Ezra Klein

This LA Times article on the rise of Health Savings Accounts in employer-offered health plans is the most important piece you’ll read this week. Corporations, tired of paying out the nose for health care, are pushing the cost onto employees. Employees, sick to death of huge premiums, are taking them up on it. The catch? […]

As this whole NARAL thing swirls, it’s worth saying that, pace Plumer, I don’t think the organization will make a bit of difference in the Rhode Island race. I also don’t think they forced Langevin out (though I do think they probably helped). It’s pretty clear that NARAL’s making a symbolic move here, and my […]

Kos gets this just right, I think: One of the key problems with the Democratic Party is that single issue groups have hijacked it for their pet causes. So suddenly, Democrats are the party of abortion, of gun control, of spottend owls, of labor, of trial lawyers, etc, etc., et-frickin’-cetera. We don’t stand for any […]

Why do Republicans hate our troops? Most likely, a grotesque combination of blind partisanship — anything to deny a Dem a win — and chicken-hawkism — only war sells, not taking care of the people who actually have to fight. The fact that these Senators are from red states shows they’re taking their voters for […]

Roll Call is reporting that conservatives are making the nuclear option a litmus test for 2008, which is putting the squeeze on some otherwise moderate faces, like Hagel. Why? Hagel’s got to know that the conservative base is going to reject his candidacy. None of the other contenders, after all, provoked The American Spectator into […]

It’s fairly well known that voters are ideologically conservative and operationally liberal, which is to say that they prefer conservative ideas but opt for progressive policies. I guess us political watchers should be thankful for the contradiction because it keeps both parties alive and struggling, but it’s also a rough hill for Democrats to climb, […]

I’ve said, by the way, all too little about Antonio Villaraigosa’s mayoral win, so let me address that by wondering what in God’s name Joel Kotkin is talking about: Last night Antonio Villaraigosa became Los Angeles’s first Latino mayor in more than 100 years. In the coming days, his win will no doubt be seized […]

Matt Yglesias handed me the baton on the latest meme, books you should have read but haven’t. And since the tag came from Matt, where better to start than with the guy he did his thesis on? John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice: I’ve cracked this one open a number of times. I’ve battled my […]

Really good op-ed today by Dr. Robin Cook restating the argument that genetic profiling will mandate single-payer health insurance. Essentially, we’re finding that most all serious diseases have some sort of genetic component. That doesn’t mean they’re predetermined (indeed, genes interact with environmental and lifestyle factors to what’s turned out to be a really surprising […]

From the NY Times article on the efforts of Christian missionaries to bring God back into the Ivy League: The Christian Union’s immediate goal, [Bennett] said, was to recruit campus missionaries. “What is happening now is good,” Mr. Bennett said, “but it is like a finger in the dike of keeping back the flood of […]