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August 26, 2009

The Senator from Netscape

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Ted Kennedy was the first member of congress to have a website.

More from Sunlight.

Robin-sig.gif
Posted August 26, 2009 at 3:09 | Comments (0) | Permasnark
File under: Snarkpolitik

August 13, 2009

The Health Care Meltdown

Matt says,

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I've been an independent contractor for the past year, and my boyfriend's been unemployed. So I've been getting acquainted with the intricacies of the US health care system outside of employer-provided care, the universe affectionately known as the Wild West. Firsthand familiarity led me to seek a bit more policy familiarity - reading some books and think tank reports, following the health reform battle as it wends its way through Congress. And I've been itching for a while to create something that I hadn't been able to find - a stark, straightforward overview of why health reform is happening and where it's heading.

This week, when the hysteria seemed to reach a fever pitch, seemed like the right time to get this project done. So starting Tuesday night, I put together a quick little site, on the order of The Money Meltdown: DeathPanels.org.

Hope you enjoy it. Please send it to your crazy grandpa.

Comments (2) | Permasnark | Posted: 4:59 PM

July 15, 2009

Two Different Ways of Looking At "Simple"

Two different blog entries about health care ended up in my RSS reader at the same time. They argue for diametrically opposite positions based on what appear to be identical principles.

One is by Conor Friedersdorf, who's filling in for Andrew Sullivan. It's essentially a follow-up to his earlier post about requiring Congress to read the laws they pass, which I commented on here.

The worst thing about "comprehensive reform" efforts are that they shut the average citizen out of the legislative process by making bills so complicated that it is nearly impossible for the average citizen to properly evaluate whether on balance it is a wise or unwise measure. Who can predict all the effects of a 3,000 page bill spanning all manner of issues? Often times not even the legislature itself. Certainly not the press, which often focuses on bits of the legislation that won't actually have the most impact, sometimes because legislators themselves are deliberately obscuring what's actually at stake.

It's a conservative lesson: we should make "small, piecemeal improvements to public policy, rather than the kind of sweeping efforts that flatter vanities but fail citizens."

And here Ezra Klein presents an argument from a reader named Lensch, who compares the current reform bill being considered to the old Ptolemaic epicycles in astronomy:

We want a "uniquely American solution." So we have weak plans, strong plans, coops, exchanges, individual coverage, community ratings, etc., etc., etc. I still haven't seen we are going to handle the problem of people with pre-existing conditions. If we cover them, people will take out minimal insurance until they get sick and then switch. We need some more epicycles.

If Copernicus were alive today, I am sure he would say, "If you simply give everyone Medicare, you wouldn't need all this complication, and I'll bet it would be cheaper, too."

The practically radical answer turns out to be intellectually conservative; it's a back-of-the-envelope solution.

I don't think one answer trumps or refutes the other. I think there's another meaning of "simple" here, which both arguments ignore. The health care proposal floated in the House, is intellectually complex not only because it's designed to please different legislators and constituencies, but because it's designed to have a minimal impact on most people, particularly those who already have some kind of health care. If by a stroke of law, we switched everyone from private insurance to Medicare tomorrow, it would be chaos. That's why you get epicycles - because it turns out that asking the earth to move in this case might actually make it change its orbit.

And really, the same thing could be said about the plan to make Congress read their bills out loud and then take a day to deliberate about them. It would actually introduce a great number of brand-new complications into the legislative process, not just for them, but for us, particularly if we actually cared enough to pay attention. You mean, my politicians actually want me to pay attention to what they do and weigh in on complex issues and hold them accountable? Wouldn't it be easier just to complain that they're all crooks who don't represent my interests?

Tim-sig.gif
Posted July 15, 2009 at 1:24 | Comments (0) | Permasnark
File under: Snarkpolicy, Snarkpolitik

Jay-Z and The Fog of Rap Battle

Tim says,

Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy goes there:

See, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is the closest thing to a hegemon which the rap world has known for a long time. He's #1 on the Forbes list of the top earning rappers. He has an unimpeachable reputation, both artistic and commercial, and has produced some of the all-time best (and best-selling) hip hop albums including standouts Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint and the Black Album. He spent several successful years as the CEO of Def Jam Records before buying out his contract a few months ago to release his new album on his own label. And he's got Beyoncé. Nobody, but nobody, in the hip hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power. If there be hegemony, then this is it. Heck, when he tried to retire after the Black Album, he found himself dragged back into the game (shades of America's inward turn during the Clinton years?).

But the limits on his ability to use this power recalls the debates about U.S. primacy. Should he use this power to its fullest extent, as neo-conservatives would advise, imposing his will to reshape the world, forcing others to adapt to his values and leadership? Or should he fear a backlash against the unilateral use of power, as realists such as my colleague Steve Walt or liberals such as John Ikenberry would warn, and instead exercise self-restraint?

But here's the other question: are Jay-Z and Beyoncé really in the same game? What about The Shins? In other words, maybe one set of actors are in the sphere of realist power politics, and another set are acting under a completely different set of assumptions - maybe idealist, maybe postmodern, maybe not based on the nation-state/single artist framework at all.

This was always my issue whenever we examined competing explanatory frameworks in political science: the assumption that whatever assumptions you made, they had to apply to all actors equally and individual actors consistently.

To me, it seemed (and seems) perfectly consistent to suppose that rational actors could be operating under different frameworks of rationality at different times, or even in some instances scuttling rationality altogether due to misinformation, contradictory internal forces, or misguided teleologies. "You can't build models that way," my freshman poli sci teacher said, half-joking but half-serious. No, I guess you can't.

Comments (0) | Permasnark | Posted: 7:56 AM

July 14, 2009

Robin's thoughts: A timeline of movie protagonists talking to the camera -- with video clips. This would be a Very ... >>

Boy, If Life Were Only Like This

Ezra Klein writes that "I imagine that when Sonia Sotomayor is putting together her scrapbook of memories from the time she was nominated for the United States Supreme Court, this will be a page she'll particularly treasure":

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor