Morning/Afternoon Papers/Radio
Just a few notes from the broadsheets (sorry, you young whippersnappers, but I still like to read the actual paper) to bring to your attention. Much of this sounded about right to me, as per where cliff negotiations are headed, and while it may sound optimistic to some readers, I still think the odds are [...]
A Few More Thoughts on the Bad Idea of Raising the Medicare Eligibility Age
Many good comments on this post as to why increasing the Medicare eligibility age is a bad idea that shouldn’t be on the fiscal cliff negotiating table (which is not the same thing as saying other potential Medicare savings shouldn’t be on the table). Remember to read this CBPP piece on the issue, and listen to [...]
Medicare and the Cliff Negotiations
Update: My colleague and knowledge font re all things social insurance, Paul Van de Water, reminds me of a piece he wrote about this issue a few weeks back. Along with many of the points below, he adds that “state Medicaid costs would rise, as some of the people who lost Medicare coverage would shift [...]
Progressives and the Cliff
[Just did a spot on this with Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh--both of whom I thought made a lot of sense on the issue..] I’m glad that fiscal cliff negotiations have produced some mellifluous sounds from hardliners, as in Rep Boehner and Sen McConnell recognizing the need for new revenues in the deal. But really, [...]
Policy Matters! Today’s Income, Poverty, and Insurance Coverage Data
According to new Census Bureau data released today, poverty rates as officially measured did not rise as expected last year and more people were covered by health insurance. Middle class incomes fell significantly, however, and inequality increased. Basically, the message here is policy matters. Where policy addressed a market failure—rising shares of the uninsured; poor [...]
A Quick Visit Back to the Medicare Dust Up
I just wanted to be sure to highlight some very useful pieces on this from the last few days, all relating to numerous posts I’ve done of this debate. First, Henry Aaron has a very thorough amplification of this point I dinged the WaPo on the other day: the notion that changes to health care [...]
A Mess of a Screed
What do you do if you’re loaded for bear and they call off the hunt? I was just in the chair at MSNBC about to argue with Naill Ferguson about his anti-Obama screed in Newsweek but they had to cancel the hit. NF’s piece is such a mess of factual errors, contradictions, and misguided impressions [...]
Medicare (Dis-)Advantage
One more quick dive into the weeds on the Medicare dust up and then I promise to get back to the real economy and jobs. I’m not saying that these campaign debates re retiree health care are a distraction from what matters most to most people. Jobs and paychecks are of course up there at [...]
More on the Medicare Dust-Up
UPDATE: Nice AP story out this AM on these very points. Basically, what’s happening here is that the ACA Medicare cuts improve the efficiency and cut costs in the program solely on the delivery side (not on beneficiaries), thus extending the lifespan of the HI trust fund. So, when Gov Romney says he won’t make those [...]
The (Counter) Attack of General Ezra and the Wonk Army
I’m swamped today–Diane Rehm Show at 10 on the Ryan Budget, Medicare, et al, and book talk later commenting on Jeff Faux’s very compelling new book: The Servant Economy. BUT…OMG. Ezra Klein and his Wonkbook team provide such a treasure trove of trenchant treats analyzing the campaigns’ dust up over Medicare that OTE’ers will not [...]
The $700 Billion Smoke Screen
In posts about the Ryan pick, I’ve argued that if we in the commentariat and the media get this right, the American electorate could have a salutary debate on the role of government. But, I stressed, that’s a big “if.” We particularly need an eagle-eyed media to cut through the inaccurate and misleading stances that [...]
Ryan’s Spending Cuts and the Sequester
Don’t worry, OTE’ers, it’s not all Ryan all the time around here, though that is, as you’d expect, where DC is today. But this sentence, from an important CBPP publication from last week, caught my eye: …the cuts to non-defense discretionary funding under the Ryan budget would be three times deeper in 2014 than the [...]
A Paul Ryan Profile in the New Yorker
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza provides a profile of Rep Paul Ryan, with a rich discussion of his vision for limited government. It’s a good read, but it left me thinking about what it is that troubles me most about Rep Ryan, an earnest guy who’s come a long way and influenced a lot of [...]
Those (Us) Greedy Boomers
In this AM’s NYT, Bill Keller goes after baby boomers for not getting behind entitlement reform. As his many links confirm, this is a common argument and while I can’t speak to the anti-boomer part (I was born smack in the middle of the boom, so one must recuse oneself), the economics of this debate [...]
This Just In: It’s Good to Have Health Coverage
It’s always important to confirm or disprove our priors with high quality research, and in this light, the NYT’s coverage of a new study showing the positive impact of Medicaid coverage is worth reading. The study looks mainly at mortality rates, but also health coverage, access to treatment, and general health outcomes, comparing outcomes in [...]
Scattershots from the Road
Quick road trip in progress so just a few scattered impressions from the hotel room, and pre-coffee so I can’t be held accountable. Econowatch: Yesterday’s retail sales numbers were a concern because there’s a negative trend there — see figure — over the last quarter (April, May, June) which corresponds to the slower growth in [...]
The Most Important Fiscal Chart You’ll See Today
OK, there’s probably a few of you who don’t see any fiscal charts on a typical day. I salute you. But here at OTE, we’re obsessed with a question David Wessel tackles in today’s WSJ: is the recent slowing of health care costs cyclical or structural? Or, more likely, how much of each? And does [...]
Medicaid Expansion Opt-Out: Researchers, Prepare Your Difference-in-Difference Models
I don’t have anything good to say about the opt-out provision that the SCOTUS added to the Medicaid expansion part of the health care law. There’s lots of hypothesizing about which governors will opt out, despite the strong monetary incentives not too. But you can’t figure this one out based on a rational balance sheet [...]
Health Care Reform Leftovers
Lots of crazy stuff on the airwaves re the SCOTUS’s upholding of the ACA. The Inane “Is It a Tax?” Debate: R’s are viciously attacking the ruling because it introduces a new “tax” on people who don’t have coverage. As I and many others have stressed, this tax is a free-rider penalty. It is a [...]
Jared Bernstein’s areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.
