Month: July 2009

Why Is Obama Against Capping The Tax Exemption?

Andrew Sprung has a great analysis of Obama's reasoning on conversation with Fred Hiatt. The reason is that he wants MedPac to do the cost cutting, on more rational grounds than the cruder cost-cutting that ending the tax break would achieve. Money quote:

The role that Obama envisions for MedPAC is a window on the way he conceives of systemic change generally. He's what you might call a radical incrementalist. Recognizing that the fundamental task in tackling healthcare inflation is to change incentives — end fee-for-service — he also recognizes that the payment system cannot be changed by fiat, that the task needs to be done in stages, experimentally, on the basis of what is shown to work. To empower MedPAC in Obama's view is to create a "powerful lever" to "move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction" and set the stage for a long series of subsequent reforms.

Going Too Far

Juan Cole observes how even Iranian hard liners are getting fed up with post-election violence:

The call for the punishment of security men who abused prisoners to death, on the part of a hard line newspaper, is remarkable. The condemnation of extra-judicial punishment is likewise not what you would expect from a Khomeinist organ (but that is what this newspaper is). […] In a way, these killings of prisoners is functioning like the shooting of Kent State protesters by National Guardsmen in 1970 in the US, which helped turn a lot of fence-sitters against the Vietnam War. In this case, the harshness of the methods deployed by the hard liners is becoming repulsive even to other hard liners. Remember that they view themselves as highly ethical and as acting in accordance with islamic norms, and these deaths challenge their own self-image.

Looking At Race

DailyKos has an interesting poll on whether Americans believe that Africa and America were one part of the same continent. I have to say I would have said yes, but not too confidently. But what's interesting to me is that Republicans were far less likely to believe this than Democrats or Independents. The more polls I look at the more it seems to me that the large cohorts of Independents now resemble Democrats on policy more than they resemble Republicans. The cultural and political marginalization of the GOP continues. And so much money – Fox, etc. – is bound up in keeping it that way.