While I was getting my Win7 machine up and running, there were several items that came through my reading list which I meant to comment on…if I ever survived the reinstall.
Considering that the process took much longer than I expected, I’m left with making a “chop suey” style post, to point to a few articles that caught my attention:
- Late last week, Harvard Pilgrim’s blog mentioned that the Massachusetts experiment into mandatory health insurance is being funded in part by taxes on excess capital held by Massachusetts health insurers. Unfortunately “excess capital” is apparently defined as any reserves held above the level at which regulators begin pushing for corrective action.
In other words, Massachusetts has created a financial disincentive to seek to maintain “A” ratings with the ratings agencies, and an incentive to live a little more on the edge.
While the money has to come from somewhere, in a plan like Massachusetts’….well, considering what’s happened in the financiapocalypse, I’m not sure this is the best idea in the world.
- Bob Vineyard at InsureBlog, at about the same time, made a nice post discussing the need, when discussing folks who lack in health insurance, to differentiate between those who can’t afford coverage or to pay for care, and those who can but chose not to.
My inner libertarian does not like the idea of making health insurance coverage “mandatory”, but if we as a society are unwilling to turn people away from medical facilities due to an inability/unwillingness to pay for treatment, then something probably needs to be done to ensure that folks who can contribute to the system do so.
- Treehugger reported on how Beijing officials are bribing people to give up their cars, and are facilitating folks who want to trade up to a vehicle complying with the region’s comparatively stringent emissions standards. This is, of course, part of an effort to capitalize on locals’ interest in being able to see the sky at least occasionally (as opposed to the thick brown smog-clouds they have grown used to)…a phenomenon that was apparently a fringe benefit of hosting the Olympics.
- Reuters ran a story discussing how the reported U.S. unemployment rate of 6.7% would actually be 16.5% if measured by the standards in place at the time of the Great Depression.
While that is still better than the 25ish% unemployment seen in the U.S. during the 30’s, it should be a reminder that government issued stats don’t always tell the whole story on politically sensitive subjects.
- Someone at Pravda apparently subscribes to The Day After Tomorrow
school of thought on climate change. An article over the weekend proclaimed, “The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science.”
Actually, I thought there was consensus, once you moved away from the hype, that we are probably in an intra-glacial period in our geologic history. However, those cycles are rather long, and are probably out-of-scope for purposes of discussing global warming.
And, yes, I still subscribe to the notion that recent climate variability is more “noise” than a manifestation of a longer-term warming cycle or the impact of human activity on our environment. And, in between short-term noise and mid-term warming, we do have this pesky 20-30 year span of cooler-than-normal temperatures that some climatologists and modelers see emerging to get through.
Cycles upon cycles upon cycles. Fun stuff!
On Social Security reform, several proposed solutions have involved pushing age of eligibility for benefits out beyond the current target of (62 for early benefits; 67 for full benefits).
That tends not to be a popular decision among voters and the AARP crowd.
Andrew Biggs dug around in some Social Security data and put together a chart illustrating that only a few decades ago, Social Security retirement age was, in practice, higher than it is today. On the surface, that could be seen as discrediting some of the popular resistance.
Of course, back in the day, pensions were still common, reducing the need for Social Security among folks in certain professions.
- Over at RedState, folks are in a tizzy over reports that a woman is auctioning off her virginity to fund her grad school studies….and that bidding passed £2.5 million (US $3.7 million).
In the U.S., feds put the value of a human life in the $6-$7 million range, for purposes of doing cost-benefit analyses on things like safety regulations. I can’t help but wonder if these two items, put together, mean that a person loses half his/her value upon defloration.
(I just had an image of an ad for “slightly used virgins, half price!” flitter through my head. My subconscious has a weird sense of humor.)
- A few days ago I linked to slides from ConnDOT presentations on expanding commuter rail service to the New Haven – Hartford – Springfield rail line. Well, on Tuesday, the Courant let slip what part of the hold up has been so far – Amtrak (which actually owns the line) is dragging its feet on giving the necessary blessings.
- According to the BBC, Czech artist David Cerny has played a practical joke on Europe in the work he was commissioned by the EU to adorn the European Council Building in Brussels – the work, entitled Entropa, uses stereotypes in its depictions of the 27 EU members – Bulgaria is depicted as a bathroom, Romania as Dracula’s castle, France as a country on strike, and Poland as a land of gay Roman Catholic priests. Be sure to check out the BBC’s slideshow of the installation.
And now, I’m caught up. 
