The Opinion Blog

Reform for Some

Saturday’s editorial examines how health-care reform seems poised to aid the uninsured and those who can’t get insurance for their employers, but will do little for the majority of Americans who receive insurance through their workplace.

Washington's long effort to overhaul the nation's health-care system is now closer to reality than it ever has been, with five House and Senate committees all passing similar bills. While the plans have their differences, they all indulge in the apparent paradox of completely rebuilding the system – without major change to most people's coverage.

Patriotism or Partisanship?

Friday's editorial suggests that right-wing strategists let legitimate concerns about health reform go to their head and thus overreached politically with their ill-advised furor to the president's speech to students.

Last week, President Obama announced that he would be giving a speech to schoolchildren encouraging them to stay in school.

So, in an stunningly equal-but-opposite response, his most ardent detractors immediately proclaimed their intent to pull their kids out.

Speak up, Sen. Graham

Saturday's editorial encourages U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham to be a more forceful advocate for the health-care reforms he advocates.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham may be among the most sensible voices today in the nation's out-of-control health care debate - so it's too bad he's speaking so quietly.

Dr. DeMint's Sugar Pill, Part 2: Unfunded, inadequate and unambitious

Sunday's editorial adds practical criticisms to Saturday's conceptual critique of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan:"

As we explained Saturday, the most serious weakness of Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan" is its lack of strong mechanisms to control out-of-control medical inflation. But within the plan itself, specific elements also have deficiencies of their own.

Dr. DeMint's Sugar Pill, Part 1: A Band-Aid is not enough

Saturday's editorial is first of a two-part analysis of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan:"

When U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint brought his prescription for a "Health Care Freedom Plan" last week to a restaurant full of area conservatives ailing from an Obamacare overdose, his promises sounded like a free-market cure-all: Tax cuts! Access for everyone! No cost to the taxpayer! And all this in one little bottle!

Crisis of cost; crisis of care

Saturday's editorial that the health-care debate is moving away from what must be its central goal - cost control - and finds fault with members of both parties for it.

The crisis in our country's health care system is twofold. That 46 million Americans are uninsured is an embarrassment to our greatness as a nation, but skyrocketing health care costs are a severe threat to maintaining any semblance of that greatness.

Welcome to Progressive Corporatism II

Ripped from the wires ... David Brooks notes that the likely passage of the Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan will return control of the economy to the old-money Establishment:

By DAVID BROOKS

Once, there was a financial elite in this country. During the first two-thirds of the 20th century, middle-aged men with names like Mellon and McCloy led Wall Street firms, corporate boards and white-shoe law firms and occasionally emerged to serve in government.

Starting in the 1960s, that cohesive elite began to fall apart. Liberal interest groups took control of Democratic economic policy. Supply-side think tankers and Southern conservatives dominated the GOP.

DeMint: Here's a better way to stop markets slide

From the morning e-mail ... Sen. Jim DeMint, who has already voiced his distaste for a federal bailout of the markets, offers a "free market" alternative:

Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) announced he will introduce legislation to allow indexing of capital gains for inflation, a proposal that would index capital gains taxes for inflation, helping stocks, homes, and commercial real estate investments and help reverse the slide in U.S. asset prices.

Bush to Congress: Approve bailout then butt out

Friends: The Bush administration formally proposed its massive financial-bailout program to to Congress today. The text of the plan is below. The good news: In Daniel's parlance, it isn't TL-DR, only three paper pages long. The bad news: If Congress approves it, it would have no further role in what happens with the markets, other than receiving quarterly reports. A little unnerving, no? dc

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY

TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

Section 1. Short Title.

This Act may be cited as ____________________.

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

Buy-now-pay-later fever sickens America

From the afternoon e-mail ... Economist Mark Hendrickson bemoans the values shift that has plunged America into a deep sea of indebtedness:

By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

Thrift used to be a virtue in America. In Asia, thrift remains a way of life. For example, it is estimated that the average Chinese family's thrift rate is 30 to 40 percent, which helps explain the rapid growth rates there.

A century ago, the sociologist Max Weber credited the so-called Protestant work ethic, combining thrift with hard work, as the engine of America's economic preeminence. How times have changed!

While many Americans are thrifty, many are not. The political divide of blue-state and red-state Americans is replicated in an economic division between red-ink and black-ink personal finances.