I’m late with this, but Ezra Klein lists some of the most promising ways.
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March 25, 2010 by tgirsch
I’m late with this, but Ezra Klein lists some of the most promising ways.
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He didn’t list buying safe identical and effective drugs from overseas pharmacies. Oh wait, that’s because the Democratic party took bribes from big pharma so that saving money that way would stay illegal.
He didn’t list the bureaucrat’s wet dream, the centralized, “private”, fourth amendment violating “electronic medical records”, which are sure to be combed through in an effort to fight the war on terror. Bonus, if the pendulum swings way back the other way and some sleazy legislator sends all the women who had abortions to the re-education camps.
He also didn’t mention all the people who will be healthier because restaurants will be forced to take time and spend money to ensure that calorie counts are on the menu. (of course when that part of the law doesn’t curb “revenge cuisine” and trans-fats, I’m sure they’ll be open to even more regulations.)
Now if you will excuse me, I need to write a blog post about back-alley tanning beds.
SM:
Agreed about expensive drugs, though allowing Medicare to negotiate would have been more effective, and they didn’t do that either.
On electronic medical records, yeah, it’s subject to possible abuse (maybe even probable), but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It’d be harder for Big Brother to see what you’re up to if everyone used old fashioned CHA-CHUNK credit card carbon machines, paper bank passbooks, and paper ledgers, but I think most people would agree that the benefits of computerization outweigh the costs. If I’m going to be pissed off at Democrats for possible and actual fourth amendment violations, I’m going to steer my anger at things like FISA and the PATRIOT act renewal.
I don’t see what the big deal is with calorie counts. Libertarians like to say that we should let the market decide things. But the market can only effectively decide things to the extent that it has good, up-to-date information. In this case, you would think making the information readily available (where people don’t have to dig to find it) would make the market more efficient. And in any case, the rule only impacts big chains.
Back-alley tanning beds: Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are. Say “hi” to John Boehner for me!
OT pet peeve: When you call it the “Patriot” Act, you’ve implicitly fallen for the idea that it has anything at all to do with how citizens value the country. The name is the USAPATRIOT Act, which is some stupid bullshit abbreviation. I’m not quite sure how to interpret “PATRIOT” in all caps, but it seems too close to the former case.
Dan M:
I was actually aiming for the latter. I had just forgotten that the USA part actually stood for some bullshit, too. “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” by the way.
A tax that targets the melanin-challenged. Clearly this is proof that we are not a post-racist society.
Do you think there’s somebody in Washington (or at Hill and Knowlton or whomever their PR agency of choice is) whose sole job is turn (usually draconian) policies into clever acronyms (that usually belie the nature of the policy itself).
I mean, you can shit on the government all you want, but the creation of clever and often misleading acroynyms for their policiies is something they are undeniably good at.
What would the qualifications before that job anyway? My guess would be 15+ years experience as a substitute teacher for grades 4 – 6.
In my brief experience as a air force sub-contractor, it’s the military that’s got mad skillz and making acronyms.
(Actually, they’re as often as not more like portmanteaus, which the military insists on capitializing as if they were acronyms. For instance “signal intelligence” is “SIGINT”, but only rarely “SigInt”, and I bet those who use the latter have failed some Shiboleth.)
[...] themselves so easily when they go on vacation to a sunny location. Clearly this is proof that, as they like to say over at LeanLeft, we are not a post-racist [...]