Dean Baker's Blog, page 155

Requiring Essential Health Benefits in Insurance Plans Is Part of Getting the Healthy to Subsidize the Less Healthy

Morning Edition had a segment on Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare which reported on the desire of many Republican members of Congress to reduce the number of essential health benefits that must be covered by insurance. While the piece noted that part of the reason for the required benefits is to ensure people are covered in important areas, this is probably the less important reason for imposing requirements.

If people are allowed to pick and choose what conditions get covered, many mor...

Why No One Is Taking Robert Samuelson's Medicaid Deal Seriously

Robert Samuelson put forward what would ordinarily be a very reasonable proposal on Medicaid and Medicare in his column today. He suggested that the federal government take over the portion of Medicaid that deals with low-income elderly and fold it into the Medicare program, while leaving states with full responsibility for dealing with the part of Medicaid that deals with low-income families below retirement age.

While he is right that this sort of consolidation could likely reduce costs and...

The United States Has Been for Selective Protectionism, Not Free Trade

The NYT might have wrongly lead readers to believe that presidents prior to Donald Trump supported free trade in an article noting his refusal to go along with a G-20 statement proclaiming the importance of free trade. This is not true.

Past administrations of both parties have been vigorous supporters of longer and stronger patent and copyright protections. These protections can raise the price of protected items by factors of ten or even a hundred, making them equivalent to tariffs of 1000...

Washington Post Misinforms Readers, Texas Trump Supporter is Eligible for Health Care Assistance

A front page Washington Post piece profiled Tamara Estes, a supporter of Donald Trump who is anxious to see undocumented aliens deported, along with a neighboring family, the Corrals. The parents in the Corral family entered the country illegally, while the children were born in the United States and are therefore U.S. citizens.

In describing the situation of Ms. Estes, the piece tells readers that she earns $24,000 a year driving a school bus part-time. It then reports that she does not have...

The Public is Clueless About the Federal Budget and It's the New York Times' Fault

Paul Krugman criticized the Trump administration for its budget, which would cut or eliminate many programs that benefit low- and moderate-income people. In his piece, Krugman points out that the public is incredibly ignorant on the budget, with most people having virtually no idea of where most spending goes.

In particular, he referenced an analysis that found people on average believed we spend more than 30 percent of the budget on foreign aid. The actual figure is less than one percent.

Th...

The NYT Meant to Say "In Cutting Social Security and Medicare"

The politicians who are trying to cut Social Security and Medicare know that these programs are incredibly popular across the political spectrum. For this reason they typically use euphemisms when referring to plans to cut the benefits they provide, like calling for "reform," "modernization," or "slowing the growth."

It is understandable that politicians pushing an unpopular agenda would try to mislead people about their actions, but it's not clear why the NYT is playing the same game, telli...

Government Granted Patent Monopolies Cause People to Skip Cancer Treatments

NPR had an interesting segment on the difficulties that many families have paying for cancer treatments. The piece points out that even middle-income families with good insurance may still face co-payments of tens of thousands of dollars a year.

One item not mentioned in this piece is that the reason the prices of new cancer drugs is high is that the government grants companies patent monopolies. This is done as a way to finance research. In almost all cases these drugs would be available for...

I Am Out of Here!

On vacation until Thursday, March 16th. Remember, don't believe anything you read in the paper until then.

One Way to Counter Job Killing Robots: Stop the Federal Reserve Board from Raising Interest Rates

It is amazing that there is not an effort to have a mass deportation of economists. After all, almost the whole profession completely missed the housing bubble and the economic crisis that resulted from its collapse. They failed to see the weakness of the recovery and now they can't decide whether we will have too few workers or too few jobs. (This is known as the "which way is up?" problem in economics.)

Claire Cain Miller gave us a "too few jobs" story in her NYT column that asked how we ca...

Republicans Look to Top 50 Million Uninsured

In the years before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the uninsured population peaked at just over 50 million people. It fell sharply when the main provisions of the ACA took effect, falling to less than 28 million in recent quarters. However, in its effort to make America great again, the Republicans expect to raise the number of uninsured back above 50 million. Serious analysis of their plan shows that they have a good shot at meeting this goal.

While the Republicans are in principle keeping so...