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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / The Atlantic Done Gone Galt

The Atlantic Done Gone Galt

by John Cole|  August 6, 20091:00 pm| 89 Comments

This post is in: Media

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This is excellent. McMegan, who recently presented us all with a rambling glibertarian treatise on why she opposed health care reform, apparently is completely unaware that health insurance premiums have doubled and tripled in the last seven years. And remember. She’s their economics expert.

Meanwhile, Mark Ambinder apparently can’t admit he is wrong.

*** Update ***

According to Megan, being wrong shows how right she was:

But this is not the “gotcha” the left believes. I erred so low because I was trying to be charitable to the cause of national health care. You see, the reason that insurance premia are so high in New York State is that New York State enjoys community rating, guaranteed issue, and a very generous bevy of mandatory services. The result is that the cost of insurance is very, very high. What I failed to realize was just how radically out of line New York’s rules had pushed its health care costs.

I’m not an economist or a health-care expert, although if I was the latter, I’m sure Megan would sneer at me. But I can say this- if you are the expert on these issues, you should maybe rely on actual numbers. Not just guessing or trying to be charitable.

*** Update #2 ***

From the comments:

God that is stupid. She links to some data she likes, and then extrapolates her personal experience to the entire state of New York. If she had followed the links back to KFF, she would have seen there is no state level data in the cited report. However, about 2 minutes on the web would have produced a report from KFF show that costs in New York were not “radically out of line” with the rest of the country, along with a report showing that premium increases in New York from 2000 to 2007 were only about 80%, not 400%+.

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Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Xel

    August 6, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    What the hell, The Atlantic. You used to be coo’.

  2. 2.

    raff

    August 6, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    How does McMegan have any credibility? It seems like almost every argument she makes is easily & quickly knocked down. And yet people I respect & trust — Yglesias, Ezra — seem to think she’s representative of intellectual honesty on the right.

    (Note to Yglesias, Ezra, et al — there is no such thing as intellectual honesty on the right.)

  3. 3.

    Hunter Gathers

    August 6, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    You’re not surprised, are you? I do love Ambinder digging in. First rule of media hackery : never admit when your are wrong. Second rule : draw false equivalence with DFH’s.
    Third rule: make a fine whine.

  4. 4.

    Sentient Puddle

    August 6, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    Jesus! It was $400 a month when I was getting insurance in 2002; I wanted to err on the optimistic side.

    This is one of those moments when I feel justified in reading Megan McArdle, because I can point to this quote and say “At least I’m not that stupid.”

  5. 5.

    Betsy

    August 6, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    It drives me insane that she has this gig. There are SO many other qualified people who could write both intelligently and cleverly on economic issues for the Atlantic. Many of whom are youngish women, if that’s what the Atlantic wanted. Why her?!?!

  6. 6.

    c u n d gulag

    August 6, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    And somebody tell the stupid bitch that “Lucky Lindy” made it to Paris.
    What a dope… What a maroon…

  7. 7.

    Dave C

    August 6, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    I use to read and occasionally enjoy Ambinder during the election, but his ratio of useful information to douchebaggery has just become to low to make it worth my while.

  8. 8.

    Kryptik

    August 6, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Remember folks, only two things will ever jeopardize a “true journalist” these days.

    1) Reporting Facts
    2) Admitting you were wrong.

    Objectivity is a quaint notion, after all, just like the Geneva Conventions.

  9. 9.

    Napoleon

    August 6, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    God do I wish I had not just renewed my Atlantic subscription a month ago.

    On the plus side this will give me 10 months or so to accumulate examples of why I am not renewing and compose the letter to the Atlantics editors explaining why I think they have become a rag.

  10. 10.

    Downpuppy

    August 6, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Ezra has at least on Mcmegan:

    In my chat today, a reader asked me to respond to Megan McArdle’s lengthy case against national health insurance. The problem is that, well, there’s not a lot to specifically respond to. In 1,600 words, she doesn’t muster a single link to a study or argument, nor a single number that she didn’t make up (what numbers do exist come in the form of thought experiments and assumptions).

    & he goes on to spend way too many words taking her apart.

    Meanwhile, Megan is busy bragging about all the Ambien she scored.

  11. 11.

    PeakVT

    August 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm

    Dammit, when I saw the title I my heart leapt on hopes that the Atlantic was closing up shop. sigh

  12. 12.

    KXB

    August 6, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Let’s see – I just got a notice from my insurance company that my monthly premium will go up 19% starting in September. I have not seen a doctor since 2007. So, something I did not use jumped up in price. Now, my employer reimburses me 100% for health insurance, but how much longer will he be able to afford to do that? Personally, I would have preferred a 19% jump in my monthly pay, but instead of me getting a raise, it will be United Healthcare instead.

    Reminds of an old Chris Rock joke, “We shouldn’t call it insurance. We should call it In Case of Shit. I pay a company some money, in case shit happens. But, if shit don’t happen, shouldn’t I get some money back?”

  13. 13.

    Barry

    August 6, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Fallows finally sold out. Frankly, being an editor of a for-profit magazine is probably not a job for an honest person. First, he hired Sullivan, even though he thought that Sullivan had run an extremely dishonest and important article about the Clinton health care program (‘No Exit’) in the New Republic. Then he hired Jane “don’t know much about … everything” Galt, because she was a blithe glibertarian, and down with those young hep cats.

    Throw in Goldberg, Ambinder, and he’s got a nice load of reliable right-establishment people (I assume that Coates will soon follow others like Yglesias out). Sullivan’s occasionally a pain, because he does have some morals (e.g., torture, and the extreme right), but he’s not going to pull a Krugman and go totally off the reservation.

  14. 14.

    Joshua Norton

    August 6, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    She’s their economics expert.

    Yeah. She’s from the “I can’t be out of money, I still have some checks left” school of economics.

  15. 15.

    Trinity

    August 6, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    Execept for Ta-Nehisi Coates (an amazing blogger), I am finished with the Atlantic. Sully’s last foray into birther madness was the final straw. If it wasn’t for TNC I’d never go to their site.

  16. 16.

    Napoleon

    August 6, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    @Barry:

    Does Fallow’s make the hiring decisions for the Atlantic?

  17. 17.

    jenniebee

    August 6, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    Discussing health care in America does not seem to be the government’s Megan McArdle’s core competence.

    what Tbogg said

  18. 18.

    Alan

    August 6, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    It’s almost as if the Right has become everything they projected on liberal left of the 60s 70s and 80s. From the radical protests to ignoring reality for their dogmatic utopian world view.

  19. 19.

    BombIranForChrist

    August 6, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    It’s not Megan’s fault that she is ignorant. Someone should have picked up the phone and called her.

  20. 20.

    SGEW

    August 6, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    @Barry: I wasn’t under the impression that Fallows had any influence over the hiring practices at the Atlantic at all, nor that he has any say in their bloggers’ reportage. As far as I know, he is a contributing journalist and is on staff as an editor for their print edition.

  21. 21.

    IncandenzaH

    August 6, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    Another example of media being unable to admit being wrong, in today’s WaPo chat with Lois Romano, even when faced with the Daily Kos/Research2000 poll, she would not back down on her original statement that the “birthers” are a “fringe” group. To wit:

    New York, NY: Hi, Lois. Regarding your definition of a “fringe group” of birthers, it turns out a recent Research 2000 poll showed that 28% of of Republicans don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. And 33% “aren’t sure”. That’s a rather large “fringe” group, don’t you think?

    Lois Romano: They are not birthers. They are people who can be influenced by the chatter.

    Then, later in the same chat, we get this bit of nonsense from her:

    Austin, Tex.: You keep referring to the “Birthers” as a fringe group. But what about the dailykos poll, which showed that a whole lot of southern Republicans have their doubts.

    Not clear to me that it’s just a few crazies.

    Lois Romano: My prediction: If the economy turns around and the unemployment rate drops to 5%, the birthers will go away.

    If not…..who knows?

  22. 22.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    August 6, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    The smackdowns Ezra Klein has given McArdle over the healthcare issue are pretty stunning

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/in_defense_of_experts.html

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/on_megan_mcardles_case_againt.html

    It’s actually made me develop a burning hatred before, because I think it’s obvious now that her arguments are consciously mendacious and willfully ignorant instead of just being stupid and ill-informed.

  23. 23.

    Brick Oven Bill

    August 6, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    A sustainable health care plan

    1. Limited public benefits only after ten years of Citizenship in good standing.
    2. Cap legal awards at $250,000/incident.
    3. Public benefits for terminal patients limited to drugs of choice.
    4. Otherwise, allow free market deliver health care.

    “If you like you private plan, you can keep it.”

    This is a misrepresentation, in my opinion, as people would not be able to change their plan when their circumstances change in time (turn me in to your brave leader SGEW: [email protected] ).

    These misrepresentations are why Americans are showing up to protest. People expect their government to be honest.

    You can tell that the Democrats do not know what to make of these demonstrators as Doug calls the demonstrators Trailer Park residents, the DNC calls them ‘well-dressed Brooks Brothers protesters’, and Nancy calls them Nazis.

    The left needs to get on message. There is no such thing as well-dressed Nazi trailer trash.

  24. 24.

    BombIranForChrist

    August 6, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    Man, WTF is happening to the Atlantic this month. I don’t think they are perfect, but it’s been a while since I have seen this much rank ignorance and childishness, from Sully’s birther silliness to Megan’s Being Megan and now Ambinder suddenly drinking the right wing kool aid. Did they have some kind of editorial meeting where they decided to ratchet up the sucking?

  25. 25.

    Warren Terra

    August 6, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    Re: “Fallows sold out”: Fallows hasn’t been the editor of The Atlantic for years and years (for one thing, he was living in China for the last several). Now that they no longer employ Yglesias, Fallows is the only part of the Atlantic I still reliably like. The long-form article remain often excellent, but every other part of the magazine is so teeth-grindingly awful these days.

    Re McMegan, Ezra had another nice post yesterday shredding her “my glib simplicities about economics trump everone else’s actual careful investigation” schtick – I’d link, but can’t copy-and-paste on my phone.

  26. 26.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    August 6, 2009 at 1:39 pm

    @Warren Terra: It’s from the latter article I linked above

    “”There’s a strain of commentary that’s deeply hostile to subject-specific expertise. In my experience, this opinion is voiced with the most confidence by economists, who tend to believe that they have a theoretical framework for understanding most any issue…Economics is a useful discipline. But it’s not a decoder ring. And it’s not a substitute for discipline-specific knowledge.”

  27. 27.

    SGEW

    August 6, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    Again, speaking of Fallows, I heartily recommend his collection of long-form essays on China, published together in Postcards From Tomorrow Square.

    Just finished it last night – everyone who wants to talk about China should be required to read it (along with Hessler’s Oracle Bones, which I finished last week).

  28. 28.

    Sloth

    August 6, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    @The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:

    She is wilfully mendacious.

    See here.

    Megan: Probably have a hard time getting that past Obama’s proposed health commission.

    Paul: Or anybody else’s. I do want to mention that I think a huge factor in all this stuff is the desire to get the next generation of diet drugs through the regulatory pipeline. That’s the goose that will lay the golden eggs for so many interested parties.

    Megan: Well, here on the east coast, it’s lunch time, so I’ll let you go. Thanks for talking with us.

    She is trying to pin the “war on obesity” on Obama. Then, right at the end, her “expert” opines that big pharma really, really likes this war and stands to make a lot of money on it.

    Whoops.

    Lunch time.

  29. 29.

    SGEW

    August 6, 2009 at 1:49 pm

    [fyi: Book titles in above comment are links to Amazon – doesn’t show up as links when you italicize ’em]

  30. 30.

    Perry Como

    August 6, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    I think the response Dems should use when someone talks about “socialized medicine” is to say that person supports abolishing Medicare. I bet the tone of the debate shifts substantially if that happens.

    Which gives me an idea…

  31. 31.

    Dave C

    August 6, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    On a brighter note, Sully is now running a “View from Your Sickbed” series in which he posts emails from people detailing their horrible experiences with the current health care system in this country. Every Democratic Congressperson should be reading these.

  32. 32.

    Hunter Gathers

    August 6, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill: “There is no such thing as well-dressed Nazi trailer trash.”
    You obviously do not remember the 2008 Republican National Convention. Palin was like Gidget addressing the Reichstag.

  33. 33.

    malraux

    August 6, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    @Warren Terra: Honestly, I think the problem there wasn’t MM being an idiot, but completely different uses of the word “innovation”. I’ll agree that pharma companies are incredibly innovative in an economic sense; they are great at using the market to make money. But when most people talk about pharma innovations, what we mean is creating new drugs that are more effective, have fewer side effects, etc. Look at nexium/the purple pill for example. That’s a great example of being economically very innovative; by patenting nexium and advertising it heavily, AsraZeneca made lots of money for its shareholders. From a medical innovation standpoint, proton pump inhibitors all work basically the same, and are all very safe. Coming out with a newly patented drug doesn’t really do anything for improving patient outcomes, other than make them poorer.

    The real question is if this is the sort of economic innovation we want to reward? MM doesn’t understand how to answer that sort of question, which is the real problem.

  34. 34.

    b-psycho

    August 6, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    I wonder what Megan thinks about “rescission” aka having your policy dropped on a technicality when you get sick and actually need it…

  35. 35.

    Irony Abounds

    August 6, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    It must be nice to be able to live in a bubble like McClueless. $350 a month for a high benefit HMO????????????? I will be paying over $400 a month for a health savings account that has a $5,600 deductible. OMG, the stupid, it BURNS.

  36. 36.

    Perry Como

    August 6, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    I wonder what Megan thinks about “rescission” aka having your policy dropped on a technicality when you get sick and actually need it…

    Free market, bitches!

  37. 37.

    malraux

    August 6, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    Moderation? Is the spam filter here keyed only to drug names?

  38. 38.

    Alan

    August 6, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    @b-psycho: That only happens to people who buy individual policies and get sick. I’m sure the rugged individual Megan gets her insurance through her employer and has never gotten a serious illness. And anyway, rescission only happens in rare cases.

  39. 39.

    Jon H

    August 6, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    They should give McMegan a blog called “Unencumbered By Facts”

  40. 40.

    cleek

    August 6, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    From a medical innovation standpoint, proton pump inhibitors all work basically the same, and are all very safe.

    even better, Nexium is nearly the exact chemical as Prilosec (aslo an AZ product). the molecules are, quite literally, mirror images of each other. they came up with Nexium because the Prilosec patent was running out.

    wanna know a good way to reduce the cost of prescription drugs ? fix the stupid fucking patent office.

  41. 41.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    August 6, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    McArdle will cease to be taken seriously when prominent left wing bloggers stop linking to her-just look at one of Kevin Drum’s latest posts, for crying out loud. Insofar as blogging is a profession, there seems to be an unwritten code of conduct that prominent bloggers don’t go after each other nearly as much as their counterparts who don’t work for major media outlets-which is why I like the frank and open discussions here a lot more than the (relatively) sanitized drivel that many progressive blogs have.

  42. 42.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    August 6, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    @malraux:

    the problem there wasn’t MM being an idiot, but completely different uses of the word “innovation”. I’ll agree that pharma companies are incredibly innovative in an economic sense; they are great at using the market to make money. But when most people talk about pharma innovations, what we mean is creating new drugs that are more effective, have fewer side effects, etc.

    *clap* *clap*
    That’s EXACTLY the point. When you look at the issue from a gross economic standpoint, you CAN’T address things such as whether pharmaceutical companies are actually meeting a medical need–just if they’re profitable or not. The “market” doesn’t solve problems, it just makes some things more “efficient” at the margins.

    There is no “market solution” to universal medical coverage–because the market says that everyone shouldn’t have medical coverage. There is no “market solution” to curing extremely severe but niche cancers–because the market solution is that they shouldn’t be cured (little profit). These things require a regulatory actor jumping in and trying to engineer the outcomes they want, because the outcomes desired are the opposite of what the market will create.

  43. 43.

    selskie

    August 6, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    When I think of McArdle, I’m reminded of that crappy blogpost she did complaining about toilets a few months ago. So trite.

  44. 44.

    jcricket

    August 6, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    On a brighter note, Sully is now running a “View from Your Sickbed” series in which he posts emails from people detailing their horrible experiences with the current health care system in this country. Every Democratic Congressperson should be reading these.

    The recent one from the mom pointing out they couldn’t afford the health insurance plan for their kid (and then subsequently got in a deep hole when the kid required an ER visit) is the perfect example of what’s wrong with every “conservative” or “Libertarian” solution to healthcare.

    Increased co-pays and deductibles and lowered coverage amounts that make premiums “affordable” do so at the expense of people actually being able to afford to use their health care coverage. HSA/HDHP suffer from the same problem. They are fine for people that never use their healthcare, or could afford a $10k bill if it were to hit them. Much like every “solution” offered from the right these days, there’s no chance of it actually solving the problems real people (95% of us) face.

    That a bunch of old, white, angry racist nutballs can be convinced by the monied interests to yell at Democrats trying to build a moderately better health insurance system should be in no way construed as evidence that a sizable number of Americans want health care to stay as is.

    The only things Democrats have to fear is failure, and fear itself. Fight back, pass healthcare reform (with the regulations being proposed, a good public plan, etc) and build from there.

    There is no appeasing the right or the corporations. None.

  45. 45.

    Dave C

    August 6, 2009 at 2:28 pm

    @Alan:

    Wow, that was a great post. Thanks for pointing me to the link!

  46. 46.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    August 6, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    It’s almost as if the Right has become everything they projected on liberal left of the 60s 70s and 80s. From the radical protests to ignoring reality for their dogmatic utopian world view.

    Back in that era there used to be actual honest to god hardcore authoritarian leftists. Real communists of various flavors – Stalinists, Maoists, Trotskyites, pick your flavor. And not just in endangered species level of numbers either. I remember running in to them when I was in college back in the early 80s – a bunch of historically illiterate and morally autistic idiots running around calling themselves things like the RCYB (Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade) and other such Life-of-Brian-esque stuff, leafleting the place with stupid shit about celebrating the anniversary of Stalin’s birth and other authoritarian fodder.

    Then the USSR collapsed and hey presto!, almost all of those types of folks are gone now from the US political scene (except for a few scattered diehards who today are as rare as Japanese soldiers living in caves long after WW2 ended).

    Where did they go? What do you think happened to those people with authoritarian personality traits who used to wander over to the left side of the political spectrum? My guess is that today we have the same number of people with authoritarian personalities. But for the last 2 decades instead of splitting them up more or less evenly between the left and the right, almost all of them are gravitating over to the right, and have done so in sufficient numbers to tilt the balance of power within the GOP in favor of the authoritarian nutcases.

    Georgi Arbatov once said “we’re going to do a terrible thing to you we’re going to deprive you of an enemy“. I don’t think anyone realized at the same what the full effects on US domestic politics would be when the USSR collapsed, but two decades later it seems to me that the ripples of that event have spread wider than I ever would have guessed at the time, and some of the bizarro quality of the early 21st Cen. Right is a result of that.

  47. 47.

    cleek

    August 6, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    protip: don’t try posting anything that talks about the similarities between two popular prescription drugs . it’s a good way to get caught by The Moderation Beast.

  48. 48.

    Zifnab

    August 6, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    @Irony Abounds: That’s what always got me about HSAs. The basic philosophy is, “We’re going to make a savings instrument that replaces insurance. You just save up enough money and you’ll be covered. Hurray!” Except, there’s a reason we don’t all just open a health care savings account. Because it’s fucking prohibitively expensive. When you get hit with the $800k medical bill, you will be wiped out unless you’re rich as sin to begin with.

    You can’t penny pinch your way to major heart surgery. There is no savings plan that will cover you against cancer.

    The GOoPers know this, but they keep making noises like we don’t. So either they give themselves way more credit with their ability to lie than they deserve, or they’re fucking stupid.

  49. 49.

    Alan

    August 6, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    @Dave C: I found it through this Krugman postfrom a couple days ago.

  50. 50.

    b-psycho

    August 6, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    @Perry Como: On that note…isn’t it funny how only one side gets to retroactively renegotiate these agreements? I thought contracts were supposed to have two parties?

    The type of analysis people like Megan engage in, which you guys refer to as “glibertarian”, others refer to as “vulgar libertarianism”. The idea is basically that if the current system amounts to leg-breaking goons that then hand out crutches, then reaching a free market system is as simple as taking back the crutches — while ignoring the leg breaking.

  51. 51.

    b-psycho

    August 6, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    @Perry Como: On that note…isn’t it funny how only one side gets to retroactively renegotiate these agreements? I thought contracts were supposed to have two parties?

    The type of analysis people like Megan engage in, which you guys refer to as “glibertarian”, others refer to as “vulgar libertarianism”. The idea is basically that if the current system amounts to leg-breaking goons that then hand out crutches, then reaching a free market system is as simple as taking back the crutches — while ignoring the leg breaking.

    (Apologies if this posts twice, I forgot about the multiple-uses-of-quotes bug and had to edit)

  52. 52.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd

    August 6, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    wonder what Megan thinks about “rescission” aka having your policy dropped on a technicality when you get sick and actually need it

    Mcmegan probably shares the glibertarian position, which is: tough luck, you should have bought recission insurance

  53. 53.

    asiangrrlMN

    August 6, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    @malraux: s-h-o-e-s triggers it as well, as does p-u-s-s-y. I don’t know what else.

    MM can bite me. She can’t even bother to look up that one tiny itty-bitty little fact before spouting off? What the fuck ever.

  54. 54.

    gex

    August 6, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    @malraux: She’s a libertarian, right? That means she knows how to answer that question and it is the status quo. Making butt loads of money is the only goal, and no consideration of the social value of what is being made should be substituted for the obscene profits these guys are able to generate.

  55. 55.

    Mwangangi

    August 6, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    @Alan: Thank you, you finally broke the dam on a 10 month blogging hiatus.

  56. 56.

    Perry Como

    August 6, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    She’s a libertarian, right?

    No, she’s an idiot. Wait, nevermind.

  57. 57.

    Da Bomb

    August 6, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    The only person worth reading on that damn site these days is TNC. That’s about it. Sully has gone birfer, Megan is teh incompetent, and Marc “I am the right’s wingnut sockpuppet” Ambinder just suck.

    I don’t know what’s going on over there.

  58. 58.

    The Saff

    August 6, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    @Hunter Gathers: Touche!

  59. 59.

    cleek

    August 6, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    Increased co-pays and deductibles and lowered coverage amounts that make premiums “affordable” do so at the expense of people actually being able to afford to use their health care coverage. HSA/HDHP suffer from the same problem

    ah, but this is a feature, not a bug.

    one of the things conservatives used to say about health care in the US (before it was verboten to criticize it) was that it was really too expensive, and it was too expensive because ‘consumers’ never really knew what the cost was; they just went to their doctor, got the service and forgot about it. doctors can charge whatever they think the insurance companies will pay, and then some. insurance companies obviously hate this arrangement.

    these HSAs, on the other hand, make the ‘consumer’ bear more of the cost, so there is incentive for him/her to shop around for the lowest price for a given service. it’s the marketplace in action! you just gotta compare prices, shop around, clip coupons, whatever. be a smart consumer! the market will respond with lower prices!

    and faced with a trip to the hospital, who wouldn’t want to shop around for a while and get the best price? that heart attack you’re having rightw no can wait while you do a little Googling, right ?

  60. 60.

    crack

    August 6, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    I am so ashamed that I am a former subscriber of The Atlantic.

  61. 61.

    Jacob Davies

    August 6, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    She is an “expert” by the usual media standard, which is to say, anyone who claims to be an expert is one.

    At some point the Atlantic should (but probably won’t) notice that the kinds of people who subscribe in order to read people who genuinely are experts have stopped resubscribing. People like, say, me. I don’t need to pay good money to read know-nothing hacks repeat the scripts that their sponsors and ideological fellow-travelers have handed them. I can get that for free.

    I’d pay money to read people like Ezra Klein. Don’t have to, cause he’s posting for free, but I would. I don’t know exactly his background on healthcare issues, but I do know that he is honest and fact-driven, and that he works hard on turning the morass of data out there into something comprehensible.

    The facsimile of that process that McArdle provides is called “making shit up”, and it is not an adequate substitute.

  62. 62.

    latts

    August 6, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    @Harcourt Fenton Mudd:

    wonder what Megan thinks about “rescission” aka having your policy dropped on a technicality when you get sick and actually need it

    Mcmegan probably shares the glibertarian position, which is: tough luck, you should have bought recission insurance

    Actually, I think it’s ‘if you lose on a technicality, you’re a sucker who deserves to suffer/die.’

  63. 63.

    Stefan

    August 6, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    On that note…isn’t it funny how only one side gets to retroactively renegotiate these agreements? I thought contracts were supposed to have two parties?

    Er, no. Speaking as an attorney, it is a well-understood fact that contracts are indeed sacred when they concern compensation arrangements for highly-paid finance industry executives. When, however, contracts involve (a) unions or (b) little people and impair business profits, they are un-American restrictions on free enterprise.

    Really, this is first year law school stuff.

  64. 64.

    John Thacker

    August 6, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    Yes, this proves that she’s right. Premiums have tripled in New York. In the country as a whole, premiums have only increased by somewhat more than 25 percent.

    That difference, as she points out, is because New York already has insurance “reforms” like community rating and guaranteed issue. (A much lesser concern is that New York requires mandatory coverage of somewhat more procedures than other states.)

    This is excellent evidence of just how bad a “reform” community rating (don’t charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions) and guaranteed issue (must allow people with pre-existing conditions to buy more insurance and up coverage) are for premiums. And they’re in the current reforms.

    Thanks for proving her right.

  65. 65.

    tc125231

    August 6, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    And remember. She’s their economics expert.

    Calling McGerbil an economics expert is like calling my grandson a Captain of Industry because he occassionally runs a lemonade stand.

    Economics, at a minimum, requires being able to move from Premise A to Premise B in a chain of reasoning.

  66. 66.

    tc125231

    August 6, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    @John Thacker: I would like to see your data.

    I analyze financials for a living, and I am not particularly convinced that your allegations represent empirical fact.

    You see, you can say things fall up, but that doesn’t mean they DO.

    Still, it is possible that McGerbil could be right about something. You are familiar, perhaps, with the parable of monkeys at typewriters randomly creating Shakespeare.

  67. 67.

    spartacvs

    August 6, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    Megan hits back:

    http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/correction_community_rating_tu.php

  68. 68.

    Meyer

    August 6, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    @spartacvs:

    Epic fail.

  69. 69.

    tc125231

    August 6, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    @Stefan: Yep. You are also familiar, perhaps, with the term “National Barber”?

  70. 70.

    tc125231

    August 6, 2009 at 8:04 pm

    @Perry Como: Well, you were right twice.

  71. 71.

    Svensker

    August 6, 2009 at 8:04 pm

    She actually said PREMIA!!! WTF? Good grief, also.

  72. 72.

    spartacvs

    August 6, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    Meyer #68

    Don’t shoot me, just linking to what the dumb bitch said.

  73. 73.

    PeakVT

    August 6, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    The average premium across the United States has increased about 25% since 2004. In New York, the rate of inflation has apparently been about 16 times that.

    God that is stupid. She links to some data she likes, and then extrapolates her personal experience to the entire state of New York. If she had followed the links back to KFF, she would have seen there is no state level data in the cited report. However, about 2 minutes on the web would have produced a report from KFF show that costs in New York were not “radically out of line” with the rest of the country, along with a report showing that premium increases in New York from 2000 to 2007 were only about 80%, not 400%+.

  74. 74.

    tc125231

    August 6, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    @PeakVT: Par for the course. One should only read McGerbil if you enjoy hitting your head with a hammer.

  75. 75.

    Meyer

    August 6, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    @spartacvs:

    Sorry, spartacvs, I *didn’t* mean you, I meant her.

    Any doubts now that she’s doing this willfully?

  76. 76.

    Mike in NC

    August 6, 2009 at 9:02 pm

    Maybe bloggers at The Atlantic have gotten so shitty recently in order to make up for the departure of that idiot Ross Douthat?

  77. 77.

    anthony

    August 6, 2009 at 11:13 pm

    insurance premia

    ‘Praemia’ – if at all.

    A sad clawing for smarts that suggests a few too many Harry Potter spells.

  78. 78.

    Batocchio

    August 7, 2009 at 12:00 am

    @PeakVT:

    Thanks very much, I appreciate you tracking that down.

  79. 79.

    Glocksman

    August 7, 2009 at 12:17 am

    Jesus fucking Christ!
    I’m no expert by any means, but I am active in the union local where I work and have served on the contract negotiating committee.

    In other words I do know something about health costs because insurance, and not raises, was the largest problem to deal with.

    My employer tries to maintain a 1/5 ratio in the employee/employer insurance payment amount.

    In the 13 years I’ve worked there, the premiums a single person pays went from $5/weekly to $23/weekly, and the benefits went from being 100% paid hospitalization and $5 prescriptions to a 90-10 plan with $10-25-40 prescriptions.

    It’s a sad commentary that even this dumber than shit union blue collar guy knows more about the subject than Megan does.

  80. 80.

    Glocksman

    August 7, 2009 at 12:24 am

    @John Thacker:

    Indiana is hardly a ‘liberal’ state, but I guess that’s why my employer’s insurance premiums have only slightly more than doubled over the last seven years instead of tripling.

    Though I suspect that if they’d tried to maintain the same 100% hospitalization and $5 prescription plan, it would have more than tripled.

    As Stalin is supposed to have said: “Everyone has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse it”,

  81. 81.

    Brian J

    August 7, 2009 at 1:25 am

    Wouldn’t it be better to look back to what happened right about 1993, which a few seconds on Google tells me is the year New York enacted community rating reform? Perhaps the data just isn’t there, or it’s not readily available to those who don’t work in the field, but there isn’t a particularly clear reason why people are using 2000 as a starting point. Also, maybe it’s not an issue in this sort of comparison, but are the states being thrown around above really on the same level, or is there some other factor that might make a difference in the growth of costs?

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    August 7, 2009 at 1:44 am

    How does McMegan have any credibility? It seems like almost every argument she makes is easily & quickly knocked down. And yet people I respect & trust—Yglesias, Ezra—seem to think she’s representative of intellectual honesty on the right.

    McArdle is the Glibertarian version of Camille Paglia — she’s achieved her current status as a professional blogger by enthusiastically working the “niche” for a Token Minority Right-Wing Apologist. There are plenty of willfully ignorant right-wing male bloggers, some of them with MBAs, who produce just as much wordswill as McArdle, but not many women who are willing to use their self-referenced sexual attractiveness as a key component of their persona. Back when she was still “Jane Galt”, certain vulgar individuals of the not-Glibertarian blogosphere {cough SadlyNo cough} mentioned a correlation between Yglesias’ and Klein’s praise for McArdle’s… enthusiasm… and the amount of space she devoted to her own incredible personal attractiveness and fabulous personal life. Some people might even raise the question of whether McArdle’s impending marriage to Grima Wormtongue (can’t remember the professional astroturfer’s real name, not planning on sending them a wedding gift) has anything to do with Ezra Klein’s increasing disenchantment with her reasoning abilities…

  83. 83.

    DaleA

    August 7, 2009 at 4:00 am

    About a year ago I tried to dialoge with the McMegan. She could not understand that disease is infectious: it passes via micro-organisms from one person to another. Pasteur’s understanding of the germ theory is beyond her intellectual world. While I realize that she stands at the pinnacle of the conservative intellectual world, her entire concept of disease (her term) is pre-scientific. Megan appears to endorse an understanding that what someone chooses to do has no effect on others. Thus, she approves a world where your next store neighbor uses a pit latrine in her own backyard. And that this has no effect on you. McMegan can not comprehend the very elementary facts of the disease school of science. She does not understand the germ theory. In McMegan land, disease results from poor lifestyle choices, which is a close relative of the demonic possesion theory.

  84. 84.

    Geoff Wittig

    August 7, 2009 at 7:07 am

    Hey, I practice medicine in New York State, and McCardle is completely full of crap. There is no, repeat, no, community rating rule in New York State. In the Rochester area we used to have an informal agreement among major employers like Kodak & Xerox to preserve community rating, sort of a mutual non-aggression pact. As soon as business got tough they dropped it like molten lava and now Rochester has dog-eat-dog commercial insurers all vying to be the fastest to drop all patients with any illnessess. Health insurance premiums have indeed exploded, but that’s because commercial insurers and the big carriers are all making fat profits. The CEO of nominally no-profit Excellus BCBS was paid more than $3 million back in 2006; you can bet it’s a lot higher now.

    And “premium benefits” in New York? It is to laugh. I take care of lots of Medicaid patients; many of them pull their own teeth with pliers because Medicaid pays so very little for dental care, not a single dentist in my county will accept it.

  85. 85.

    Mike

    August 7, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Regarding update #2. Make up your mind. Has healthcare insurance massively increase in price or not?

  86. 86.

    Alan

    August 7, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    @Mwangangi: I’m glad I could be of help. :)

  87. 87.

    Jeremy

    August 8, 2009 at 10:46 am

    @PeakVT: However, about 2 minutes on the web would have produced a report from KFF show that costs in New York were not “radically out of line” with the rest of the country, along with a report showing that premium increases in New York from 2000 to 2007 were only about 80%, not 400%+.

    Not to be thick, but wasn’t the original post that she was responding to stating that in fact the premiums in New York had “doubled or tripled?” And when she admits to not realizing that they had risen that far, you criticize her because they actually haven’t? Something smells fishy in this line of argument.

  88. 88.

    EMY

    August 8, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    My take on reading McArdle lately, is that somehow she thinks largely relying on her personal philosophy makes for cogent public policy. I can’t explain why else she would have such a disdain for “experts” basic economic research or even for hard facts and figures. Somehow, I get the sense that her reliance on her own persoanl “ick!” factor regarding governmet, is good enough in her mind, when she tries to engage in public policy debate and argument via her blog. It strikes me as pretty narcissistic and actually very emotion-based, not rational or empirical at all really. That whole rambling healthcare blog post seemed to just be a “spaghetti against the wall” approach to argument: throw whatever combination of fear and loathing of the governemnt that she can come up with in her head and see what sticks. No research, basic economic study, and empirical evidence. Just feelings, personal philosophy and whatever else she can come up with. Bizarre.

Comments are closed.

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  1. The first rule of all buffoons : Galt Gone Wild says:
    August 6, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    […] Not knowing anything about what they write: This is excellent. McMegan, who recently presented us all with a rambling glibertarian treatise on why she opposed health care reform, apparently is completely unaware that health insurance premiums have doubled and tripled in the last seven years. And remember. She’s their economics expert. […]

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