Health care
Small thinking on health care by those who complain of small thinking on health care, by Dean Baker
Good medicine: why not for everyone?, by Dean Baker
Give up a benefit, gain jobs, by Len Burman
House health bill’s high-income surcharge: a reasonable approach, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Does the House bill deal with costs?, by Jonathan Cohn
Obama’s sop to health care ‘fraidy cats, by Jonathan Cohn
The deal with the House blue dogs, by Jonathan Cohn
Why health care reform will pass, by Jonathan Cohn
What is a reasonable compromise on health care reform?, by Peter Dreier
Reforming American health care, The Economist
What McKinsey could teach Obama, by William Galston
Is public opinion re health reform more favorable now than in 1994?, by Andrew Gelman
Paying for health care reform by taxing the rich, by Howard Gleckman
Health care for the blue dogs, by Jacob Hacker
What America will look like without the public option, by Jacob Hacker and Rahul Rajkumar
Hospital shows a way to save: doctors get salaries, not fees, by Gardiner Harris
A doctor by choice, a businessman by necessity, by Sandeep Jauhar
Administrative costs in health care: a primer, by Ezra Klein
All eyes on Reid, by Ezra Klein
A smart (sort of) critique of the public plan, by Ezra Klein
Cost control in France, by Ezra Klein
Health care wonkery live chat, by Ezra Klein
Is health care reform becoming a prisoner’s dilemma?, by Ezra Klein
The five most important pieces of health care reform that aren’t the public plan, by Ezra Klein
The most important part of health care reform: the exchange, by Ezra Klein
The political economy of cost controls, by Ezra Klein
What happened to the moral case for health care reform?, by Ezra Klein
Why worry about obesity?, by Ezra Klein
HELP is on the way, by Paul Krugman
The blue dogs’ incoherence, by Paul Krugman
Why markets can’t cure healthcare, by Paul Krugman
Challenge to health bill: selling reform, by David Leonhardt
Forget who pays; it’s who sets the cost, by David Leonhardt
Health care reform and the unpopular t-word, by David Leonhardt
In health reform, cancer offers an acid test, by David Leonhardt
The good, and the bad, of heart care, by David Leonhardt
Compensating physicians, by Maggie Mahar
Should generous health insurance benefits be taxed?, by Maggie Mahar
America’s healthcare should no longer be tied to jobs, by Matt Miller
Costs and benefits, New York Times
Defying slump, 13 states insure more children, New York Times
Health care reform and you, New York Times
Insured … and broke, by Andrea Orr
House Democrats end impasse on health bill, by Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn
Reach of subsidies is critical issue for health reform, by Robert Pear
Time for the blue dogs to show their true colors, by Steven Pearlstein
How much do doctors in other countries make?, by Catherine Rampell
Tax the wealthy to keep everyone healthy, by Robert Reich
The future of universal health care, as of now, by Robert Reich
A “common sense” American health reform plan, by Uwe Reinhardt
A German import that could benefit U.S. health care, by Uwe Reinhardt
What is a “just” physician’s income?, by Uwe Reinhardt
Why we must ration health care, by Peter Singer
Robust health care reform is the moment of truth for Obama and the Democrats, by Theda Skocpol
Perils of the public plan, by Paul Starr
Equity and efficiency in health care markets, by Mark Thoma
Health care in comparative perspective, by Harold Wilensky
The most important part of health care reform: new regulations on insurers, by Matthew Yglesias
Uninsurance at 300-400% of the poverty line, by Matthew Yglesias
U.S. economy
The timing of the stimulus’ impact, by Dean Baker
Fasten your seatbelts for the jobless recovery, by Brad DeLong
Four ways out, by Brad DeLong
Ten myths about subprime mortgages, by Yuliya Demyanyk (via Mark Thoma)
Can governments increase growth?, by Chris Dillow
Master your labor market statistics, so they don’t master you, by Jeffrey Frankel
That ’30s show, by Paul Krugman
The stimulus trap, by Paul Krugman
The lessons of 1979-82, by Paul Krugman
Obama administration’s economic forecasts were too optimistic, by David Leonhardt
Index of leading indicators is signaling the recession’s end, by Floyd Norris
Changing social ethos is the key, by John Roemer
Spring is here, but contain your excitement, by Joseph Stiglitz
Obama’s strategy to reverse manufacturing’s fall, by Louis Uchitelle
The cautious approach to fixing banks will not work, by Martin Wolf
Reform of regulation has to start by altering incentives, by Martin Wolf
The case for more fiscal stimulus, by Justin Wolfers
The case for ever-bigger government, by Matthew Yglesias
Living standards, poverty, inequality, well-being
Back to the good times on Wall Street, by Lucian Bebchuk and Alma Cohen
Combating poverty by building assets, by Ray Boshara
Social protection for the economic crisis, by Gary Burtless
Intergenerational social mobility, by Orsetta Causa and Asa Johansson
Flexicurity, by Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel
Inequality and consistency, by Tyler Cohen
Education and equal opportunity, by Brad DeLong
Jobless checks for millions delayed as states struggle, by Jason DeParle
Safety net is fraying for the very poor, by Erik Eckholm
A homespun safety net, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Where unemployment is worse than expected, by Richard Florida
Low-wage schedules and the child care struggle, by Lisa Guernsey
Learning from Canada’s response to winner-take-all inequality, by Jacob Hacker
Mobility without equality?, by Jonathan Hopkin
Obfuscating inequality, by James Kwak
Part-time workers mask unemployment woes, by David Leonhardt
The new joblessness, by Roger Lowenstein
Shorter hours for less pay instead of layoffs, by Richard Milne, Brian Groom, and Jonathan Birdsall
In the unemployment line, and stuck there, by Floyd Norris
The downside of America’s flexible labour market is being exposed, by Sarah O’Connor
Preparing today’s workers for tomorrow’s jobs, by Catherine Rampell
Who is affected by a higher minimum wage?, by Catherine Rampell
Balancing financial invention and consumer protection, by Robert Shiller
The road to gender parity in the workplace, by Pamela Stone
The credit crisis and working America, special report in The American Prospect
Three myths about the Consumer Financial Product Agency, by Elizabeth Warren
Thinking clearly about economic inequality, by Will Wilkinson
Taxes
More taxes needed, Bruce Bartlett interview with Ezra Klein
Fattening the beast, by Fred Hiatt
Club Wagner, by David Leonhardt
Taxing the (very) rich, by David Leonhardt
The regressive tax that does the work, by Casey Mulligan
Environment
Just do it, by Thomas Friedman
Temperature trends, by Paul Krugman
Housing
Homeownership’s downsides, by Richard Florida
Education
Testing testing, by Dana Goldstein
Unions
Democrats drop key part of bill to assist unions, by Steven Greenhouse
U.S. politics
The Obama method, by Jonathan Chait
“Independent” voters are generally not, by Tom Jacobs
The high cost of failure, by Ezra Klein
The filibuster and democracy, by Ezra Klein
This is not 1932, and Obama is not FDR, by Megan McArdle
Everything you knew about congressional earmarks is wrong, by Lee Sigelman
America’s progressive metros, by Ruy Teixeira
The coming end of the culture wars, by Ruy Teixeira
Class and Sarah Palin, by Matthew Yglesias
Overblown overreach, by Matthew Yglesias
Abroad
Grading Obama’s Africa speech, by Chris Blattman
Let the usurpers writhe (Iran), by Roger Cohen
Why I love Sweden, by Tyler Cohen
Europe’s households build finances on firmer foundations, by Chris Giles
Not made in Japan, Financial Times
Turkey’s EU bid requires patience, by Benjamin Katcher
The Nordic model, by Richard Milne and Andrew Ward
Mercantilism reconsidered, by Dani Rodrik
Miscellaneous
Advice on writing research articles, by Andrew Gelman
The invisible hand, trumped by Darwin, by Robert H. Frank
Maker’s schedule, manager’s schedule, by Paul Graham (via Stephen Dubner)
Obama, Gates, and the American black man, by Glenn Loury
Same-sex marriage and constitutional law, by Martha Nussbaum
The Hobbesian world of Democrats, by Lee Sigelman
Why are southerners so fat?, Time (via Tyler Cohen)
Lane Kenworthy 
Prof. Kenworthy,
I’m trying to understand the connection, if any, between these two facts. Can you help me? From Worthwhile Canadian Initiative:
I’m having a really rough time understanding this problem. You suggest taxing the highest incomes, but here’s Lane Kenworthy:
“As the following chart shows, inequality reduction is achieved not through taxation but with government transfers (and services)”
He does like these taxes for the US:
“Two other progressive tax reforms are worth pursuing, though they would affect some in the bottom 95%. One is to reduce or end the homeownership subsidy. More than 80% of the $160 billion in foregone revenues from the deduction for mortgage interest and property tax payments goes to households in the top income quintile. The other is to introduce a modest tax on financial transactions.”
Here’s his final point, where he does talk about taxes again:
“Moderate or high levels of tax revenue can’t come solely from higher rates or new taxes on the rich; the math simply doesn’t work. To significantly increase spending on transfers and/or services, President Obama and/or his successors will need to increase taxes on the middle class. One way to do this would be via a federal consumption tax, such as a value-added tax (VAT). We have state and local consumption (sales) taxes, but we raise less money from consumption taxes than any other rich country. Consumption taxes are regressive, and for that reason they’re often dismissed by the American left. But they can be tweaked to limit the degree of regressivity. And if the money is put to progressive use, the benefits may outweigh this drawback.”
But then how do we explain this, from Donald Marron:
“In a series of posts (most recent here), I’ve documented that Americans are getting an increasing portion of their income from the government.
BEA released new data on incomes a couple weeks ago, including revisions back to 1995. These data reinforce the story I’ve described in my previous posts:
* Transfers accounted for 17.3% of personal income in June. That’s the second highest in history, topped only by the 18.2% recorded in May, when transfers were boosted by one-time payments from this year’s stimulus act:”
In other words, since 1960, govt transfers as a portion of personal income has gone up from 6% to 18%. And yet we have rising inequality!?
Now, I’ve asked Krugman and De Long about this, and gotten no answer. Here’s a possibility from David Hilfiker:
“And that leads to the second major straightforward cause of inequality in the country: the relatively low levels of government wealth transfer from the rich to the poor. By “wealth transfer” I mean both the effects of government taxation and the effects of government programs. There are obvious transfers of wealth like food stamps or welfare payments, but there are other more important sources of this wealth transfer. For instance, universal health care benefits everyone about equally, so, in essence, government-funded health care transfers wealth from the rich to the poor. Public education, social security, Medicaid, and Medicare are other examples.
Examining the statistics, one finds that it is this differential in wealth transfer that actually accounts for most of the difference in inequality between the United States and European countries. If you use the same international method to calculate poverty rates for the United States, Canada and Western Europe and if you calculate those rates before any government transfer of wealth, it turns out that the US poverty rate is among the lowest. But if you calculate that poverty rate after government transfers, the US poverty rate is by far the highest at 18% (the United Kingdom is 13% but all other European countries are 8% or under). So, the primary reason that other developed societies are more equal than American society is that, in essence, they take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
In other words, while some of the causes of American inequality are complex and would be fairly complicated to do anything about, two of the most important causes—taxes and government programs—are not complex at all and would theoretically be easy to correct.”
And here’s what’s funny: I’m a Milton Friedman Democrat, and he loves Naomi Klein’s book, which, as you can guess, I don’t. But I agree with him! I agree with him about Inequality in general. He also likes the EITC. I prefer a Guaranteed Income. As Milton Friedman said, it has the benefit of focusing money on the poorest in our society. The only thing that I disagree with him about, and, here I disagree with you as well, is the effectiveness of tax increases on the top earners for Lane Kenworthy’s reasons:
I wonder where you come down on this issue?