What's to Blame for Healthcare Costs? Doing Nothing.

The Associated Press reports that a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that health insurance premiums rose last year by 9%. Let’s try to affix blame by looking at some of the common arguments that try to explain this. Argument #1: Health Insurers are Greedy. It is true that …

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Written by Stanley Goldfarb on Wednesday September 28, 2011

How Politics Imitates Television

This month, Frum Forum is celebrating the 40th and 10th anniversaries of two TV events that were, in their wide-ranging effect, as big a "game change" in what we watch as Obama vs. Palin was in politics.  Forty years ago, CBS redefined the TV landscape with its notorious 1971 "Rural Purge." …

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Written by Telly Davidson on Friday August 5, 2011

The Elderly Say "No"

People on Medicare are often suspicious of expanded government involvement in healthcare, because they see it as competing with Medicare for scarce dollars. Tom Schaller asks : "Why are senior citizens crying "socialism" at town halls?" As we like to say in academia:  I don't know the answer, …

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Written by Andrew Gelman on Tuesday August 25, 2009