primary. Probably he's an amalgam of both. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-956056420965216822013-10-06T08:15:00.003-07:002013-10-06T08:35:44.868-07:00Republican Extremism Is Bottom-Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/10/04/the_not_so_secret_origin_of_the_defund_obamacare_movement.html">Dave Weigel points out</a>, it's not really a few dozen crazy Republicans provoking the government shutdown. It's Republican primary voters all across America. They hate Obamacare and they're willing to defeat anybody who doesn't take a sufficiently hard line against it, just like they've been defeating a <a href="http://www.donkeylicious.com/2012/11/senate-republicans-primary-problem.html">long line of electable Republicans in Senate primaries</a>.<br />
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Ted Cruz may be the star of the movement, but his role was to bring a particular extreme political option within the scope of Tea Party hopes and dreams so that the Republican base would pressure their legislators to pursue it, not to build a coalition of legislators by himself on Capitol Hill. That's what I'm liking about him -- he strengthened the force that's tearing the Republican Party apart, and it should help Democrats win more legislative races next year, as it did in the last two cycles. One hopes that these forces don't tear apart the country, but assuming that we can pass budgets and debt ceiling increases, the majoritarian structures of democracy provide protection against that.</div>
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-42985091710894256982013-10-04T07:04:00.001-07:002013-10-04T09:17:08.589-07:00Friday Obama Caption Contest & Kitsch Cover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3752/10041312773_285321706a_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3752/10041312773_285321706a_z.jpg" /></a></div>
Photography is probably non-essential, so here's the last photo on the Whitehouse Flickr feed. Original caption: "President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden listen as they are updated on the federal government shutdown and the approaching debt ceiling deadline, in the Oval Office, Oct. 1, 2013. From left, Kathryn Ruemmler, Counsel to the President, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Director of OMB, and Alyssa Mastromonaco, Deputy Chief of Staff"<br />
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Today's Kitsch Cover is the Watson Twins performing The Cure's "Just Like Heaven":<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1ZbmEskxjNE" width="560"></iframe>Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-32308563457517483352013-10-03T10:35:00.000-07:002013-10-03T10:35:05.554-07:00More on the Troglodytes running Southern States, Wisconsin, and parts of the Interior West<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.wikia.com/dragonquest/images/2/2e/Troglodyte.gif1" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images.wikia.com/dragonquest/images/2/2e/Troglodyte.gif1" width="195" /></a></div>
21 year-old Chad Henderson is getting lots of calls from reporters. I wanted to highlight <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/03/meet-chad-henderson-the-obamacare-enrollee-tons-of-reporters-are-calling/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein&clsrd">this snippet from WaPo's Sarah Kliff</a>: <br />
<blockquote style="font-size: 87.5%;">
Henderson is a part-time worker at a day-care center. He did not qualify
for tax credits to purchase health coverage because his income is below
the poverty line. Since <b>Georgia is not expanding the Medicaid program</b>,
that meant Henderson was essentially responsible for his entire premium. <br />
...<br />
Henderson purchased a health insurance plan with a<b> $175 monthly premium.</b> While that price does fit in his budget, he was also hoping for a better deal.</blockquote>
100% of FPL is $957 a month. Chad Henderson earns <i>less than that</i>, and he's going to spend $175 of it on health insurance.<br />
<br />
This is the flesh-and-blood consequence of state-level Republican lawmakers—and let us not mince words here, Republicans control at least one of the branches of government in the only states that have not expanded Medicaid— choosing not to expand Medicaid to cover the poorest of the poor. For merely the cost of administering the expansion, states had the opportunity to cover all their citizens earning less than 133% of the Federal Poverty Line. Instead people like Chad Henderson will fork over a hefty chunk of their paycheck every month in insurance premiums.<br />
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And Henderson's situation isn't even that bad. A 62-year old retiree—someone who might have lived a life full of physically taxing low-wage jobs—might have retirement benefits that are still below the poverty line. But their premiums would run in the $550-650 range. Remember, <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/?fa=topic&id=38">for one in five retirees, Social Security is their only form of income</a>. If someone fitting this description lives in the Deep South, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, etc., they will have to send half their paycheck to their health insurance company to get coverage. All because their Governor or State House Speaker or State Senate President didn't want to participate in a nationwide Medicaid expansion.<br />
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I don't understand how anyone can call this behavior anything other than immoral.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-58906585451161580112013-10-01T09:31:00.000-07:002013-10-01T12:30:26.511-07:00For Obamacare Purposes, Your Income May Be Lower Than Your SalaryAs people are beginning to navigate the <a href="http://www.donkeylicious.com/2013/09/your-five-step-guide-to-obamacare-week.html">five-question Obamacare flowchart</a>, it's important to remember that the Affordable Care Act defines "income" as "Modified Adjusted Gross Income". Many line items on form 1040 that people commonly refer to as "deductions" are technically "adjustments to income", meaning that they will not count as income for purposes of determining Medicaid or subsidy eligibility. Most importantly, <i>tax-favored retirement contributions (401k, deductible IRA, SEP, SIMPLE), student loan interest for low-income & middle-class households, and alimony <b>do not count as income for Medicaid/subsidy eligibility</b></i>. Other pre-tax employer deductions, such as commuter expenses, daycare FSAs, and the like, also don't count as income.<br />
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Another important note is that Social Security income, which is non-taxable for many people, <i>does</i> count as income under the ACA.<br />
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The Berkley Labor Center put together <a href="http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthcare/MAGI_summary13.pdf">list of what counts as income under Obamacare</a>, which you might find handy.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-3588876354998537872013-09-30T10:05:00.000-07:002013-10-01T12:26:21.900-07:00Your Five-Step Guide to Obamacare WeekWhile the Republican House GOP clown show continues, the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, frequently called "Obamacare" will press on, at least in those states that have state-based exchanges.<br />
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The basic structure of the Affordable Care Act is fairly simple. To understand how Obamacare will affect you, you need to know the answers to five questions:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Are you insured by the government today?</b> If so, then nothing will change. You can stop reading this post and do something more interesting with your life.</li>
<li><b>Does your employer provide insurance?</b> If so, you need to know the answer to a follow-up question: <b>is your employer's insurance good insurance?</b> If it's decent insurance -- no annual or lifetime caps on coverage; reasonable co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurance -- then nothing changes.<br /><br />If your employer only offers crappy insurance, they will need to start providing real insurance. If they don't, you'll go buy your own policy on the exchange. Most employees -- about nine out of every ten -- get decent insurance through their employer. Only one in ten employees will need to lobby their HR department for better insurance coverage.</li>
<li><b>How much does your family earn?</b><br /><br />The handful of middle-to-high income earners -- those making more than 400% of the Federal Poverty Line -- that don't have employer-sponsored insurance will need to go buy it at full price. Thankfully there are not many households like this -- good-paying jobs tend to have good benefits -- and these folks will <i>mostly</i> be able to afford their insurance without too much of a pinch.<br /><br />Working-class and middle-income households -- those between 133% and 400% of FPL -- make up the largest group of the uninsured. They'll get some subsidies to purchase insurance at a discount. There are lots of online calculators. My two favorites are <a href="http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/">Kaiser's Affordable Care Act premium calculator</a> and the state of <a href="http://hcr.vermont.gov/timeline/exchange/aca_premiums">Vermont's maximum monthly premium table</a>.<br /><a href="http://www.advisory.com/MedicaidMap" target="_blank"><br />
<img alt="Where the States Stand" border="0" height="300" src="http://www.advisory.com/~/media/Advisory-com/Daily-Briefing/2012/11/DB_medicaid_map_lg.jpg" style="float: right;" width="400" /></a>Low-income households need to know the answer to one more question: <b>is your state governed by troglodytes, or by human beings</b>? States governed by human beings (colored teal or blue on this map) will expand Medicaid to cover anyone earning less than 133% of FPL. States governed by troglodytes (colored red or pink) will not cover anyone earning this little money. As a silver lining, subsidies will be available to those earning 100-133% of FPL. So the trick in these states is to be poor, but not <i>too</i> poor.
<br /><br />Okay, I guess you need to know the answer to one more question. <b>What is 400% of the poverty line</b>? Or perhaps <b>what is 133% of the poverty line</b>? According to <a href="http://www.medicaid.gov/Medicaid-CHIP-Program-Information/By-Topics/Eligibility/Downloads/2013-Federal-Poverty-level-charts.pdf">Medicaid.gov</a>, here are the income thresholds for 133% and 400% of FPL:<br /><br /><i>Single person</i>: 133% of FPL = $15,281.70 ($1273.48/month); 400% = $45,960 ($3830/month)<br /><i>Family of 3</i>: 133% of FPL = $25,974.90 ($2164.58/month); 400% = $77,410 ($6510/month)<br /><i>Family of 4</i>: 133% of FPL = $31,321.50 ($2610.13/month); 400% = $94,210 ($7850/month)</li>
</ul>
I put this together in a handy flowchart, showing what percentage of Americans are currently covered by the government, their employer, buy insurance on the individual market, or go uncovered. The percentages here are approximate, but give you a rough idea of how many people will be helped by Obamacare (click for full-size version)<br />
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Good luck!<br />
<br />Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-18870412582539575022013-09-27T23:47:00.000-07:002013-09-28T01:51:49.504-07:00The Republican Debt Ceiling Bluff Is Self-Refuting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Suppose somebody tells you that he really wants your suit of armor. Why? Because he's terrified of getting stabbed. And you don't want to give it to him. So he makes a threat. If you don't give him the armor, he'll get a knife and stab himself!<br />
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Now you're in a nice position to call his bluff, because carrying out his threat is inconsistent with what he's told you about his interests. If he's really so terrified of being stabbed, he's not going to stab himself.<br />
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And that's the situation Obama is in with regard to Republicans who refuse to raise the debt ceiling. They claim to be concerned with big deficits caused by federal overspending. (They're actually <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/09/26/house_debt_ceiling_bill_shows_why_compromise_is_unthinkable.html">demanding everything</a> in return for debt ceiling increases, including the Keystone Pipeline, barriers to malpractice lawsuits, and partial repeal of the Clean Air Act and banking reform. But they're also asking for cuts in antipoverty programs and Medicare, which are part of the anti-spending agenda.) And the worst-case scenario with overspending is eventual default. But they're threatening to bring default immediately, which nobody actually concerned with overspending would do! There's simply no reason to pay attention to threats like this. </div>
Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-16873712197439987262013-09-23T05:00:00.000-07:002013-09-23T05:00:12.867-07:00The End of "End Welfare as We Know It"<a href="http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/photos/us-2000/1953535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/photos/us-2000/1953535.jpg" width="400" /></a>Via Kevin Drum, Rich Lowry <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359088/re-cruzs-defense-he-never-said-it-would-work-rich-lowry">printed this golden nugget from a House GOP aide</a> on the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/09/20/house_snap_bill_takes_food_from_the_hungry.html">House's attempt to decimate the Food Stamp program</a> [emphasis mine]:<br />
<blockquote style="font-size: 80%;">
... Yesterday the House passed a major reform to our food stamp program that
<b> reinstates the workfare programs that we know are good policy, get
people off the welfare rolls</b> and would reduce discretionary spending. ...</blockquote>
Those who are old enough to remember the Clinton years will be surprised at this quote, since one of Bill Clinton's signature campaign issues and legislative achievements was to "end welfare as we know it". But when Clinton said "welfare", he was speaking narrowly of modifications to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_to_Families_with_Dependent_Children">Aid for Families with Dependent Children</a>, an open-ended transfer to poor single mothers so that they could afford to feed and raise their children. In 1996 Clinton signed a bill replacing AFDC with TANF, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families">a program that limits benefits to five years</a>, encourages welfare recipients to search for work, and provides support to poor families via increased social spending on education, transportation, and child care. Using this definition of welfare, "welfare rolls" have continued to declined. No one has attempted to revive AFDC<br />
<br />
So what gives? Why is this random house GOP aide going off about reinstating workfare requirements that were never attached to Food Stamps in the first place? Because modern day conservatives, however, have come to consider "welfare" to mean "any transfer of resources to the poor". During the 2009 stimulus debate, <a href="http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/forecasts_trends/archive/2009/01/13/obama-s-tax-policy-none-dare-call-it-welfare.aspx">conservatives derided the expansion of low-income tax credits as welfare</a>. Today, food stamps fall into the welfare bucket. Who knows what will be rebranded as welfare next week.<br />
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In the short run, there were some real tactical benefits to Clinton's approach. Ending AFDC allowed Democrats to refocus the economic justice debate on a broader set of issues affecting the impoverished, working poor, and working class alike. But in the long run <a href="http://www.eschatonblog.com/2013/09/the-end-of-politics.html">Atrios is right</a>. There is no permanent grand bargain. Someone in power has to be willing to persistently advocate for transfers to the poor, or structure programs so that they attract enough middle-class support that they remain sticky.Nick Beaudrothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794690208464883973noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3401584991689197404.post-27216224789166965412013-09-18T00:32:00.001-07:002013-09-18T00:32:06.699-07:00What Democrats Taught Themselves In The 2008 Primary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
While it's a little embarrassing these days to have been a big John Edwards supporter, I'm quite proud of how the Democratic Party taught itself about health care policy in the 2008 primary. We learned that individual mandates were necessary to prevent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_selection">adverse selection</a> from making insurance unaffordable after you prevent insurance companies from charging people with pre-existing conditions more. It wasn't just a thing a few health policy wonks knew. I heard it from friends of mine at Drinking Liberally and at the philosophy department. They were smart people, but it's not like they had a deep knowledge of health care policy in general. But a grasp on the issues had penetrated so deeply into the party rank-and-file that we generally understood the point of mandates. Obama won the primary, but Hillary (and Edwards) won the debate. So even though mandates look kind of weird at first, Democrats understood them and supported them in Obamacare.<br />
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Republicans haven't taught themselves about this, and now the architect of the Congressional Republican health care plan that's supposed to replace Obamacare is <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/09/17/scalise_s_obamacare_replacement_is_a_beautiful_unicorn.html">promising to regulate against discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, without mandates.</a> Maybe looking into the issue has led Steve Scalise to understand the problem. But even if he understands it, his fellow Republicans certainly don't. That's a bad place to start when you're trying to think up your party's counterproposal.</div>
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Neil Sinhababuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.com0