Bush’s AIDS fight saved 1.1 million lives (Washington Times)Robot scientist makes own discoveries (CS Monitor)
Obama’s on-target message to Muslims (CS Monitor)
NBC moves Kings for low ratings (Christian Post)
Spring breakers choose service (Christian Post)
Iowa’s gay marriage decision (Findlaw)
Obama to host White House seder (Jerusalem Post)
Iowa, Vermont, and California (AP)
Vermont legalizes gay marriage (Boston Globe)
University of Maryland and porn (Time)
University of Maryland and prayer (Wash Post)
Obama to push immigration bill (NY Times)
Humanity even for nonhumans (NY Times)
The misguided quest for universal coverage (NY Times)
US, Allies condemn North Korean launch (Boston Globe)
HPV, oral sex responsible for tonsil cancer (USA Today blogs)
MA public schools to send home weight reports (Boston Globe)
TCU offers gay housing on campus (Fox News)
Parental rights and the US Constitution (Politico)
Cities printing their own currency (USA Today)
1 comment:
Ramesh Ponnuru's Tinker
Ponnuru's tinker would "make it easier for people to buy insurance that isn’t tied to their employment" and remove "state mandates that require insurers to cover certain conditions," both of which sound like small and inoffensive changes until you spin out their implications and realize they're actually small and very offensive changes.
State mandates, for instance, sound unpopular until you get specific (pdf). Ponnuru's repeal would mean that policies in Arizona don't have to cover colorectal cancer screening and policies in Idaho don't have to cover mammograms and policies in Georgia don't have to cover bone marrow transplants and policies in Florida don't have to cover maternity stays. Repealing these laws might make health care cheaper, but the savings would come because your insurer could deny you coverage, and thus access, to a needed bone marrow transplant. Health care isn't "cheaper." You just get less of it, which in turn makes total spending go down.
Ponnuru offers, I think, not only the best, but also the consensus, conservative take on health reform. But by the close of his op-ed, we're in a space where insurers could still discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, where millions of Americans will still lack access to health insurance, where about 20 million Americans will lose the employer-based coverage they currently rely on, where risk pools have gotten smaller and insurers have gotten more powerful, and where we've repealed state laws forcing insurers in Arizona to cover colorectal cancer screening and insurers in Idaho to cover mammograms. As a vision of reform, it has the peculiar quality of being neither appealing nor sufficient. It doesn't claim to fix the health system, to make its costs sustainable or its coverage complete, and it doesn't pretend to address the anxieties of workers who fear losing their employer-based health insurance or being unable to afford full coverage in the future.
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