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Assorted links
1. How the public option really will work.
2. Why progress is difficult in economic science.
3. California real per capita spending has gone up.
4. "Economists" category on Jeopardy.
5. Via Chris F. Masse, new Avatar trailer.
6. Funny spoof of MR: "What I've been reading," as if it were April Fool's (and here for Halloween).
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 31, 2009 at 07:33 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Klein's view is much closer to what I have thought about the public option. It will all depend upon the risk adjustment. They manage to do that fairly well in Europe, so we should be able to do it also. I have always thought that the public option plan will cost very close to what private insurance costs. The difference will lie in actually being able to get insurance if you are self-employed or have a pre-existing condition.
On risk adjustment, why not just use the insurance companies' own risk tables? Difficult to complain about that I would think.
Steve
Posted by: Ralph at Oct 31, 2009 9:20:20 AM
Whether California spending has gone up depends on how you look at it. Drum includes bond spending, but I am not sure why you should. Some of the bonds were used for general funds expenses, but most were for specific infrastructure spending approved by voters. It is not usual to include bond spending when talking about state budgets. Moreover, about 4 billion of the increase in spending was due to the car tax cut put in place by Schwarzenegger. The car tax money historically went to local governments and when the state cut it they had to make good on it. I am also not sure Drum is including all the recent cuts. If you take into consideration the tax cut as spending increase and exclude bond funding, then real per capital income has declined.
Posted by: jim at Oct 31, 2009 10:59:48 AM
the margarine revelation? God, that was hilarious!
Posted by: bellisaurius at Oct 31, 2009 12:15:31 PM
I'm glad you didn't label the first link something like "public option will cost more than private plans." My question is will those who end up taking a public option have been better off if there was not a public option?
Posted by: John B. Chilton at Oct 31, 2009 12:31:23 PM
It sounds like the "nightmare scenario," according to Ezra Klein, is that public insurance pays for a lot of health care for relatively sick people. I find it hard to believe that this won't be popular with the people who benefit from it and their friends and relatives. And yet, he focuses only on containing costs, as if that's all that matters for this program to be popular.
If the usual way of cutting costs (by denying health care) is taken away, wouldn't that spur more innovation in other ways of cutting costs?
Posted by: Brian Slesinsky at Oct 31, 2009 12:40:50 PM
As of 2007, CA's real per-capita spending ranks exactly in the middle: http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=32&cat=1 . One of Drum's commentors notes that much of the rise might be explained by health care expenditures (I don't have a reference). I do not know whether CA was below average in 1999, or if all state spending has increased sharply in the last decade. My guess would be the latter.
Still waiting for the MR crusade for single payer.
Posted by: Sam Penrose at Oct 31, 2009 1:17:50 PM
#6. That was great. Very sweet how he worked Yana in.
The Request for Requests and the Wunderkind posts were dead on.
Hope the person behind it can keep it up (it was a sad day when The Bruni Digest stopped...).
Posted by: anon at Oct 31, 2009 1:36:54 PM
#6. Looking forward to Jeff Ely's next blog:
Jeff Ely's Chain Restaurant Guide
Posted by: anon at Oct 31, 2009 1:42:28 PM
What was hilarious in the Drum link was so many of the commenters were trying to discount the idea that spending in California had exploded in the last 12 years by claiming that some types of spending shouldn't count. The simple fact was that spending outstripped revenue growth. Really, what else did you need to know?
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Oct 31, 2009 2:26:04 PM
The simple fact was that spending outstripped revenue growth. Really, what else did you need to know?
That California is, as so many of its boosters proclaim, the 6th/7th/10th largest economy in the world?
(Usually spoken breathlessly, as if to imply that that somehow means the laws of economics, and unintended consequences, don't apply to Californians. Oh, and that the rest of the USA should be grateful that it is allowed to be part of California?)
Other than that, I'm not sure.
Posted by: anon at Oct 31, 2009 4:21:02 PM
The Jeopardy clip is hilarious and sad. The expressions on the contestants' faces were great.
Posted by: libert at Oct 31, 2009 4:29:17 PM
"This is now my standard reference for rotary lathe" in particular killed me.
Tyler, do you think it's good or bad that you can be parodied so accurately?
Posted by: Robert at Oct 31, 2009 5:45:04 PM
The spoof is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the web. I especially enjoyed, on the meatballs post, "I’ve been at this for six years and nobody has yet figured out that this blog is a cry for help."
Posted by: Jacqueline at Oct 31, 2009 5:49:56 PM
The parody is great. I'm only sorry I can't have the pleasure of passing the link on to other people, because everyone who would think it was funny is already a regular reader of MR...
Posted by: Kat at Oct 31, 2009 8:39:57 PM
If you
(1) adjust for inflation,
and
(2) count tax cuts as tax cuts rather than as spending increases (?!?!? Don't know why people were cheating this way)
and
(3) look at spending *per capita* -- in other words, adjust for population growth,
Then California state spending has in fact declined, year over year, for several years.
Posted by: Nathanael at Nov 1, 2009 1:26:00 AM
If the contestants on Jeopardy are a representative sample of Americans (and I believe that they are), then the lack of knowledge regarding economists explains a lot about public attitudes on economic issues. In general, the economy tends to be the most important issue for most voters, and yet most people are ignorant of basic supply-and-demand mechanics, free trade benefits, tradeoffs involving minimum wage laws and price controls, etc. I suppose I shouldn't limit my criticism to voters, as the members of Congress probably do not understand basic economic issues any better.
Posted by: Vito DiPaola at Nov 1, 2009 1:57:58 PM
