Paul Krugman's Blog, page 629

Obama messes up on health care, big time

Really bad news on the health care front. After making the case for a public option, and doing it very well, Obama said this:
"We have not drawn lines in the sand other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don't have health insurance or are [...:]

Reporting on health and the health of reporting

Both Igor Volsky and Ezra Klein catch major media organizations picking up completely false GOP talking points, and completely misrepresenting the CBO "scoring" that created so much consternation last week. Neither of the plans CBO studied contains a public option - yet people who got their news from allegedly reputable TV shows were led to [...:]

The president is making sense

Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias both catch President Obama making sense on the public option:
QUESTION: Wouldn't that drive private insurance out of business?
OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, [...:]

Peter L. Bernstein

Peter L. Bernstein is dead. I never met him, but I had some very nice correspondence. Of all his books, my favorite was a sleeper: Wedding of the Waters, about the building of the Erie Canal.

Evil Google, continued

Judging from comments on this post, many people don't know that Google's internal motto is "Don't be evil." Oh, well.
Anyway, this is the bridge over Stony Brook, as it appeared on my walk this morning:

It's open for pedestrians and cyclists, but not for cars.
And here's the view from the bridge, looking upstream:

Yes, [...:]

Republicans who say Ni!

Via dday at Digby: Give them a shrubbery, and they start saying Ekke Ekke Ekke:
Schumer said Finance Republicans had rejected several proposals designed to beef up the suggested nonprofit insurance co-ops. These included setting up a national structure for the co-ops, $10 billion in government seed money, power to negotiate payment rates to medical [...:]

Green shoots, 1930

Via the WSJ's Real Time Economics, a blog that has been keeping track, day by day, of what the Journal was saying at the same day in 1930. What's striking is the optimism: story after story says, in effect, that the worst is over and recovery is just around the corner:
Col. Ayres, VP Cleveland Trust, [...:]

The medical-industrial complex and the public option

Fascinating statistical work by Nate Silver. It doesn't support the crude view that it's all about special interest money, but suggests that the money is making the odds substantially longer.

Two reactions to Ezra Klein

Ezra takes Meet The Press to task, rightly, for totally misinforming viewers about the health care debate:
Less forgivable was Nina Easton's performance on the actual program last weekend. She explained to the viewers that "the big speed bump this week, of course, was that CBO, Congressional Budget Office, study that said that the costs of [...:]

Google is evil

So I went to Google Maps for some local directions, and got this:

All fine, and quite scenic - except that the bridge over Stony Brook (a lovely spot for walking, by the way) has been closed since the 1970s.