Kaplan goes double barrel anti-public option.
I wonder if Ezra will have the balls to call them on it.
Update. To summarize here’s shorter Hiatt/Samuelson: the public option may not fully address increases in health care costs, so we shouldn’t have one.
asiangrrlMN
DougJ, you know the rules by now. Where the fuck is my shorter Fred Hiatt? I read one paragraph, and I already have to poke my eyes out with a rusty fork.
And, no. I don’t think Ezra will.
Ash Can
Fred Hiatt must be getting some pretty big kickback bucks from the insurance industry.
asiangrrlMN
I didn’t realize there were two links at first. Now, I need to poke my eyes out twice.
Warren Terra
I love Ezra, his blog is great, and his WaPo status lets him interview folks that he’d never have gotten to at TAP. And I’d bet the WaPo pays well. But he may become the proverbial whorehouse pianist.
Chuck Butcher
This is why the WaPo went into my junk list. Both authors start right out assuming that private health care isn’t already paying the costs of un/under insured. But adding that cost savings doesn’t count in their …. analysis.
General Winfield Stuck
Liberal are about to piss in Hiatt’s Wheaties. If for no other reason I am for a public option to see that happen.
arguingwithsignposts
Fred Hiatt can suck balls. Seriously, I wish I could produce some kind of reality show with all the suck-ass editorial folks, like Fred Hiatt and Jon Meacham, wrestling each other or actually trying to agree on something that benefitted the American people. And we could have this contest in the middle of a public square. I think Meachem and Hiatt would be shocked at the response.
Chuck Butcher
Who the hell has Newt tied up in their basement – let him out, I’m tired of the pleading for his liberty.
General Winfield Stuck
@Warren Terra:
Yup, he’s now my go to guy for wonk, as well as political analysis. What I like is when he doesn’t know something, he says so. Like a breath of fresh air in a room full of pontificating gasbags.
jeffreyw
asiangrrlMN-Left ya an answer end of the last thread re Mrs J, thanks for askin.
I am so tired of the bullshit, and look forward to seeing whatever Harry comes up with on the health insurance reform if for no other reason than to stop all the tea readin.
What will the next big thing be? Fuckin rethugs are gonna oppose whatever it is, and the longer they drag out the health care bill the less time we’ll have for whatever.
(spellchecker tells me I’ve misspelled fuckin, go figure)
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Stupid question: what the hell were they arguing? That they don’t know what’s going to happen but whatever does will be bad? Am I reading this wrong?
Warren Terra
Re the post title:
As you know from chat transcripts, the WaPo likes to point out no salons actually happened, so no money changed hands.
In a way, this makes it worse: Hiatt didn’t need to be bought.
jeffreyw
OH, found out how to setup itunes to download later, unattended.
El Cruzado
The magic pony fallacy is a favorite of concern trolls and gasbag pundits everywhere. It does come in two variants:
– The “Secret Pony” variant states that we shouldn’t do Something, but rather follow my Secret Ponies for everyone plan that won’t be detailed in even the vaguest terms.
– The “Timmy Gets No Pony” variant states that we shouldn’t do Something, because Something fails to give a pony to absolutely everyone, including Timmy. Rather we should stick with the Pony Shit for Most status quo.
No points for whoever guesses which one is the one deployed here.
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: Left ya an answer end of the last thread re Mrs J, thanks for askin.
Read the answer, forgive me for butting in. Yeah, it’s normal to go through that grieving process especially when she’s not ready for it. You’re doing the right thing by just listening to her and letting her cry it out. I think she needs a couple of weeks, then she should get cranking on her retirement plans, just a couple of months early.
sgwhiteinfla
I actually bet that Ezra DOES call them out even if he does it in generic terms. One thing about him since his blog has been at WaPo he STILL takes on people who are lying or just wrong about health care policy. So while he may not link to the editorial or call them out by name, look for him to have a post up addressing the issues raised in the editorial that are just flat out wrong.
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN<
That’s why you’ve got two eyes.
I was wondering if the Drum/Yglesias line that the public option wasn’t that big of a deal might be true, but the freakout from the insurance companies (and their paid whores at WaPo) seems to belie that.
Mark S.
Wow, I screwed up that comment.
TenguPhule
Fred Hiatt, more fun then getting buckshot in the butt.
Well, no not really.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: Had my own blogfail earlier. It happens to the best of us.
Regarding your comment, they are fighting tooth and nail to NOT get a public option and, barring that, to make it as toothless as possible. It has them running scared and them forcing their hands with bullshit reports didn’t help them any.
TenguPhule
Shorter Fred Hiatt: Wham! Bam! Fuck you, where’s my money whore?
Ash Can
@Chuck Butcher:
Is that like Prince Albert in the can?
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: Saw it. What Yutsano said. Keep feeding her and nurturing her and supporting her.
@Yutsano: You think I got the fuck that far?
@Mark S.: And now I have no working eyes.
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Heh. You are teh funny.
DougJ., thanks for the shorter. It’s about what I guessed they’d written. In other words–jack shit.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Thought you crashed out YAY! Yeah, they’re both beyond pretty much ass inasmuch as they say NOTHING substantive or worth anyones’ time. In other words, WaPo is getting what they paid for, though they could have called my parents and gone to their horse pasture for cheaper stuff.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Heh. Funny. And in a day that hasn’t seemed very funny, for some reason. Lots of trolls or semi-trolls being unusually obnoxious (at great length), regulars misunderstanding each other over trivialities (at great length), etc. Weird. Why, even I myself snapped at somebody in the previous thread. Ahem.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: No kidding. I honestly have no idea what the fuck they are trying to do with this shit.
I had to take out the trash and recycling since I am both the man and the woman of the house.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Yeah, I hear you. I, myself, the model of genteel charm got a bit churlish–over a football game, no less! It must be something in the air.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: You lost your head over a football game? Say it ain’t so! Plus I saw more drooling over players than anything else (and no I am NOT letting that AP comment fade into the interwebz!)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: No. I lost my head because someone called me a sorry-ass fan for being pissed at Favre being Favre. He told me to grow up. I said a few not-so-nice things and then left the thread.
I did drool over Troy P., though. He is the epitome of teh hawtness with his wild locks and his tight ass.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Yeah, it wasn’t just here at BJ. I was antsy all day at Chez Steep. Couldn’t get into the football games, or they were rubbing me the wrong way, somehow, but I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do. Just wanted to vedge out, but I needed at least a little content to go with. Then the Angels-Yankees game seemed interminable, and the Angels were pissing me off because it seemed like they were deliberately being lifeless and boring just to get on my last nerve.
Jeez, I’m making myself feel worse just talking about it. Maybe time to pack it in for the night. Hope you sleep well–you know, like four hours or so. LQTM.
jl
My head hurts. Spent a nice Sunday out in nature and come back to crazy.
First, I checked the NYTimes for Krugman’s column (which is useful, talks about strong public support for MA healthcare reform even though it is weak).
But, I saw Tom Friedman’s column from Sunday. Friedman says that creating a Winesburg, Ohio in Iraq by 2012 should be US Top Priority, because it would be a Shining Example of Democracy in the Arab world. I thought for a moment I had slipped into a time warp.
Robert (not Paul) Samuelson is weak as usual, and Hiatt is a mess, as usual. I think DougJ’s summary is correct. Commenters above have made some good points.
My question to both RS and FH is, What do you mean by cost control? They don’t say at all what that would be. Hiatt sounds like he thinks cost control means even more restrictions on access to primary care, but it’s impossible to tell. If he does mean that, there is evidence that more of that would produce more preventable deaths among lower income people. Hiatt’s only example of cost control is cutting down on thos awful gold plated union health insurance policies.
Hiatt is incoherent as usual. He criticizes congress for interfering with cost control in Medicare, but that cost control is exactly to prevent Medicare formulas designed to control spending and reduce costs from kicking in too fast. But he does not like the idea that people in the public plan would have similar controls on their reimbursement rates. So, it is OK with him that elderly get their reimbursement rates cut for their care, but it is not OK for younger people, or what?
I guess the elderly are more vulnerable for others, so by Hiatt’s ethics, that may be exactly what he thinks.
Hiatt is so brave and intrepid he cannot even say the word ‘comparative effectiveness research’, but he recommends something like that for cost control (he said ‘Such decisions should be made based on evidence of what works and what doesn’t.’)
Wow! What an example of courage from Hiatt, surely putting him on a sound platform for criticizing Obama and the Democrats for being scared of taking on the tough issues. I am duly impressed.
They never define what they mean by cost control, or even list what would be required for those, beyond indirect asides yet they whine that others do not have the courage to take on ‘the real issues.’
Like Switzerland, France, Australia and other countries that have good systems, the US will have to keep hammering away with partial reforms until we get a good system. If Samuelson and Hiatt have any ideas about what that would be, they should say so and stop their disingenuous whining. It this reform kicks the US onto a path towards more reform, it is worth it, as far as I’m concerned.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: I hear you about the Angels-Yanks game. Sucked eggs. Hope you sleep well.
On topic: I am sick and tired of all the lies I read about what the healthcare bill will or won’t be. Fuck Olympia Snow and her trigger-happy finger. Seriously. Just fuck her.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Oh, yeah I did notice that whole spat. I don’t know about you, but I am perfectly capable of loving my team and despising a player on said team. I tend to have very choice words about Crazy Legs Hasslesack quite often. In other words he can just fuck off.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yup. I am more than capable of rooting for my team and hating one or more players on it.
@jl: This was very well-written, and I very much enjoyed reading it.
jl
Could some one check on the time and date and see whether there has been a tear in the time-space continuum and the NY Times and/or Friedman have slipped back in time 6 years?
Is every one more or less in Oct 25, 2009? I wanna know. Let’s coordinate watches and make sure we are all on the same page, time-space continuum time.
The last paragraph in the exerpt below is wonderful. I can think of lots of brilliant solutions to problems just like that.
If we could figure out how to make Tunch want to eat less, he would not be cranky and would lose weight real quick!
If we could costlessly replace fossil fuels and suck all the extra CO2 out of the air, we could solve global warming, right now!
Eyes on the Prize
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 24, 2009
“BAGHDAD, Aug. 25, 2012 — President Obama flew into Baghdad today on his end-of-term tour to highlight successes in U.S. foreign policy. At a time when the Arab-Israel negotiations remain mired in deadlock and Afghanistan remains mired in quagmire, Mr. Obama hailed the peaceful end of America’s combat presence in Iraq as his only Middle East achievement. Speaking to a gathering of Iraqi and U.S. officials under the banner “Mission Actually Accomplished,” written in Arabic and English, Mr. Obama took credit for helping Iraq achieve a decent — albeit hugely costly — end to the war initiated by President Bush. Aides said Mr. Obama would highlight the progress in Iraq in his re-election campaign.”
Could we actually read such a news article in three years? I wouldn’t bet on it. But I wouldn’t rule it out either.
If we can get open list voting, the next big step would be the emergence of Iraqi parties in this election running for office on the basis of nonsectarian coalitions — where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds run together. This would be significant: Iraq is a microcosm of the whole Middle East, and if Iraq’s sects can figure out how to govern themselves — without an iron-fisted dictator — democracy is possible in this whole region.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: thanks. Below my usual quota a typos too. I guess spending a day out in the woods did wonders.
Steeplejack
@jl:
What JL said.
Can’t get motivated to comment on topic–the whole subject has gotten enormously frustrating to me, and these latest two pieces from the Post are like chalk on a blackboard–so I’m out. Peace, all.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: One of the beautiful (and slightly aggravating!) aspects of this blog is the fact that someone is going to say exactly what I’m thinking but in a much more elegant and satisfactory fashion than I ever could. I’m glad that’s a feature and not a bug.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Agreed, Steep, man. Sleep well. Hope it rejuvenates you.
@Yutsano: Yup. Then one can either say ditto or try to elaborate less elegantly.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I’m right there with you in the “wake me when it’s over” stage of this whole mishegas.
James
@Yutsano:
Oh, my, good to see Yutso and sg, fellow late-night refugees from the banal atrocity formerly known as Swampland. Hey.
Chad N Freude
@jl:
I remain mired in admiring the admire-able phrase “mired in quagmire”.
Yutsano
@James: I still wade over there every now and again (mostly for Stuart Zechman and Jcapan), but to be fair Sgw is the one who got me turned on to this place first. I kinda love it.
TenguPhule
This a feature, not a bug of Friedman.
My personal theory is he is the same Friedman from 2003 being sent through time in six month intervals by the Master to bring down human civilization.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You just love the hot wimminz wantin’ to fake-marry you.
@TenguPhule: You made me snort. Thank you.
TenguPhule
It means every possible medical expense for RS and FH must be covered no matter what. Everyone else is a DFH and should die on the streets if they can’t afford care.
TenguPhule
You’re welcome. Always nice to have a fellow BBC watcher who gets the joke.
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Actually, I don’t watch BBC–I just thought it was really funny.
TenguPhule
@asianggrIMN
My god you have no idea what you’re missing.
jl
@TenguPhule: Friedman is caught in repeating Friedman unit time warps?Good theory. Serves him right. Looks like we have some evidence for that tonight.
James
@Yutsano:
Yeah me too. Good people, good convo, amusing but not obnoxious trolls. Good to meet up wit’cha again.
Eric U.
@TenguPhule: the Friedman Unit, you mean he didn’t invent it himself?
Yutsano
@James: It’s actually kind of tempting to bring Rusty or spob over here just to watch the two of them get torn apart in their own illogic. I’d invite SZ and JC-san too except A) I don’t think SZ’s lovely bride would tolerate the distraction and B) JC-san just had his firstborn and is probably very tied-up with all that.
Would this happen to be the James from Los Angeles?
jl
Below is my personal list of cost control measures the US should adopt. I would note that, despite Hiatt’s complaining, seems to me that 5 and 1/2 of the eleven listed below have been proposed to be part of the health care reform. (the 1/2 is because my list contains a combined proposal to reform physician pay and increase physician supply)
If we include the very perceptive note by a commenter above that simply achieving universal care would be a cost control measure itself, that produces 6 and 1/2 out of twelve possible cost control measures that have been proposed as part of the reform.
So, even though I should have hit the sack by now, I wanted to make a good faith effort to document the emptiness of Robert (not Paul) Samuelson’s and Hiatt’s whining.
And, here we go (I probably miscounted the items on the list, let’s see).
1) Public option open to everyone (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform)
2) Public Comparative effectiveness analysis program, which program to disseminate and train healthcare professionals. Hiatt mentioned this by another name, (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform)
3) A few small and closed-off AMA committees dominated by advanced specialist docs control the relative prices of physician services and number of post-graduate (post-med school). Take control away from AMA, create an open public process to determine relative prices of physician services, and to increase physician supply. (AND, physician reimbursement reform HAS been proposed as part of health care reform)
4) Create a US electronic medical and pharmacy record system created to high income world standard, to cut down on duplicate tests. (AND this HAS been proposed for current health care reform). Also note that many other countries have done this, and we can learn from what they have done (unless we are concerned that they did not violate American Values in creating it, we would not want an Un-American electronic records system).
5) Repeal anti-trust exemptions for health insurance and health plans (AND this HAS been proposed for current health care reform).
6) Greatly expand public primary care clinics to improve access for basic care, check-ups, monitoring and cheap tests) (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform, in fact, Obama is doing it now, I think)
7) Federal Budget Process controls number of post-graduate medical training slots, with no control over number of primary care docs that come out of it. Congress has cut or frozen funding for more post-graduate training over last ten years. Create public process to fund and monitor post-graduate medical training to increase physician supply. Probably need to socialize cost of medical training for healthcar professionals, which can take up to twelve years after 4-year college degree. Need to have a public fund to finance the cost at low rates, and reasonable repayment plans after the start real practices or get real jobs.
Note: the US has a very low per capita supply of docs compared to other high income countries.
8) Congress can pass laws to stop physician referrals to labs, clinics and hospital that they own or in which they have a financial interest, to stop self-dealing in physician referrals and cut down on unneeded tests and procedures.
9) Have exactly ONE basic comprehensive benefit package, which universal procedure and service coding to cut down on administrative costs for private sector. If people want more coverage, they buy a separate supplemental policy (with NO penalty. Note that this free enterprise, freedom loving country is proposing legislative action to penalize people who want more coverage than some arbitrary undefined and unknown level deemed by whoever to be acceptable. Seems like them other socialist high income countries have more regard for their citizens’ preferences than for corporate profits, and isn’t that horrible!? Do we want to be like THEM?)
10) Train super-primary care docs that specialize in multi-disciplinary chronic disease management (as is done on Australia). These are primary care docs that also provide some low level specialist services, particularly in geriatric chronic disease management. More treatment will be coordinated or provided by one doctor.
11) More nurses, maybe a Plunket Nurse program as in New Zealand to supplement doctors for pre-natal through five year olds’ care. Many countries that have low number of doctors per capita (like the US) but have higher number of nurses, with specialized training to supplement docs)
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: That and the food pr0n.
jl
A previous version of this comment is in moderation, I think because I mentioned the dreaded s o s h u l i s m.
Below is my personal list of cost control measures the US should adopt. I would note that, despite Hiatt’s complaining, seems to me that 5 and 1/2 of the eleven listed below have been proposed to be part of the health care reform. (the 1/2 is because my list contains a combined proposal to reform physician pay and increase physician supply)
If we include the very perceptive note by a commenter above that simply achieving universal care would be a cost control measure itself, that produces 6 and 1/2 out of twelve possible cost control measures that have been proposed as part of the reform.
So, even though I should have hit the sack by now, I wanted to make a good faith effort to document the emptiness of Robert (not Paul) Samuelson’s and Hiatt’s whining.
And, here we go (I probably miscounted the items on the list, let’s see).
1) Public option open to everyone (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform)
2) Public Comparative effectiveness analysis program, which program to disseminate and train healthcare professionals. Hiatt mentioned this by another name, (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform)
3) A few small and closed-off AMA committees dominated by advanced specialist docs control the relative prices of physician services and number of post-graduate (post-med school). Take control away from AMA, create an open public process to determine relative prices of physician services, and to increase physician supply. (AND, physician reimbursement reform HAS been proposed as part of health care reform)
4) Create a US electronic medical and pharmacy record system created to high income world standard, to cut down on duplicate tests. (AND this HAS been proposed for current health care reform). Also note that many other countries have done this, and we can learn from what they have done (unless we are concerned that they did not violate American Values in creating it, we would not want an Un-American electronic records system).
5) Repeal anti-trust exemptions for health insurance and health plans (AND this HAS been proposed for current health care reform).
6) Greatly expand public primary care clinics to improve access for basic care, check-ups, monitoring and cheap tests) (AND this HAS been proposed for current reform, in fact, Obama is doing it now, I think)
7) Federal Budget Process controls number of post-graduate medical training slots, with no control over number of primary care docs that come out of it. Congress has cut or frozen funding for more post-graduate training over last ten years. Create public process to fund and monitor post-graduate medical training to increase physician supply. Probably need to s o s h u l i z e cost of medical training for healthcar professionals, which can take up to twelve years after 4-year college degree. Need to have a public fund to finance the cost at low rates, and reasonable repayment plans after the start real practices or get real jobs.
Note: the US has a very low per capita supply of docs compared to other high income countries.
8) Congress can pass laws to stop physician referrals to labs, clinics and hospital that they own or in which they have a financial interest, to stop self-dealing in physician referrals and cut down on unneeded tests and procedures.
9) Have exactly ONE basic comprehensive benefit package, which universal procedure and service coding to cut down on administrative costs for private sector. If people want more coverage, they buy a separate supplemental policy (with NO penalty. Note that this free enterprise, freedom loving country is proposing legislative action to penalize people who want more coverage than some arbitrary undefined and unknown level deemed by whoever to be acceptable. Seems like them other s o s h u l i s t high income countries have more regard for their citizens’ preferences than for corporate profits, and isn’t that horrible!? Do we want to be like THEM?)
10) Train super-primary care docs that specialize in multi-disciplinary chronic disease management (as is done on Australia). These are primary care docs that also provide some low level specialist services, particularly in geriatric chronic disease management. More treatment will be coordinated or provided by one doctor.
11) More nurses, maybe a Plunket Nurse program as in New Zealand to supplement doctors for pre-natal through five year olds’ care. Many countries that have low number of doctors per capita (like the US) but have higher number of nurses, with specialized training to supplement docs)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yes. Drool.
@TenguPhule: Aaaaand there goes the last bit of cred I had here at BJ because I do not like Doctor Who. Oh well.
James
@Yutsano:
Yep. J-LA. Congrats to JC, hadn’t heard about the new one. Guess he’s up all day now AND all night….. We gave birth here a couple of months ago you might be aware. Cute lil guy, too, RedKitten (and heavy). We’re all uncles now! And aunties!
Would NOT love to see those obnoxious trolls over here.
jl
I made of a list of good cost control measures for health care reform, counted how many have been currently proposed, and how many Hiatt and Samuelson missed.
But, my comment is in moderation for some reason.
I got that they missed 5 to 6 cost control measures that have been proposed.
I guess that is nice work if you can get it, churning out empy content-free and misleading boiler plate at the WaPo for you rich buds .
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: FWIW I never took to it much either. Interesting really as I love just about any BBC show plus I’m sure if I got into it the Hitchiker’s Guide would be just that much more brilliant to me. Then again I still heart Red Dwarf to this day.
Yutsano
@jl: Did you mention the dreaded soshulist word? Or is the comment link-heavy? Both would do it.
jl
Sorry, instead of ‘you rich buds’ I meant ‘your rich buds’.
If anyone here is a rich bud of Samuelsons and Hiatt, they should share the wealth the e-mail us all drinks.
Yutsano
@James: Oh I wouldn’t want them to STAY necessarily, just see them get ripped apart when Spob throws up a National Review link and gets handily laughed at.
jl
@Yutsano: I respelled all two instances of the dreaded word with s o s h u l i s t, but no luck.
The moderation gnomes have trapped it. Maybe Tunch is still wreaking havoc inside the operating system. I asked Cole to get him out before something awful happened, and the world was destroyed.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Spob looks like SpongeBob to me for some reason. Huh.
Anyway, I am off to bed. Hold down the fort for me. Night.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: There used to be a poster over there (who I think would be an absolute RIOT posting here) named Pirate Wench who nicknamed Spob spongy for that very reason. Ahh I be missin’ tha’ ol’ salt n ‘er Pirate Speak.
James
@Yutsano:
Meh. Leave spongebob and rusty in SZ’s capable hands. Over there. Please. You talk about snoozer threads.
Yutsano
Calling it a night here as well. Sleep well all.
Warren Terra
@ jl
It’s like the old days, when Friedman wrote dispatches from an alternate reality in which we’d pretend we’d invaded Iraq the right way and all would be fine in 6 months if we followed his advice.
Anne Laurie
@Eric U.:
Anyone else ever wonder if Friedman doesn’t look up the Wikipedia entry for the F.U. and just get a warm glow thinking about how he’s been immortalized for a new generation?
Napoleon
Here is an alternative shorter Hiatt: “If health care reform passes the Dems become popular and the Neocons will never come back to power”.
W. Kiernan
TFA: From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers — and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting…
Small difference? Sounds to me like Samuelson’s rhetoric is deliberately taking advantage of Americans’s notorious innumeracy. So get out your calculators, readers: 1.092 ^ 37 = 26, 1.104 ^ 37 = 39. In other words, since 1970, spending by private insurers has risen 50% more than Medicare spending.
Interestingly enough, this is parallel to the cost difference (as a fraction of GDP) between the U.S.A. and all the other developed countries, where we pay 16-17% of our GDP for health care that is comparable to what they pay 8-11% of their GDPs for.
W. Kiernan
Stupid HTML parser. I meant (let’s see if the “code” tag works)
1.092 ^ 37 = 26, 1.104 ^ 37 = 39.or in words, one point zero nine two to the thirty-seventh power equals twenty-six; one point one zero four to the thirty-seventh power equals thirty-nine.
W. Kiernan
Nope, the “code” tag doesn’t work either! Those were supposed to be carats (the shifted “6” key).
Sure would hate to try and compile source code after it had been run between that parser’s “code” tags.
SenyorDave
I canceled my subsription to the Post after they accepted the phony Fox ad, but I actually felt that I would ultimately pick it up again. Now I wish them nothing but failure.
I really wonder who their audience is. The editorial page is populated by the senile ramblings of George Will, the Krauthammer rantings about how Obama is always wrong and will lead this country to ruin, the occasional column by lunatics like William Donahue (possibly a new low), and Karl Rove’s guest columns from his cushy home instead of the prison cell he should be occupying.
The paper’s editorials seem somewhat incoherent, and often appear to contradict themself.
I can’t imagine a non-neocon being satisfied with the editorial policy of the WaPo.
Napoleon
@jl:
Cutting old people off of Social Security (I know, its not health care) and Medicare. The WaPo and many of its columnist have been on that jihad for 20 years or more. They are fundimentally opposed to what the New Deal brought the US (seriously).
burnspbesq
@SenyorDave:
Of course not, but how many people really pick a newspaper because of its editorial policy?
As long as the alternatives are the WaTimes and the Baltimore Sun, the WaPo will have subscribers. For all its faults, it’s better than those two.
kay
It’s almost November, and this is just the beginning of Round Two. I think we can safely call Round One. Reformers won.
We have until January, at least. Expect a lot more of this. I think media probably switch from the focus on the Senate and go after vulnerable House Democrats with dire predictions of massive losses in 2010.
That seems to be the latest emerging theme. It’s a long haul.
El Cid
Fuck Fred Hiatt. Worthless right wing shitbag. And his junior, Jackson Diehl, too. They don’t deserve the good reporters who still work for that rag.
kay
@El Cid:
It’s in a pretty sorry state. I keep hearing how there hasn’t been major domestic legislation passed in eons.
If that’s true, we’re watching how media perform covering major domestic legislation, perhaps a singular test of how well any individual does covering a real issue in his or her career.
If major domestic-issue reform only happens every thirty or forty or fifty years, they may only get one shot at proving themselves with solid coverage of a really complex, divisive issue.
Is it just me, or are they failing this test miserably?
asiangrrlMN
@kay: Nope, it’s not just you. They are covering themselves in mud over this whole sad, sorry state of affairs.
@Yutsano: I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who thought spob looked like SpongeBob!
bayville
Haha. Good one Doug.
Ezra and Yglesias are too busy worshiping Obama’s ability at playing 321 dimensional chess.
(Any day now Mattie Y will write a column explainin’ to all us rednecks and DFHs why it might be a good idea to send 80,000 more troops to Afghanistan).
Plus, he has to keep that six-figure paycheck coming.
Randy P
@SenyorDave:
I was a daily home delivery subscriber to the WaPo for many years when I lived in MD. When I moved to the Philly area (only 120 miles or so by car, but apparently WaPo trucks have to take a different much more dangerous route using llamas over the Andes) I was defeated by the vagaries of the Circulation department.
I tried for awhile to get Sunday papers in the bookstore, but most bookstores only got a couple of copies if any, and half the time would tell me there was no delivery for unknown reasons, or there was a delivery but it had no magazines or inserts. Eventually most of the bookstores I used to try gave up carrying the Post.
Then I tried a subscription by mail. They warned me that the Sunday paper would be about 3 days late, and I said that was fine. There must be a relativistic effect of some sort because their “3 days” averaged 3 weeks in my local frame of reference.
Meanwhile, over the years, Dave Barry and Tony Kornheiser stopped doing columns. When they ended the Sunday Style Invitational, I finally decided that even if I could get the paper there wasn’t much left I wanted to read any more. So finally I have switched over to the NYT as my preferred all-day-Sunday paper. For some reason every convenience store has stacks of them.
tc125231
Remember, Media assholes LIKE the status quo. It’s been good to them.
Why would anyone read Hiat or Samuelson? I read Mein Kampf once, but I wouldn’t read a weekly column by that or any other unethical asshole.
Batocchio
Samuelson and Hiatt don’t want a public option, and don’t want an honest “debate,” either. They certainly don’t want single payer. They’re hacks, not wonks. Their concern trolling is so grating because they’re so disingenuous. Oh, if only David Broder’s latest Republican love object could lead us to bipartisan bliss above this horrible fray, created and scolded by trolls!