Ezra Klein

Head over and wish her a good one…

Eric Novack makes a good point on the shockingly low employer penalty in MA’s universal health care program: I want to focus briefly on the employer mandate. The law, if unchanged, states that employers who do not provide health insurance would be assessed $295 per employee per YEAR. That’s right. Employers would pay about $300 […]

Joseph Josse, writing on the Walt and Mearsheimer paper: Two political scientists, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, have recently sallied forth with a paper that puts The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame. The gist is that the “Israel Lobby,” the core of which “is comprised […]

Nathan Newman accuses me of making a mantra of “Little is more anti-worker than forcing them to depend on their employer for medical care.” Well, gotta admit, it’s catchier than “Om.” But he’s for the employer mandate in a serious way, which I find so baffling I need to keep reciting my mantra just to […]

Now here’s a thing. Archaeologists have discovered a new Gospel in the Egyptian deserts. Radiocarbon dating, multispectral imaging, ink analysis, and linguistic style have convinced Coptic scholars of its authenticity. It’s 1,700 years old, 26 pages, and tells the story of Judas. Yeah, that one. According to the Gospel of Judas, there was no betrayal, […]

Folks have been asking for a more thorough run-down on the MA universal health care plan, and since I am the Wesley to all you Buttercups, I’ll oblige. If you need a refresher on what the bill looks like, see my post from yesterday. If you want an in-depth look, see Leif Wellington Haas’s excellent […]

Arnold Kling is a smart, serious guy. A smart, serious guy who says silly, unserious things: Many people claim that the American health care system wastes money compared with other countries’ health care systems. However, what this exercise shows is that waste in the American health care system is not confined to that part of […]

From an overview of happiness research by Ed Diener and Martin Seligman: Although Kahneman et al found that work was not as pleasant as sex or socializing after work, they did find that it was on average experienced as pleasant.

Given the sheer variety and innovation Andrew Sullivan exhibits in an average day’s adjective choices, there’s little doubt that he’s a bright guy. But his understanding of health economics could use a little work. Today, he’s been purring with pleasure over Mitt Romney’s bill, and doing so for all the wrong reasons: One reason we […]

I think we need to be a bit more careful when setting immigrants, legal or illegal, in opposition to unemployed, young black men. While there’s certainly some occupational overlap, and immigrants are slackening a labor market black males would like to see tightened, the correlation isn’t 1:1. When you’re talking ghetto poverty, you’re talking urban […]