Month: January 2014

Josh Marshall: Where Does Obamacare Stand?:

One key thing any health care policy economist will tell you is that the pure numbers are less important than the demographic blend of the pool. Basically, what’s the mix of young and old people, healthy and sick. If that’s significantly out of whack you’ll have problems. All told, though, if you step away from the political pyrotechnics where every missed target is a catastrophe for Obamacare and the end of the Obamacare presidency, the current numbers look like a decent recovery from a very poor start. And there’s good reason to think that the program as a whole is moving along toward the benign and effective transformation of national health care markets it was intended to effect…”

And:

• Josh Marshall: Meet the 5 Million

Angus Deaton: US inequality and the Pareto Criterion:

There is much to be said for equality of opportunity, and for not penalizing people for the success that comes from their own hard work. Yet, compared with other rich countries, and in spite of the popular belief in the American dream that anyone can succeed, the United States is in fact not particularly good at actually delivering equal opportunities…

Go read this at Cardiff Garcia’s weblog now!