I really want to say why wasn't the GOP concerned about the national deficit and debt when Bush was running it up? Sometime in 2008 (and the date does matter here) the national debt was $5.8 trillion or 41% of GDP. Ten years from now in 2019 the debt is projected to be $14.3 trillion or 68% of GDP, tripling on Obama's watch. At least I can say it was the GOP push for unregulated markets that made Obama's spending necessary.
Niall Ferguson explains why such a huge deficit is a huge deal. The short answer: As debt rises two things happen. First, those who buy our debt (and there aren't enough buyers in the USA for all that debt so it must be foreigners) begin to charge higher interest rates because they see the debt as being riskier. When crushing debt happens the easiest way out of it is to print more money, triggering inflation and making the debt worth less. Investors demand the interest rate go up with inflation. Second, payments towards that debt takes up an increasing percentage of the federal budget, leaving room for only Social Security, Medicare, and debt repayment. What gets left out is such things as defense. The inability to rearm due to high debt payments left Britain vulnerable at the start of WWII. High debt is also the reason why we don't have Hapsburg Spain, Royal France, or the Ottoman Empire around these days. Is America spending its way to its own downfall?
Ruth Marcus tangles with the provision in the House health bill that bans federally funded health insurance from offering abortions. She asks which is worse for poor women …
* No health insurance at all.
* Health insurance that pays for a great deal, including contraceptives, but doesn't cover abortion.
Not having insurance doesn't cover abortion either.
If those are the choices, says Marcus, it is foolish for Dem senators to say they'll kill the entire health care plan if abortions aren't covered. Yes, it is a nasty bargain.
The size of the pro-life and pro-choice camps hasn't changed much over the last 35 years. However, the size of the camp that says while abortion should be legal government shouldn't pay for it is increasing.
That dynamic leaves the abortion battle in an interesting position. It can be lobbed like a hand grenade into any legislative battle that someone wants to blow up.
The Cleveland Clinic is being run like a business and it's current CEO is using standard business practices to squeeze out costs and improve results. It is such a great model for how health care should be done that Obama visited last July. A great deal of the article describes how costs are kept so low and it is wonderful to read. Two big questions arise: What areas does the Cleveland Clinic have problems with cost control? Why aren't other medical centers and private practices doing the same things?
That answer that is at the top of both questions: our patchwork of health insurance. Which reminds me of my belief that health is incompatible with the profit motive. Some thoughts from the article by Jerry Adler and Jeneen Interlandi:
The Cleveland Clinic has 2000 doctors on staff. It also has 1400 billing agents, who spend as much time on hold as we do when contacting health insurance companies. Each insurer has its own way of demanding how billing is to be handled (and if you don't do it their way they simply reject it).
The overhead for private insurers is 29%. The overhead for Medicare is 3%. Just think of the medicine that could be done with that 26%.
Duke University Medical Center made a big effort to improve costs and care of patients with congestive heart failure. They cut costs by 40% and reduced readmissions. But Duke didn't benefit from all that effort, they lost money over it. Less money from patients. Those that gained: health insurance companies.
Editor Jon Meacham tosses a grenade to make liberals choke. There are competing visions on how to govern America, one embodied by Bush the other by Obama. Running Obama against McCain didn't produce a decisive choice between the two visions. In 2012 running Obama against Cheney will. Yup, enough to choke a liberal. At least Cheney is smarter than Bush. Instead of on the campaign trail I'd like to see Cheney in jail for crimes against humanity. He's way too much of a thug.
Speaking of the end of empires… Here's an interesting little video (not from Newsweek) that shows the size of the four great naval empires and what happens to them from 1800 to 2000 (the counter is in the lower left). Each of Britain, France, Portugal, and Spain is shown as a bubble, the size of which represents the land area of the corresponding empires. The bubbles jostle and swell and every so often spew out a chunk representing when a country gains its independence. I hadn't realized that it was in the early 1960s that France lost its Africa holdings. The one thing that isn't shown is the countries that are swallowed up to increase the size of the bubbles, especially the British one.
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